5 ms·

> The strain comes from context switching. From 9:00 AM to 5:00 PM, I had to care deeply about our quarterly goals and production stability. Then, from 6:00 PM

by neilv 10mo ago

> The strain comes from context switching. From 9:00 AM to 5:00 PM, I had to care deeply about our quarterly goals and production stability. Then, from 6:00 PM to midnight, I had to care about inverting binary trees and system architecture design. We really need to stop the tech interview nonsense. Here is an experienced, practicing software engineer, who can't get a job without drilling for and performing frat hazing rituals.

raw_anon_1111 10mo ago
So exactly what kind of interviews do you suggest that a company do at scale to hire people who will make $300K+ a year? Just talk them?
- stack_framer 10mo ago
  Why not? People can't fake their way through a deeply technical, probing, 2-hour conversation. You'd be amazed just how much you can learn about someone's actual skills and experience (or lack thereof) through long-form discussion. I think we don't truly talk enough in our currently broken interview process.
  - sokoloff 10mo ago
    Now imagine there are 1000 people who are capable of submitting an application that appears to match the job description. Do you have a way to help either winnow out the 750 worst or (better) identify the 50 best of the lot to start to engage in these 2-hour deeply technical discussions?
  - raw_anon_1111 10mo ago
    Funny enough, I got into my one only and hopefully last BigTech company without a single coding interview even though my job description required me to know how to code. It was all behavioral. It was for a cloud application architect position at AWS ProServe (yes direct hire with the standard 4 year structure between base + bonus + RSUs). My current job was also behavioral where I am a staff architect at a 3rd party company and it does require coding. As an interviewer, I also only do behavioral interviews. But let’s be realistic, it doesn’t take much to be a competent enterprise dev or even an enterprise architect. The type of hard problems that BigTech has to solve is completely different. While I would never have trusted any developer I ever met at AWS within 100 feet of a customer, they also shouldn’t let me within 100 feet of the code that runs any of the AWS services. Even at my medium size consulting company we have a 0.4% application/offer rate. Can you imagine what it is at BigTech? How do you filter just by talking to someone?
    - I_AM_A_SMURF 10mo ago
      In my experience, by the time you get to do a full round interview your chances are pretty high, about 50% in big tech.
      - raw_anon_1111 10mo ago
        It’s about 10% acceptance rate once you get the interview. I don’t know what stage of interview - HR, technical or behavioral/architecture interview. I’m in the interview pool for the last level.
- qingcharles 10mo ago
  Hiring developers is half lottery, half dark art. Best guy I ever hired was when I was tech lead for a large streamer. I hired a guy at essentially minimum wage to write some very basic HTML pages. Within weeks he was writing code. Within a couple of years he was a much better dev than I'll ever be. I'd almost be down by literally hiring devs by picking resumes out of a hat and just having them on probation. The sheer amount of time and energy wasted having good devs doing interviews instead of doing code is horrible.
  - throwaway2037 10mo ago
    > I hired a guy at essentially minimum wage to write some very basic HTML pages. Within weeks he was writing code. Within a couple of years he was a much better dev than I'll ever be. This sounds like a wild story, and I believe it. I love an underdog. Did you ever blog about this? It sounds interesting to read about.
    - qingcharles 10mo ago
      No, never blogged about it. Don't want to put the guy on blast. We formed our own consultancy at one point and he ended up at a very senior position at a well-known SaaS, so good on him :)
  - zelphirkalt 10mo ago
    It becomes less of a dark art, if you take a look at the applicant's portfolio. What side projects have they built? What interests them? What technologies did they use in those side projects? There is something like that for jobs in design and art sector. Checking what kind of projects someone already did. Checking their website. How does that look? Is it well designed? What are they showing on their website about what they have done? But the issue with these ideas is, that apparently these days there is zero time planned for actually checking candidate background properly like that. That's why hiring a dev can feel like a lottery. Hiring people work with utterly incomplete knowledge.
- squigz 10mo ago
  Do CEOs and other executives have to go through leetcode-style interviews to be considered for their jobs?
  - raw_anon_1111 10mo ago
    No because they aren’t coding.
    - immibis 10mo ago
      Do they go through leetmanage? You should definitely have a coding task when hiring programmers but it doesn't have to be very big or difficult.
      - ruszki 10mo ago
        The leetcode style tasks have nothing related to coding for the past 2 decades. That part is solved for a long time now. They ask for knowledge, which is a search away from everybody. I don’t know anybody, who knows those, and not only because of interviews. Also interviewers ask these, yet average code isn’t optimized at all. A simple question, like what’s your opinion of <anything> will tell you more than any leetcode question.
