6 ms·

How I Hire Programmers (2009)

138 points by garymoon 11y ago

garymoon 11y ago
How do you interview in your companies? I think it is a cool way to interview, what do you think?
AceJohnny2 11y ago
As I'm going through a new round of job interviews, this article resonates well. It's kind of sad watching (and being subjected to) some otherwise great companies still going at it the old way as described in the second paragraph.
Bahamut 11y ago
I somewhat agree on this as far as interviewing goes, minus the project part - that part is too unreasonable/unfair/disrespectful.
axaxs 11y ago
I feel rather silly commenting as a voice of dissent here, against a man who cannot defend himself, but here goes. These are rather obvious metrics that a child could have drafted. Are you smart? Can do you do things? The problem is that these are subjective measures. A smart person, who sets the world on fire and gets things done, perhaps like Aaron did or could have done, has a different perspective than say a 50-something product manager. They may see smart as seeing the future, where the programmer may see smart as knowing x86 assembly. And the fool may see smart as someone who talks in technical jumble. There is no golden key to hiring folks. My experiences say that in a good company, the manager needing help should be in charge of hiring who he/she deems fit. Some may, perhaps rightly, cry nepotism and other factors may run amok. But putting that weight, and risks, on the manager is the point. If they hire an unqualified buddy, they are responsible and ultimately fail with them. I don't really see this as different than Aaron - someone who has their own metrics. In short, trying to put out any 'guide to hiring people' is a short sighted goal, seeing as everyone has their own experiences and views. This is really no different.
- anon3_ 11y ago
  > I feel rather silly commenting as a voice of dissent here, against a man who cannot defend himself, but here goes. I agree. AS being dead makes it difficult to discuss issues related to him. I don't view AS as wise sage. I always found he was a bit of a self-promoter; a bit of a loose cannon. A person who was a hacker, but like some millennials, the validation from publicity got to his head. It's taboo. If you attack certain things on the merits - certain people will believe you're attacking all freedom of information - because they relate AS to some sort of representation of it. Burglarizing MIT isn't hack in the sense of hacker culture. MIT hacks were clever. Burglarizing for the attempt to swallow data isn't clever - it's a hammer.
  - deleted 11y ago
    [deleted]
  - axaxs 11y ago
    I see you being downvoted. This doesn't seem right to me in that I agree with you completely, so implicate myself with this comment to show my support.
  - jamra 11y ago
    You really are speaking ill of the dead. Calling him a self-promoter and a loose cannon isn't appropriate. As far as the MIT incident... I don't really think he burglarized MIT. He tried to bring documents that were hidden behind a paywall to the general public. He didn't rob anyone seeing as how the documents were submitted without compensation by the people who created them. Whether or not it's hacker culture, it's a culture of social disruption aimed at the betterment of us all. There will always be shakers, people who raise their voices loud to stand for what they believe in. Unfortunately, they will all be followed by people like you and your parent poster who will attempt to defame their character and negate their contributions.
    - hnnewguy 11y ago
      >I don't really think he burglarized MIT I think Mr. Swartz's actions at MIT are admirable, but I don't know how you can deny that what he did was burglary.
gohrt 11y ago
I think Spolsky originally made this line of thought famous in 2006: http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/GuerrillaInterviewing3.html http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/GuerrillaInterviewing... http://www.amazon.com/Smart-Gets-Things-Done-Technical/dp/1590598385 http://www.amazon.com/Smart-Gets-Things-Done-Technical/dp/15...
deleted 11y ago
[deleted]
- affinehat 11y ago
  > Whether code is concise, clear and elegant has not been causally related to success, unless that's how you define success, which is not how the market defines it. Reductio: The brain is neither concise, clear nor elegant (as far as we can tell), but it is usable and furthermore it works. It successfully extracts value. Sure, but success is a continuum not a binary switch. Who is to say that the brain could not have been more successful if it was more clear and concise? A body of experience points to code that is not clear and concise being much harder to maintain. True that it is not as good as having hard experimental evidence, but it seems silly to say that demanding code be clear and concise is purely egotistical. > News flash, everyone is smart, some people just aren't as assertive as you, or aren't yet as educated. You could hire them and educate them, but you are so concerned about short term profits that you fail to invest in people, who are inherently valuable and can do anything they set their minds to. I have to disagree with the statement that everyone is smart, but ignoring that, what is wrong with not wanting to train people? If I had to choose between someone who knows the material now and someone who could know it by the end of the year, I would choose the clearly more qualified candidate. If Aaron was complaining about a lack of talent to hire, I could understand blaming him for not investing in people, but he does nothing of the sort. The entire article is him explaining the process that works for him -- so why would he want to change a working process? > Let's select against all the people we don't like by not giving them jobs. Well, of course. If you start hiring people you don't like, then you will have major problems working with them. As Aaron says, "Someone you can’t work with, you can’t work with". I fail to see what the alternative would be in this case.
zatkin 11y ago
