5 ms·

There might be some good points buried in this post, but all I get is bitterness without much self-reflection. They seem like they'd be difficult to work with a

There might be some good points buried in this post, but all I get is bitterness without much self-reflection. They seem like they'd be difficult to work with and would blame you for it.

slashdave 2y ago
Why is compensation the only consideration in the entire article? I mean, money is nice, but don't you care what you are working on?
- photonthug 2y ago
  This seems unfair, since the author is also complaining loudly about working on crappy problems, ie ones created by incompetence or negligence rather than intrinsic complexity. And that’s extra annoying after many rounds of interviews with rocket science pop quizzes to discover the work is totally amateur hour.
  - masterj 2y ago
    This "everyone is incompetent but me!" archetype is pretty common. Think of tradespeople who come in and always complain about the work the previous person did. Fixing these types of problems and putting systems in place so they don't regress is the job. Working with others who may not have your same perspective or background is the job.
    - photonthug 2y ago
      That’s a fine general sentiment you have there but just look at the specific problems referenced in tfa. What it describes is actually total mickeymouse bullshit, and besides diagnosing the technical problem/fixes it accurately describes the more human/social root causes. The dude is just experienced enough to be tired of explaining repetitive and stupid problems that are easily avoided in a polite and patient manner. Stick around long enough and I think it happens to us all..
      - masterj 2y ago
        I'm at 15 years and have seen my share of "mickeymouse bullshit". Fixing that is the job, both the systems and the underlying human systems that brought it about. It's really easy for stuff to slip through. I find myself being more empathetic over time, not less.
        wnolens 2y ago
        Agree. Outside of the fancy pants FANGetc architects who have promo'd to the point of only work on bleeding edge new stuff, we all have to fix the last person's stuff. That is the job.
        photonthug 2y ago
        Putting this in context might be useful. OP writes: > Company said “their site was slow” and they didn’t know why. Turns out they had two database clusters: one for production and one for research. The research cluster had 8 instances costing $5,000 per month total. The production cluster had 2 instances costing $500 per month total. The research cluster hadn’t been used in two years. The non-technical company owners had just accepted their system was slow for the past couple years without ever looking into possible fixes because, once again, “the cloud means we never have to manage anything. only agile story point product features matter.” I'm not sure why we should try to apologize for or further normalize this level of negligence/incompetence? Of course things slip if you're tracking the wrong metrics, and if your approach to cost-management ignores huge actual waste while you make the problem worse by doubling down on hiring newbies, bloating do-nothing middle management or product at the expense of engineering, over-working what seniors you decide to keep, etc. Fixing honest mistakes is, of course, part of the job. Fixing other people's negligence/incompetence/indifference should not be part of the job, nor compensating for other people's greed when they fail to think through their race-to-the-bottom well enough. And if shoveling shit actually is the job, then just interview for that. If we're interviewing for 10-20 years of experience and a CS degree, that creates an expectation that the work that needs to be done has some relation to those criteria.
        masterj 2y ago
    - fishe 2y ago
      You should read the article
wnolens 2y ago
I stopped at (paraphrased): "I've never passed a coding interview. Coding interviews hire the wrong people!"
- codr7 2y ago
  I actually agree, all coding interviews I've been though were a complete waste of time for everyone involved.
- Tao3300 2y ago
  He's not wrong. 90% of coding interviews are completely unrelated to the job. Here are some experiments for you to try in your next one: - if it's a super difficult problem, remark how fascinating it is and ask the interviewer how often they're doing this stuff - if it's FizzBuzz or something else that is solved and has a known value, propose hardcoding the answer as a constant and printing it without doing any computation, and see how that goes over - if it's not one of these, you might be in a 10% case My favorite was when I applied at, let's call it "StoreJogger" at as entry level engineer. This guy comes in for the technical interview and asks me a question that basically boils down to "how would you make StoreJogger?" and I remember thinking that if I knew the answer, I sure as shit wouldn't be in there. Yeah I guess it was technically a relevant question.
  - avelis 2y ago
    "how would you make StoreJogger?" That is a systems design question and would have been reserved for Senior/Staff+ level hires. I have learned there is a whole delivery framework for providing that answer and I would not ask that of entry-level engineering. Assuming it was entry level.
  - zmmmmm 2y ago
    He's not wrong and it still marks why he probably comes across poorly and fails those interviews People in hiring positions basically want productivity. That largely means they want people who will slot into whatever problem is at hand and tackle it effectively. The minute you approach the situation with "this is a stupid pointless problem you have asked me to solve" you failed the test. Even if it's only implicit and through subtle use of language, this will come across.
xtracto 2y ago
Right, I started reading but felt the bitter tone of the 115k word rant early on. It seems to be basically rambling to the point of showing a picture of himself to prove he exercises?? To each their own but, I wonder if his failure in interviews is not a skills issue but an attitude one...
robotnikman 2y ago
>The worst feeling is comparison. Comparison is the death of happiness, as they say. I look at my own place in the world compared to people who just started at Apple or Microsoft 20 years ago then never left I found this quote and I can understand, but if you are also lucky enough to know such people, couldn't you use such connections to help bolster your own career? While there are people out there making millions joining the right company at the right time, imo I would be happy with making 150k at my next position (depending on the area of course, I really wish WFH was still popular to allow people to live in areas with a lower cost of living), an amount which the author seems to thing is not much. To be fair though, the also has more experience and seniority over me based on his article