  - autarch 10mo ago
    If you think the engineer interview process is painful, try interviewing to be CEO of any company. I guarantee it will be _much_ more involved.
- venturecruelty 10mo ago
  I mean, if the current Kafkaesque nightmare isn't working, then yes? You might as well read chicken entrails, at this point. At least then you'd get some diversity, if nothing else. But the actual solution is to not let bean counters and bootcampers do the hiring, but we're a few too many programmer-generations away from anyone who actually knows what they're doing being left at most of these companies, so. I recommend making furniture.
- stickfigure 10mo ago
  I have been running the exact same pair programming interview for ~100 candidates so far. Make a little exercise that is representative of your work, run everyone through it. Whatever you test for, that's what you should expect to get.
- Lord-Jobo 10mo ago
  Interviews tuned properly for the position are almost always 95% talking with a decent trial/probation period. If they have the general credentials and can talk competently about the detail work, there is no benefit for either party doing these asinine code challenges. The problems that spawn these leetcode barriers are WAY better solved at the source. Prob 1: the interviewer doesn’t know shit about the actual role. I know it’s an uncommon opinion, but this should just not happen ever. I would gladly sit in on a speaking interview for my would-be coworkers, with the hiring manager, to check this. And the actual manager should be present and knowledgeable too. But 3 employees doing something is too much $ I guess. Prob 2: credentials and high degrees are prolific, super mandatory, but also treated like they are meaningless. Experience is borderline ignored entirely. Worked with a software deeply for 10 years, but your cert is out of date? You won’t even get past the computerized HR filter. But because this is so openly stupid, companies tack on leetcode as another filter instead of rethinking the value of experience and relying on probation and bullshit detectors.
  - neilv 10mo ago
    Excellent points. I just wonder about the 2-on-1 interviews. I think they tend to double-down on the one-sidedness of typical interviews. It's not a group engineering meeting. Unless it's big-tech hiring of fungible worker drones, everyone in that meeting should be trying to get more signal about the others as individuals. I've been the "1" in 2-on-1 three times recently, all for startups. For me, it's hard to think about the hard-thinking questions, and also be finding rapport and getting signal from two different people at once. I'd much rather spend twice as much of my time, to get each person 1-on-1, no additional cost to them. Two of the recent 2-on-1 interviews were on videoconf, and, with the videoconf setup they chose, I couldn't even see one of the people most of the time. The other interview was 3 people in tiny conference room/closet (the size of what used to be a one-person cubicle), for an hour, so it was especially stuffy and crowded with 3 people, and a great way to get Covid. Besides more people complicating the situation, people tend to speak candidly with me 1-on-1, but are less likely to do that if their colleague is in the room or on the call. Here's an intuition: Imagine you were a company interviewing startup candidates, and HR suggested saving time by you interviewing two candidates at once. It would be awful, and you wouldn't be able to get much read off of either (other than to tell if one or both were sharp-elbowed). So why do it 2-on-1 in the other direction, unless you're saying it's not important for a candidate to get signal about the company and colleagues?
- ponector 10mo ago
  What happened with recommendation letters? Portfolio? If I have 10+ years of proven experience with positive public recommendations written by high managers from F500 companies why should I be challenged with puzzles? Talk an interview to figure out motivation and if we have the same vibe. Then hire me and decide a month later if I'm worth your money. Trial period exists in labor law for a reason.
  - bradlys 10mo ago
    All of these are easily faked and/or not able to be shared. You think I can share code from FAANG? Also, hiring is very expensive for those first few months at big tech. It’s also very morale draining to see your peers fired constantly - which is what would happen. Morale at faang is already hitting rock bottom due to the mandatory yearly+ 10%+ layoffs.
    - ponector 10mo ago
      Everything could be faked. Leetcode interview as well. Background check is a thing. >> It’s also very morale draining to see your peers fired constantly Also cannot agree, firing from the probation period does not affect morale. It is rather expected some people cannot make it through.
      - raw_anon_1111 10mo ago
        What is a background check going to tell you besides verifying their employment history

by neilv 10mo ago

raw_anon_1111 10mo ago

So exactly what kind of interviews do you suggest that a company do at scale to hire people who will make $300K+ a year? Just talk them?