>"If you ask people at parties to name their greatest strengths and weaknesses or to estimate the number of piano tuners in Chicago, you’ve got bigger problems." Well, it looks like I'm going to have to find better things to talk about...
manigandham 11y ago
Really? So just have a nice conversation and ask questions? Of course you want smart, curious people who can learn things and do stuff. These "guides" are just various elaborations of (sadly uncommon) common sense. There's no secret here.
- anon3_ 11y ago
  I think AS wrote a blog post. He probably didn't have the experience to back it up. I don't hold it against him. An ordinary young person being a young person. Nothing special. Nothing to be embarrassed about. Also I don't think he cared about the hiring much - his specialty was never upper management.
- affinehat 11y ago
  I think the three questions are his main focus. Having a nice conversation and asking questions is just the example method used to determine the answers. It's not revolutionary, but showing that individually they are all necessary but not sufficient conditions was novel to me.
steven2012 11y ago
I think the most effective way to hire is to do your best without giving into to grueling whiteboard interviews, and take a chance on someone who seems smart. But also fire the person quickly if it seems like they won't be a good fit. After spending years interviewing people, this is the best conclusion I've come up with, because nothing else works as conclusively. Yes, it's brutal, and a bit ruthless, but effective. Whiteboard interview questions are a terrible measure of whether someone will be able to contribute. Same goes for the other types of interview questions. Of course, you need to give the person a chance to ramp up, etc, but if they can't be a contributing team member in 2 months, then it's better to give them 1-2 month's severance and get rid of them. I know one late-stage startup in the city that is using this technique, and I believe (not sure) that both Amazon and Netflix use this technique as well. It sucks, and kind of creates a bit of a harsh environment, but it's a fast way to build out your team, and probably has the same success rate as any other interview method, if not better because you cull your bad performers quickly.
- sbank 11y ago
  > Yes, it's brutal, and a bit ruthless, but effective. I'm not saying that people who don't work out should not be let go, and I'm certainly not saying that you "owe" people anything. It's a business and not a charity. (Just remember that this goes the other way as well; people who show loyalty to some company are doing themselves a great disservice, in my opinion. I work for money. I'm passionate and will do great work, but I'm a mercenary.) That being said, I would be very hesitant to go work at a place known to err on the side of just hiring someone and kicking them to the curb if it doesn't work out. Why? Because it can say a great deal about the management at that company, and how they will treat me. I also have no interest in being hired unless you are confident that I'm a great fit. I don't want anyone to take a chance on me. I want people to be delighted to hire me over someone else.
  - johnsberd 11y ago
    I guess I have the opposite stake on this. I'm a junior dev and I've been interviewing multiple times a week for the last month and a half. I've gotten better at interviewing but I still mess up on something and remember later on what the answer was. Now I get passed on the job because I failed the interview. I would rather an employer take a little chance on me and let me prove that I'm a competent developer and a hard worker. I would rather prove that on the job instead of in an interview. Edit fixed some typos.
chovy 11y ago
http://offsite.careers http://offsite.careers is a good place if you want a remote job.
minusSeven 11y ago
I completely agree with this.
spookylukey 11y ago
Working out whether someone is smart or not on the basis of how an entirely informal conversation goes makes you extremely vulnerable to biases. Read "Thinking, Fast and Slow" by Daniel Kahneman and you will become much more suspicious of sentiments like "I think it’s pretty easy to tell whether someone’s smart in casual conversation". We are actually extremely bad at guessing people's competences on first encounter, and very prone to cognitive biases such as the halo effect. With no objective measures, it seems this method is likely to be subject to massive bias towards people that you just get on with or like for some reason.
- arsenide 11y ago
  Do you think, perhaps, after being aware of these biases it makes it easier to determine someone's "smartness" based on a sequence of interactions as described in the article?
  - learnstats2 11y ago
    Kahneman explicitly studies this and concludes that it makes no difference. The biases apply just as much to people who are aware of them.
- jwdunne 11y ago
  Side anecdote: I get the feeling I'm judged as less capable mentally in person. I wonder whether it's because of my appearance, my voice or perhaps because I am less capable mentally. Confusing world to live in when I get such conflicting information. I don't care either way. It doesn't get in the way of my curiosity, which takes me on plenty of rides regardless of my ability.
asmithmd1 11y ago
Here is another Massachusetts resident whose life Carmen Ortiz has destroyed that I just read about this week. She finally brought federal drug distribution charges against a family doctor after he lived under a cloud of suspicion during a 7 year "investigation." He was acquitted of all charges: http://needham.wickedlocal.com/article/20150515/NEWS/150517160 http://needham.wickedlocal.com/article/20150515/NEWS/1505171...
notsoisheep 11y ago
I think this is the right way, rather than just asking typical technical questions like sorting algorithms, complexity, etc.
atom-morgan 11y ago
> To find out whether someone’s smart, I just have a casual conversation with them. I think the value of this is highly underestimated.
omilu 11y ago
aaron's writing style reminds me of PG's.

