4 ms·

> we never clearly define specs or requirements for anything. I mean, what if part of the role that’s being hired for is to help people clearly define the spec

> we never clearly define specs or requirements for anything. I mean, what if part of the role that’s being hired for is to help people clearly define the specs and requirements? I consider that a big part of what it means to be a senior software engineer. Maybe this exact format isn’t the best way to test for it, but I don’t think “we want to see if someone can deal with ambiguity” means all the work is ambiguous. It might just mean all work needs to go through a process to take it from “ambiguous requirements” to “clearly defined specs”

duskwuff 1y ago
> I mean, what if part of the role that’s being hired for is to help people clearly define the specs and requirements? Then I'd expect the interview process to focus on that process, not on the final deliverable. As it stands, the candidate tried to interact with the interviewer by trying to ask for clarification on the requirements, then making a detailed proposal, and got no actionable feedback from either.
- theamk 1y ago
  Could one do a "terminal inspired, mutt-like email client" that completely satisfies OP's proposal (web-based, TEMPL, pocketbase, pulumi, etc...)? Sure, it would be possible. None of those are _required_ for the submission but you can totally use them if you wanted to. So the interviewer probably thought, "hey this person is going all out", and was absolutely honest in saying "Looking forward to receiving your submission" I cannot really blame the interviewer for not reminding the candidate that they should actually follow the requirements, in addition to all the optional stuff they mentioned in their spec.
  - josecodea 1y ago
    > Sure, it would be possible I have to be blunt, you have no idea what you are talking about. I am just going to say this: A terminal app is completely at odds with an online web client. If the interviewer is as clueless as you are, that explains two things: - I was never going to pass the interview in the first place - I was never going to get a reasonable conversation from this person, no amount of communication is going to solve incompetence from the interviewer's side Corollary: - Gross negligence from the company for assigning this interviewer
    - theamk 1y ago
      have you ever seen http://www.coboloncogs.org/ http://www.coboloncogs.org/ ? Or https://term.m4tt72.com/ https://term.m4tt72.com/ ? Nothing "at odds" here.. You can absolutely have fixed-size font, character grid based layout, and keyboard-based navigation.
crystal_revenge 1y ago
> what if part of the role that’s being hired for is to help people clearly define the specs and requirements? Then they should have responded to his questions in email? I personally love working on projects that are vaguely defined because it means getting to interact with people and understanding the heart of the problem. My favorite roles have involved reaching out to non-technical people and figuring out how to solve their problem. Often it's not the solution they even initially asked for. But if your role is to guess about vague specs with no communication, then you're going to fail no matter how senior you are.

duskwuff 1y ago

> I mean, what if part of the role that’s being hired for is to help people clearly define the specs and requirements? Then I'd expect the interview process to focus on that process, not on the final deliverable. As it stands, the candidate tried to interact with the interviewer by trying to ask for clarification on the requirements, then making a detailed proposal, and got no actionable feedback from either.

theamk 1y ago
Could one do a "terminal inspired, mutt-like email client" that completely satisfies OP's proposal (web-based, TEMPL, pocketbase, pulumi, etc...)? Sure, it would be possible. None of those are _required_ for the submission but you can totally use them if you wanted to. So the interviewer probably thought, "hey this person is going all out", and was absolutely honest in saying "Looking forward to receiving your submission" I cannot really blame the interviewer for not reminding the candidate that they should actually follow the requirements, in addition to all the optional stuff they mentioned in their spec.
- josecodea 1y ago
  > Sure, it would be possible I have to be blunt, you have no idea what you are talking about. I am just going to say this: A terminal app is completely at odds with an online web client. If the interviewer is as clueless as you are, that explains two things: - I was never going to pass the interview in the first place - I was never going to get a reasonable conversation from this person, no amount of communication is going to solve incompetence from the interviewer's side Corollary: - Gross negligence from the company for assigning this interviewer
  - theamk 1y ago
    have you ever seen http://www.coboloncogs.org/ http://www.coboloncogs.org/ ? Or https://term.m4tt72.com/ https://term.m4tt72.com/ ? Nothing "at odds" here.. You can absolutely have fixed-size font, character grid based layout, and keyboard-based navigation.

crystal_revenge 1y ago

> what if part of the role that’s being hired for is to help people clearly define the specs and requirements? Then they should have responded to his questions in email? I personally love working on projects that are vaguely defined because it means getting to interact with people and understanding the heart of the problem. My favorite roles have involved reaching out to non-technical people and figuring out how to solve their problem. Often it's not the solution they even initially asked for. But if your role is to guess about vague specs with no communication, then you're going to fail no matter how senior you are.