stack_framer 10mo ago
Why not? People can't fake their way through a deeply technical, probing, 2-hour conversation. You'd be amazed just how much you can learn about someone's actual skills and experience (or lack thereof) through long-form discussion. I think we don't truly talk enough in our currently broken interview process.
- sokoloff 10mo ago
  Now imagine there are 1000 people who are capable of submitting an application that appears to match the job description. Do you have a way to help either winnow out the 750 worst or (better) identify the 50 best of the lot to start to engage in these 2-hour deeply technical discussions?
- raw_anon_1111 10mo ago
  Funny enough, I got into my one only and hopefully last BigTech company without a single coding interview even though my job description required me to know how to code. It was all behavioral. It was for a cloud application architect position at AWS ProServe (yes direct hire with the standard 4 year structure between base + bonus + RSUs). My current job was also behavioral where I am a staff architect at a 3rd party company and it does require coding. As an interviewer, I also only do behavioral interviews. But let’s be realistic, it doesn’t take much to be a competent enterprise dev or even an enterprise architect. The type of hard problems that BigTech has to solve is completely different. While I would never have trusted any developer I ever met at AWS within 100 feet of a customer, they also shouldn’t let me within 100 feet of the code that runs any of the AWS services. Even at my medium size consulting company we have a 0.4% application/offer rate. Can you imagine what it is at BigTech? How do you filter just by talking to someone?
  - I_AM_A_SMURF 10mo ago
    In my experience, by the time you get to do a full round interview your chances are pretty high, about 50% in big tech.
    - raw_anon_1111 10mo ago
      It’s about 10% acceptance rate once you get the interview. I don’t know what stage of interview - HR, technical or behavioral/architecture interview. I’m in the interview pool for the last level.
qingcharles 10mo ago
Hiring developers is half lottery, half dark art. Best guy I ever hired was when I was tech lead for a large streamer. I hired a guy at essentially minimum wage to write some very basic HTML pages. Within weeks he was writing code. Within a couple of years he was a much better dev than I'll ever be. I'd almost be down by literally hiring devs by picking resumes out of a hat and just having them on probation. The sheer amount of time and energy wasted having good devs doing interviews instead of doing code is horrible.
- throwaway2037 10mo ago
  > I hired a guy at essentially minimum wage to write some very basic HTML pages. Within weeks he was writing code. Within a couple of years he was a much better dev than I'll ever be. This sounds like a wild story, and I believe it. I love an underdog. Did you ever blog about this? It sounds interesting to read about.
  - qingcharles 10mo ago
    No, never blogged about it. Don't want to put the guy on blast. We formed our own consultancy at one point and he ended up at a very senior position at a well-known SaaS, so good on him :)
- zelphirkalt 10mo ago
  It becomes less of a dark art, if you take a look at the applicant's portfolio. What side projects have they built? What interests them? What technologies did they use in those side projects? There is something like that for jobs in design and art sector. Checking what kind of projects someone already did. Checking their website. How does that look? Is it well designed? What are they showing on their website about what they have done? But the issue with these ideas is, that apparently these days there is zero time planned for actually checking candidate background properly like that. That's why hiring a dev can feel like a lottery. Hiring people work with utterly incomplete knowledge.
squigz 10mo ago
Do CEOs and other executives have to go through leetcode-style interviews to be considered for their jobs?
- raw_anon_1111 10mo ago
  No because they aren’t coding.
  - immibis 10mo ago
    Do they go through leetmanage? You should definitely have a coding task when hiring programmers but it doesn't have to be very big or difficult.
    - ruszki 10mo ago
      The leetcode style tasks have nothing related to coding for the past 2 decades. That part is solved for a long time now. They ask for knowledge, which is a search away from everybody. I don’t know anybody, who knows those, and not only because of interviews. Also interviewers ask these, yet average code isn’t optimized at all. A simple question, like what’s your opinion of <anything> will tell you more than any leetcode question.
- autarch 10mo ago
  If you think the engineer interview process is painful, try interviewing to be CEO of any company. I guarantee it will be _much_ more involved.