138 points by garymoon 11y ago

How do you interview in your companies? I think it is a cool way to interview, what do you think?

As I'm going through a new round of job interviews, this article resonates well. It's kind of sad watching (and being subjected to) some otherwise great companies still going at it the old way as described in the second paragraph.

Bahamut 11y ago

I somewhat agree on this as far as interviewing goes, minus the project part - that part is too unreasonable/unfair/disrespectful.

axaxs 11y ago

I feel rather silly commenting as a voice of dissent here, against a man who cannot defend himself, but here goes. These are rather obvious metrics that a child could have drafted. Are you smart? Can do you do things? The problem is that these are subjective measures. A smart person, who sets the world on fire and gets things done, perhaps like Aaron did or could have done, has a different perspective than say a 50-something product manager. They may see smart as seeing the future, where the programmer may see smart as knowing x86 assembly. And the fool may see smart as someone who talks in technical jumble. There is no golden key to hiring folks. My experiences say that in a good company, the manager needing help should be in charge of hiring who he/she deems fit. Some may, perhaps rightly, cry nepotism and other factors may run amok. But putting that weight, and risks, on the manager is the point. If they hire an unqualified buddy, they are responsible and ultimately fail with them. I don't really see this as different than Aaron - someone who has their own metrics. In short, trying to put out any 'guide to hiring people' is a short sighted goal, seeing as everyone has their own experiences and views. This is really no different.