There might be some good points buried in this post, but all I get is bitterness without much self-reflection. They seem like they'd be difficult to work with and would blame you for it.

slashdave 2y ago

Why is compensation the only consideration in the entire article? I mean, money is nice, but don't you care what you are working on?

photonthug 2y ago
This seems unfair, since the author is also complaining loudly about working on crappy problems, ie ones created by incompetence or negligence rather than intrinsic complexity. And that’s extra annoying after many rounds of interviews with rocket science pop quizzes to discover the work is totally amateur hour.
- masterj 2y ago
  This "everyone is incompetent but me!" archetype is pretty common. Think of tradespeople who come in and always complain about the work the previous person did. Fixing these types of problems and putting systems in place so they don't regress is the job. Working with others who may not have your same perspective or background is the job.
  - photonthug 2y ago
    That’s a fine general sentiment you have there but just look at the specific problems referenced in tfa. What it describes is actually total mickeymouse bullshit, and besides diagnosing the technical problem/fixes it accurately describes the more human/social root causes. The dude is just experienced enough to be tired of explaining repetitive and stupid problems that are easily avoided in a polite and patient manner. Stick around long enough and I think it happens to us all..
    - masterj 2y ago
      I'm at 15 years and have seen my share of "mickeymouse bullshit". Fixing that is the job, both the systems and the underlying human systems that brought it about. It's really easy for stuff to slip through. I find myself being more empathetic over time, not less.
      - wnolens 2y ago
        Agree. Outside of the fancy pants FANGetc architects who have promo'd to the point of only work on bleeding edge new stuff, we all have to fix the last person's stuff. That is the job.
      - photonthug 2y ago
        Putting this in context might be useful. OP writes: > Company said “their site was slow” and they didn’t know why. Turns out they had two database clusters: one for production and one for research. The research cluster had 8 instances costing $5,000 per month total. The production cluster had 2 instances costing $500 per month total. The research cluster hadn’t been used in two years. The non-technical company owners had just accepted their system was slow for the past couple years without ever looking into possible fixes because, once again, “the cloud means we never have to manage anything. only agile story point product features matter.” I'm not sure why we should try to apologize for or further normalize this level of negligence/incompetence? Of course things slip if you're tracking the wrong metrics, and if your approach to cost-management ignores huge actual waste while you make the problem worse by doubling down on hiring newbies, bloating do-nothing middle management or product at the expense of engineering, over-working what seniors you decide to keep, etc. Fixing honest mistakes is, of course, part of the job. Fixing other people's negligence/incompetence/indifference should not be part of the job, nor compensating for other people's greed when they fail to think through their race-to-the-bottom well enough. And if shoveling shit actually is the job, then just interview for that. If we're interviewing for 10-20 years of experience and a CS degree, that creates an expectation that the work that needs to be done has some relation to those criteria.
        masterj 2y ago
  - fishe 2y ago
    You should read the article

wnolens 2y ago

I stopped at (paraphrased): "I've never passed a coding interview. Coding interviews hire the wrong people!"

codr7 2y ago
I actually agree, all coding interviews I've been though were a complete waste of time for everyone involved.
Tao3300 2y ago
He's not wrong. 90% of coding interviews are completely unrelated to the job. Here are some experiments for you to try in your next one: - if it's a super difficult problem, remark how fascinating it is and ask the interviewer how often they're doing this stuff - if it's FizzBuzz or something else that is solved and has a known value, propose hardcoding the answer as a constant and printing it without doing any computation, and see how that goes over - if it's not one of these, you might be in a 10% case My favorite was when I applied at, let's call it "StoreJogger" at as entry level engineer. This guy comes in for the technical interview and asks me a question that basically boils down to "how would you make StoreJogger?" and I remember thinking that if I knew the answer, I sure as shit wouldn't be in there. Yeah I guess it was technically a relevant question.
- avelis 2y ago
  "how would you make StoreJogger?" That is a systems design question and would have been reserved for Senior/Staff+ level hires. I have learned there is a whole delivery framework for providing that answer and I would not ask that of entry-level engineering. Assuming it was entry level.
- zmmmmm 2y ago
  He's not wrong and it still marks why he probably comes across poorly and fails those interviews People in hiring positions basically want productivity. That largely means they want people who will slot into whatever problem is at hand and tackle it effectively. The minute you approach the situation with "this is a stupid pointless problem you have asked me to solve" you failed the test. Even if it's only implicit and through subtle use of language, this will come across.

xtracto 2y ago

Right, I started reading but felt the bitter tone of the 115k word rant early on. It seems to be basically rambling to the point of showing a picture of himself to prove he exercises?? To each their own but, I wonder if his failure in interviews is not a skills issue but an attitude one...

robotnikman 2y ago

>The worst feeling is comparison. Comparison is the death of happiness, as they say. I look at my own place in the world compared to people who just started at Apple or Microsoft 20 years ago then never left I found this quote and I can understand, but if you are also lucky enough to know such people, couldn't you use such connections to help bolster your own career? While there are people out there making millions joining the right company at the right time, imo I would be happy with making 150k at my next position (depending on the area of course, I really wish WFH was still popular to allow people to live in areas with a lower cost of living), an amount which the author seems to thing is not much. To be fair though, the also has more experience and seniority over me based on his article