venturecruelty 10mo ago
I mean, if the current Kafkaesque nightmare isn't working, then yes? You might as well read chicken entrails, at this point. At least then you'd get some diversity, if nothing else. But the actual solution is to not let bean counters and bootcampers do the hiring, but we're a few too many programmer-generations away from anyone who actually knows what they're doing being left at most of these companies, so. I recommend making furniture.
stickfigure 10mo ago
I have been running the exact same pair programming interview for ~100 candidates so far. Make a little exercise that is representative of your work, run everyone through it. Whatever you test for, that's what you should expect to get.
Lord-Jobo 10mo ago
Interviews tuned properly for the position are almost always 95% talking with a decent trial/probation period. If they have the general credentials and can talk competently about the detail work, there is no benefit for either party doing these asinine code challenges. The problems that spawn these leetcode barriers are WAY better solved at the source. Prob 1: the interviewer doesn’t know shit about the actual role. I know it’s an uncommon opinion, but this should just not happen ever. I would gladly sit in on a speaking interview for my would-be coworkers, with the hiring manager, to check this. And the actual manager should be present and knowledgeable too. But 3 employees doing something is too much $ I guess. Prob 2: credentials and high degrees are prolific, super mandatory, but also treated like they are meaningless. Experience is borderline ignored entirely. Worked with a software deeply for 10 years, but your cert is out of date? You won’t even get past the computerized HR filter. But because this is so openly stupid, companies tack on leetcode as another filter instead of rethinking the value of experience and relying on probation and bullshit detectors.
- neilv 10mo ago
  Excellent points. I just wonder about the 2-on-1 interviews. I think they tend to double-down on the one-sidedness of typical interviews. It's not a group engineering meeting. Unless it's big-tech hiring of fungible worker drones, everyone in that meeting should be trying to get more signal about the others as individuals. I've been the "1" in 2-on-1 three times recently, all for startups. For me, it's hard to think about the hard-thinking questions, and also be finding rapport and getting signal from two different people at once. I'd much rather spend twice as much of my time, to get each person 1-on-1, no additional cost to them. Two of the recent 2-on-1 interviews were on videoconf, and, with the videoconf setup they chose, I couldn't even see one of the people most of the time. The other interview was 3 people in tiny conference room/closet (the size of what used to be a one-person cubicle), for an hour, so it was especially stuffy and crowded with 3 people, and a great way to get Covid. Besides more people complicating the situation, people tend to speak candidly with me 1-on-1, but are less likely to do that if their colleague is in the room or on the call. Here's an intuition: Imagine you were a company interviewing startup candidates, and HR suggested saving time by you interviewing two candidates at once. It would be awful, and you wouldn't be able to get much read off of either (other than to tell if one or both were sharp-elbowed). So why do it 2-on-1 in the other direction, unless you're saying it's not important for a candidate to get signal about the company and colleagues?
ponector 10mo ago
What happened with recommendation letters? Portfolio? If I have 10+ years of proven experience with positive public recommendations written by high managers from F500 companies why should I be challenged with puzzles? Talk an interview to figure out motivation and if we have the same vibe. Then hire me and decide a month later if I'm worth your money. Trial period exists in labor law for a reason.
- bradlys 10mo ago
  All of these are easily faked and/or not able to be shared. You think I can share code from FAANG? Also, hiring is very expensive for those first few months at big tech. It’s also very morale draining to see your peers fired constantly - which is what would happen. Morale at faang is already hitting rock bottom due to the mandatory yearly+ 10%+ layoffs.
  - ponector 10mo ago
    Everything could be faked. Leetcode interview as well. Background check is a thing. >> It’s also very morale draining to see your peers fired constantly Also cannot agree, firing from the probation period does not affect morale. It is rather expected some people cannot make it through.
    - raw_anon_1111 10mo ago
      What is a background check going to tell you besides verifying their employment history