3 ms·

Is it possible that the look of distain on his face when the interviewer asked him to solve a puzzle indicated that he wasn't a good fit for their "puzzle cultu

by smoyer 14y ago

Is it possible that the look of distain on his face when the interviewer asked him to solve a puzzle indicated that he wasn't a good fit for their "puzzle culture"? I don't think it's fair to conclude he didn't get the FB job due to his failure to write a square root function. The funnier part is that this question isn't a puzzle (but does perhaps indicate how well the interviewee has internalized mathematics). I suspect I'd have failed him for ego ... "Today, after releasing 25 Github projects, creating several widely-used apps in less than a day each, and designing an entire architecture for a streaming platform, I realize I’m a pretty well-rounded and high-performing developer/engineer/architect. At the scale of Facebook, I’m exactly the sort of engineer I’d want many of." I've been in the industry for 30 years and realize I still have so much to learn.

dguaraglia 14y ago
Yeah, I think there's definitely an ego/butthurt attitude here I wouldn't put up with. Don't get me wrong, I think everyone needs to have a certain confidence on their abilities and expertise, but it works both ways: when hiring for our startup we'd look for honesty and humble acknowledgment of the candidate's shortcomings/lack of expertise. I wouldn't fail you for not knowing what the Newton's method for finding square roots is, but I will fail you for thinking it's irrelevant or not caring. If you don't care about my requirements in an interview, I don't think you'll do much better with actual work.
tylermenezes 14y ago
I actually did solve the square-root function problem, but I suspect too quickly because I did it from rote memory. I am fairly objectively the sort of programmer they would want in the sense they seemed to be selecting on. > This article is obviously somewhat over-stated. However, good programmers are aware of what they know and what they don't know, and maintaining a sense of imposter syndrome forever is somewhat counter-productive.

by smoyer 14y ago

dguaraglia 14y ago

Yeah, I think there's definitely an ego/butthurt attitude here I wouldn't put up with. Don't get me wrong, I think everyone needs to have a certain confidence on their abilities and expertise, but it works both ways: when hiring for our startup we'd look for honesty and humble acknowledgment of the candidate's shortcomings/lack of expertise. I wouldn't fail you for not knowing what the Newton's method for finding square roots is, but I will fail you for thinking it's irrelevant or not caring. If you don't care about my requirements in an interview, I don't think you'll do much better with actual work.

tylermenezes 14y ago

I actually did solve the square-root function problem, but I suspect too quickly because I did it from rote memory. I am fairly objectively the sort of programmer they would want in the sense they seemed to be selecting on. > This article is obviously somewhat over-stated. However, good programmers are aware of what they know and what they don't know, and maintaining a sense of imposter syndrome forever is somewhat counter-productive.