anon3_ 11y ago
> I feel rather silly commenting as a voice of dissent here, against a man who cannot defend himself, but here goes. I agree. AS being dead makes it difficult to discuss issues related to him. I don't view AS as wise sage. I always found he was a bit of a self-promoter; a bit of a loose cannon. A person who was a hacker, but like some millennials, the validation from publicity got to his head. It's taboo. If you attack certain things on the merits - certain people will believe you're attacking all freedom of information - because they relate AS to some sort of representation of it. Burglarizing MIT isn't hack in the sense of hacker culture. MIT hacks were clever. Burglarizing for the attempt to swallow data isn't clever - it's a hammer.
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]
- axaxs 11y ago
  I see you being downvoted. This doesn't seem right to me in that I agree with you completely, so implicate myself with this comment to show my support.
- jamra 11y ago
  You really are speaking ill of the dead. Calling him a self-promoter and a loose cannon isn't appropriate. As far as the MIT incident... I don't really think he burglarized MIT. He tried to bring documents that were hidden behind a paywall to the general public. He didn't rob anyone seeing as how the documents were submitted without compensation by the people who created them. Whether or not it's hacker culture, it's a culture of social disruption aimed at the betterment of us all. There will always be shakers, people who raise their voices loud to stand for what they believe in. Unfortunately, they will all be followed by people like you and your parent poster who will attempt to defame their character and negate their contributions.
  - hnnewguy 11y ago
    >I don't really think he burglarized MIT I think Mr. Swartz's actions at MIT are admirable, but I don't know how you can deny that what he did was burglary.

gohrt 11y ago

I think Spolsky originally made this line of thought famous in 2006: http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/GuerrillaInterviewing3.html http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/GuerrillaInterviewing... http://www.amazon.com/Smart-Gets-Things-Done-Technical/dp/1590598385 http://www.amazon.com/Smart-Gets-Things-Done-Technical/dp/15...

deleted 11y ago

[deleted]

affinehat 11y ago
> Whether code is concise, clear and elegant has not been causally related to success, unless that's how you define success, which is not how the market defines it. Reductio: The brain is neither concise, clear nor elegant (as far as we can tell), but it is usable and furthermore it works. It successfully extracts value. Sure, but success is a continuum not a binary switch. Who is to say that the brain could not have been more successful if it was more clear and concise? A body of experience points to code that is not clear and concise being much harder to maintain. True that it is not as good as having hard experimental evidence, but it seems silly to say that demanding code be clear and concise is purely egotistical. > News flash, everyone is smart, some people just aren't as assertive as you, or aren't yet as educated. You could hire them and educate them, but you are so concerned about short term profits that you fail to invest in people, who are inherently valuable and can do anything they set their minds to. I have to disagree with the statement that everyone is smart, but ignoring that, what is wrong with not wanting to train people? If I had to choose between someone who knows the material now and someone who could know it by the end of the year, I would choose the clearly more qualified candidate. If Aaron was complaining about a lack of talent to hire, I could understand blaming him for not investing in people, but he does nothing of the sort. The entire article is him explaining the process that works for him -- so why would he want to change a working process? > Let's select against all the people we don't like by not giving them jobs. Well, of course. If you start hiring people you don't like, then you will have major problems working with them. As Aaron says, "Someone you can’t work with, you can’t work with". I fail to see what the alternative would be in this case.

zatkin 11y ago

>"If you ask people at parties to name their greatest strengths and weaknesses or to estimate the number of piano tuners in Chicago, you’ve got bigger problems." Well, it looks like I'm going to have to find better things to talk about...

manigandham 11y ago

Really? So just have a nice conversation and ask questions? Of course you want smart, curious people who can learn things and do stuff. These "guides" are just various elaborations of (sadly uncommon) common sense. There's no secret here.

anon3_ 11y ago
I think AS wrote a blog post. He probably didn't have the experience to back it up. I don't hold it against him. An ordinary young person being a young person. Nothing special. Nothing to be embarrassed about. Also I don't think he cared about the hiring much - his specialty was never upper management.
affinehat 11y ago
I think the three questions are his main focus. Having a nice conversation and asking questions is just the example method used to determine the answers. It's not revolutionary, but showing that individually they are all necessary but not sufficient conditions was novel to me.

