5 ms·

Can’t say you’re wrong but the last anecdote describes many I’ve had to review for jobs long before LLMs. Fizzbuzz is a classic thing that shockingly many devs

by IanCal 5mo ago

Can’t say you’re wrong but the last anecdote describes many I’ve had to review for jobs long before LLMs. Fizzbuzz is a classic thing that shockingly many devs genuinely cannot do, even at home.

sigmoid10 5mo ago
Yeah, I've interviewed people like this 15 years ago. Degrees and experience mean nothing in this field. The best predictor I found was personal passion projects. Let them get as nerdy as possible, then you will see pretty quickly where their skills are at and what their limits are. And you will immediately filter out people who just studied CS because they heard you can make good money.
- gedy 5mo ago
  I agree, however there are so many interviewers who will still treat that as some softball criteria and insist that unless you "prepare" for an interview by memorizing leetcode you are 100% a faker and liar.
  - jadar 5mo ago
    Maybe they themselves are fakers and liars / deeply insecure. I got bumped out of an interview rather rudely once because I blanked and couldn’t answer a trivia question about arrays.
- wookmaster 5mo ago
  Completely agree with this, leetcode has become such a business now of memorization for interviews it’s useless to know if someone memorized a solution or not.
  - virgilp 5mo ago
    you can absolutely know. they do suspiciously well. you just give harder problems until they can't solve it. how they react/approach a problem that they can't immediately solve _is_ the interview - not the "how many things they solved correctly" part. That said - I seldom need people to be hardcore algorithm solvers What I typically did was a variation of fizzbuzz (can the candidate code very basic logic?) and then finding a bug or minor requirements extension in their online screening test/"homework" and asking them to solve that on the spot (did they write the code themselves/can they modify it). It's typically enough, there's diminishing returns to test more in-depth the programming skills - the rest you can discuss domain knowledge, general experience, working style etc.
- jhbadger 5mo ago
  Maybe. There are certainly people in all fields who are book smart and did well in classes but are useless at actually practicing their field (not to mention people who cheated in school and got away with it and aren't even that), and it is worth filtering them out. But I think it is weird that CS expects good workers to have these passion projects. Do we expect civil engineers to build bridges in their back yard on the weekends? Can't someone just be good at their job and have other interests outside it?
  - ganzsz 5mo ago
    I can passionately tell about professional projects.
  - sigmoid10 5mo ago
    I imagine this is simply not such a problem in other fields. Or do civil engineering schools produce that many clueless graduates? I know other engineering fields don't pay bad, but software is another realm.
Gigachad 5mo ago
Something that is for sure new is the AI interview cheating tools which listen in on the call and provide answers in an overlay invisible to screen sharing. The only way to deal with it would either be invasive spyware on the applicants computer or asking them to do the interview face to face.
- nsvd2 5mo ago
  Spyware wouldn't help at all because you could just put the AI between the computer and the monitor, for example, or use a VM.
- arthens 5mo ago
  A relatively low tech solution could be to give them 2 separate conferencing links, ask them to join each one from a different device, and have the secondary device point the camera and the screen of the primary device.
  - Gigachad 5mo ago
    Easier to just get them to come in. Which also has the effect of filtering out people pretending to be in the country but aren’t.
  - unrealhoang 5mo ago
    And they can have an alternate screen outside the FoV of the second camera.
josh2600 5mo ago
Why is it important that a dev can’t do fizzbuzz without ai? If they can ship code that matches a spec, why does it matter if they’re using ai or not? Genuinely curious.
- xfax 5mo ago
  To understand the code they are shipping requires some level of proficiency. Their inability to do fizzbuzz without AI calls that into question.
- jadar 5mo ago
  It’s about deeply understanding what you’re doing. Like as a kid before you knew how to ride a bike, you could sit on a bike and peddling, but until it “clicked” you couldn’t balance and keep going forward stable. Fizzbuzz tests your ability to reason through a problem that seems simple on its face, but is easy to get wrong and/or overthink.
- IanCal 5mo ago
  Fizzbuzz is such an incredibly simple problem if you can’t do it I struggle to see how you’d be able to complete any task that requires very basic reasoning and very basic coding knowledge. And if an AI system can do those parts, what am I getting for spending tens of thousands of pounds per year by hiring a person who can’t? Wouldn’t I just tag codex on the tickets? I’m not talking about gotcha level stuff here where the first time it didn’t compile because of a bracket or anything, or even first time wrong. They couldn’t do Fizzbuzz in a language of their choice, at all. Those that could were always annoyed at having to do such things because how could someone coming for a contract position not be able to do this? Without seeing what a filter it really was.
  - eudamoniac 5mo ago
    I feel the same way about inverting a binary tree, but a lot of people act like it's an arduous request. I am guessing it's because they've never read the description of what inverting a binary tree is, but maybe people are just that bad at recursion.

