10 ms·

It's because companies don't want capable, experienced or well-equipped. They want genius and it is really hard to test for genius. Granted, almost nobody that

It's because companies don't want capable, experienced or well-equipped. They want genius and it is really hard to test for genius. Granted, almost nobody that gets through any process is an actual genius....

onlyrealcuzzo 2y ago
It's because you have to go through a lengthy process to become a pilot - and tech companies want to be able to hire anyone regardless of training. Combine that with the fact that the upper bound on pay for SWEs is considerably higher than pilots...
debacle 2y ago
I have never needed to hire a genius in the last 12 years. In fact, often times I've had to pass on candidates that were overqualified.
duped 2y ago
I'd say it's the exact opposite. There are hordes of unqualified people applying to every software dev role imaginable regardless of what you put in the job description or requirements. The tests are there because people are good at lying but bad at faking skills.
- rachofsunshine 2y ago
  Seriously, if you've never hired before, you have no idea how bad this can get. Here's [1] our practice coding problem. It's quite similar to the one we use on our interview, and not too far from the one Triplebyte used in the past (ours is tuned to be slightly harder at the beginning and slightly easier at the end). The vast majority of candidates, even with some reasonable pre-filtering, do not get past the first step. A very non-trivial number would not even get that far. [1] https://www.otherbranch.com/practice-coding-problem https://www.otherbranch.com/practice-coding-problem
  - itronitron 2y ago
    That is the sort of coding problem I would love to work on as an exercise however the 25 minute time limit would put me off and I wouldn't even start. I enjoy programming and I don't like to feel rushed, and if you're placing that sort of time constraint then you probably aren't a great company to work for.
  - cwillu 2y ago
    So, having completed the practice problem with about 45 seconds to spare, what sort of openings are there for the aging-but-not-aged Canadian who can probably only manage part-time remote work?
    - rachofsunshine 2y ago
      I don't anticipate us getting a lot of clients with budget for a part-time employee anytime soon, unfortunately. I imagine a lot will be remote, but probably not part time. Still happy to have you in our pool in case we do (I think I see you in the signups list - something about oddball proprietary languages, yeah?) but it's not a wildly high-probability bet in the short term. I really, really, really wish I had a better solution for this sort of thing.
      - cwillu 2y ago
        Fair enough, yep, that's me. I do wonder how my “part time” output would compare the expectations from full-time output. During the periods I've worked more conventional jobs, the vast majority of the value I brought was during the oddball times/contributions. Surely there must be some way I can be exploited (in a good way) without implicitly bundling ancillary seat warming into the contract. :D
      - cwillu 2y ago
        Incidentally, I didn't get a confirmation email; might be something to consider adding to the form workflow. My email is the obvious one given my username, on the off-chance I made a typo.

onlyrealcuzzo 2y ago

It's because you have to go through a lengthy process to become a pilot - and tech companies want to be able to hire anyone regardless of training. Combine that with the fact that the upper bound on pay for SWEs is considerably higher than pilots...

debacle 2y ago

I have never needed to hire a genius in the last 12 years. In fact, often times I've had to pass on candidates that were overqualified.

duped 2y ago

I'd say it's the exact opposite. There are hordes of unqualified people applying to every software dev role imaginable regardless of what you put in the job description or requirements. The tests are there because people are good at lying but bad at faking skills.

rachofsunshine 2y ago
Seriously, if you've never hired before, you have no idea how bad this can get. Here's [1] our practice coding problem. It's quite similar to the one we use on our interview, and not too far from the one Triplebyte used in the past (ours is tuned to be slightly harder at the beginning and slightly easier at the end). The vast majority of candidates, even with some reasonable pre-filtering, do not get past the first step. A very non-trivial number would not even get that far. [1] https://www.otherbranch.com/practice-coding-problem https://www.otherbranch.com/practice-coding-problem
- itronitron 2y ago
  That is the sort of coding problem I would love to work on as an exercise however the 25 minute time limit would put me off and I wouldn't even start. I enjoy programming and I don't like to feel rushed, and if you're placing that sort of time constraint then you probably aren't a great company to work for.
- cwillu 2y ago
  So, having completed the practice problem with about 45 seconds to spare, what sort of openings are there for the aging-but-not-aged Canadian who can probably only manage part-time remote work?
  - rachofsunshine 2y ago
    I don't anticipate us getting a lot of clients with budget for a part-time employee anytime soon, unfortunately. I imagine a lot will be remote, but probably not part time. Still happy to have you in our pool in case we do (I think I see you in the signups list - something about oddball proprietary languages, yeah?) but it's not a wildly high-probability bet in the short term. I really, really, really wish I had a better solution for this sort of thing.
    - cwillu 2y ago
      Fair enough, yep, that's me. I do wonder how my “part time” output would compare the expectations from full-time output. During the periods I've worked more conventional jobs, the vast majority of the value I brought was during the oddball times/contributions. Surely there must be some way I can be exploited (in a good way) without implicitly bundling ancillary seat warming into the contract. :D
    - cwillu 2y ago
      Incidentally, I didn't get a confirmation email; might be something to consider adding to the form workflow. My email is the obvious one given my username, on the off-chance I made a typo.