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Honestly, if you are Google, Meta, Netflix, etc, and/or pay largely above the market rate, fine, go for it. What I don't get is when start-up, who struggle to r

by maeln 2y ago

Honestly, if you are Google, Meta, Netflix, etc, and/or pay largely above the market rate, fine, go for it. What I don't get is when start-up, who struggle to recruit, do the same. I have been on both side of the recruitment process. I wrote some technical tests. The thing is, it is very hard to evaluate someone level with synthetic test, and leetcode, a.k.a hope-you-know-the-right-algo-for-this-question, type of test are, in my experience, amongst the worse (especially if live-coded or timed). This type of test will filter out a lot of competent dev, because let's be honest, most dev don't need to be able to come up on the spot with a dynamic programming solution to a completely synthetic problem. And I also find that algorithmic / programming skill are often way less important for a SWE than good communication, transparency, the ability to learn, ... Unless you working on a product where performance is absolutely critical, I find that having a difficult technical test that is a go/no go, yield worst result.

mettamage 2y ago
What do you mean by good communication? I feel different fields mean different things with it. E.g. in the consulting world you need to be able to deal with people their emotions. In software engineering, I don't think I ever really experienced this. However, I did experience it as a teacher [1, 2]. With software engineering I feel it's related to HN culture. Of course not everything, but a lot of it. Some things I can think of that software engineers would consider good communication is: (1) steelmanning arguments, (2) clear/logical communication and (3) concise, not long-winded. But often times, I don't hear/see anything about: (1) dealing with emotions or (2) the ability to reduce tension by being playful for example. How do you see this? [1] e.g. a student picking the wrong course and being utterly dejected and making the class toxic but it's not really her fault because the way this course was promoted was a bit too optimistic in its marketing. [2] A student thinking that they're not good enough and they start crying on the spot.

by maeln 2y ago

mettamage 2y ago

What do you mean by good communication? I feel different fields mean different things with it. E.g. in the consulting world you need to be able to deal with people their emotions. In software engineering, I don't think I ever really experienced this. However, I did experience it as a teacher [1, 2]. With software engineering I feel it's related to HN culture. Of course not everything, but a lot of it. Some things I can think of that software engineers would consider good communication is: (1) steelmanning arguments, (2) clear/logical communication and (3) concise, not long-winded. But often times, I don't hear/see anything about: (1) dealing with emotions or (2) the ability to reduce tension by being playful for example. How do you see this? [1] e.g. a student picking the wrong course and being utterly dejected and making the class toxic but it's not really her fault because the way this course was promoted was a bit too optimistic in its marketing. [2] A student thinking that they're not good enough and they start crying on the spot.