by IanCal 5mo ago

sigmoid10 5mo ago

Yeah, I've interviewed people like this 15 years ago. Degrees and experience mean nothing in this field. The best predictor I found was personal passion projects. Let them get as nerdy as possible, then you will see pretty quickly where their skills are at and what their limits are. And you will immediately filter out people who just studied CS because they heard you can make good money.

gedy 5mo ago
I agree, however there are so many interviewers who will still treat that as some softball criteria and insist that unless you "prepare" for an interview by memorizing leetcode you are 100% a faker and liar.
- jadar 5mo ago
  Maybe they themselves are fakers and liars / deeply insecure. I got bumped out of an interview rather rudely once because I blanked and couldn’t answer a trivia question about arrays.
wookmaster 5mo ago
Completely agree with this, leetcode has become such a business now of memorization for interviews it’s useless to know if someone memorized a solution or not.
- virgilp 5mo ago
  you can absolutely know. they do suspiciously well. you just give harder problems until they can't solve it. how they react/approach a problem that they can't immediately solve _is_ the interview - not the "how many things they solved correctly" part. That said - I seldom need people to be hardcore algorithm solvers What I typically did was a variation of fizzbuzz (can the candidate code very basic logic?) and then finding a bug or minor requirements extension in their online screening test/"homework" and asking them to solve that on the spot (did they write the code themselves/can they modify it). It's typically enough, there's diminishing returns to test more in-depth the programming skills - the rest you can discuss domain knowledge, general experience, working style etc.
jhbadger 5mo ago
Maybe. There are certainly people in all fields who are book smart and did well in classes but are useless at actually practicing their field (not to mention people who cheated in school and got away with it and aren't even that), and it is worth filtering them out. But I think it is weird that CS expects good workers to have these passion projects. Do we expect civil engineers to build bridges in their back yard on the weekends? Can't someone just be good at their job and have other interests outside it?
- ganzsz 5mo ago
  I can passionately tell about professional projects.
- sigmoid10 5mo ago
  I imagine this is simply not such a problem in other fields. Or do civil engineering schools produce that many clueless graduates? I know other engineering fields don't pay bad, but software is another realm.

Gigachad 5mo ago

Something that is for sure new is the AI interview cheating tools which listen in on the call and provide answers in an overlay invisible to screen sharing. The only way to deal with it would either be invasive spyware on the applicants computer or asking them to do the interview face to face.

nsvd2 5mo ago
Spyware wouldn't help at all because you could just put the AI between the computer and the monitor, for example, or use a VM.
arthens 5mo ago
A relatively low tech solution could be to give them 2 separate conferencing links, ask them to join each one from a different device, and have the secondary device point the camera and the screen of the primary device.
- Gigachad 5mo ago
  Easier to just get them to come in. Which also has the effect of filtering out people pretending to be in the country but aren’t.
- unrealhoang 5mo ago
  And they can have an alternate screen outside the FoV of the second camera.

josh2600 5mo ago

Why is it important that a dev can’t do fizzbuzz without ai? If they can ship code that matches a spec, why does it matter if they’re using ai or not? Genuinely curious.

xfax 5mo ago
To understand the code they are shipping requires some level of proficiency. Their inability to do fizzbuzz without AI calls that into question.
jadar 5mo ago
It’s about deeply understanding what you’re doing. Like as a kid before you knew how to ride a bike, you could sit on a bike and peddling, but until it “clicked” you couldn’t balance and keep going forward stable. Fizzbuzz tests your ability to reason through a problem that seems simple on its face, but is easy to get wrong and/or overthink.
IanCal 5mo ago
Fizzbuzz is such an incredibly simple problem if you can’t do it I struggle to see how you’d be able to complete any task that requires very basic reasoning and very basic coding knowledge. And if an AI system can do those parts, what am I getting for spending tens of thousands of pounds per year by hiring a person who can’t? Wouldn’t I just tag codex on the tickets? I’m not talking about gotcha level stuff here where the first time it didn’t compile because of a bracket or anything, or even first time wrong. They couldn’t do Fizzbuzz in a language of their choice, at all. Those that could were always annoyed at having to do such things because how could someone coming for a contract position not be able to do this? Without seeing what a filter it really was.
- eudamoniac 5mo ago
  I feel the same way about inverting a binary tree, but a lot of people act like it's an arduous request. I am guessing it's because they've never read the description of what inverting a binary tree is, but maybe people are just that bad at recursion.