steven2012 11y ago

I think the most effective way to hire is to do your best without giving into to grueling whiteboard interviews, and take a chance on someone who seems smart. But also fire the person quickly if it seems like they won't be a good fit. After spending years interviewing people, this is the best conclusion I've come up with, because nothing else works as conclusively. Yes, it's brutal, and a bit ruthless, but effective. Whiteboard interview questions are a terrible measure of whether someone will be able to contribute. Same goes for the other types of interview questions. Of course, you need to give the person a chance to ramp up, etc, but if they can't be a contributing team member in 2 months, then it's better to give them 1-2 month's severance and get rid of them. I know one late-stage startup in the city that is using this technique, and I believe (not sure) that both Amazon and Netflix use this technique as well. It sucks, and kind of creates a bit of a harsh environment, but it's a fast way to build out your team, and probably has the same success rate as any other interview method, if not better because you cull your bad performers quickly.

sbank 11y ago
> Yes, it's brutal, and a bit ruthless, but effective. I'm not saying that people who don't work out should not be let go, and I'm certainly not saying that you "owe" people anything. It's a business and not a charity. (Just remember that this goes the other way as well; people who show loyalty to some company are doing themselves a great disservice, in my opinion. I work for money. I'm passionate and will do great work, but I'm a mercenary.) That being said, I would be very hesitant to go work at a place known to err on the side of just hiring someone and kicking them to the curb if it doesn't work out. Why? Because it can say a great deal about the management at that company, and how they will treat me. I also have no interest in being hired unless you are confident that I'm a great fit. I don't want anyone to take a chance on me. I want people to be delighted to hire me over someone else.
- johnsberd 11y ago
  I guess I have the opposite stake on this. I'm a junior dev and I've been interviewing multiple times a week for the last month and a half. I've gotten better at interviewing but I still mess up on something and remember later on what the answer was. Now I get passed on the job because I failed the interview. I would rather an employer take a little chance on me and let me prove that I'm a competent developer and a hard worker. I would rather prove that on the job instead of in an interview. Edit fixed some typos.

chovy 11y ago

http://offsite.careers http://offsite.careers is a good place if you want a remote job.

minusSeven 11y ago

I completely agree with this.

spookylukey 11y ago

Working out whether someone is smart or not on the basis of how an entirely informal conversation goes makes you extremely vulnerable to biases. Read "Thinking, Fast and Slow" by Daniel Kahneman and you will become much more suspicious of sentiments like "I think it’s pretty easy to tell whether someone’s smart in casual conversation". We are actually extremely bad at guessing people's competences on first encounter, and very prone to cognitive biases such as the halo effect. With no objective measures, it seems this method is likely to be subject to massive bias towards people that you just get on with or like for some reason.

arsenide 11y ago
Do you think, perhaps, after being aware of these biases it makes it easier to determine someone's "smartness" based on a sequence of interactions as described in the article?
- learnstats2 11y ago
  Kahneman explicitly studies this and concludes that it makes no difference. The biases apply just as much to people who are aware of them.
jwdunne 11y ago
Side anecdote: I get the feeling I'm judged as less capable mentally in person. I wonder whether it's because of my appearance, my voice or perhaps because I am less capable mentally. Confusing world to live in when I get such conflicting information. I don't care either way. It doesn't get in the way of my curiosity, which takes me on plenty of rides regardless of my ability.

asmithmd1 11y ago

Here is another Massachusetts resident whose life Carmen Ortiz has destroyed that I just read about this week. She finally brought federal drug distribution charges against a family doctor after he lived under a cloud of suspicion during a 7 year "investigation." He was acquitted of all charges: http://needham.wickedlocal.com/article/20150515/NEWS/150517160 http://needham.wickedlocal.com/article/20150515/NEWS/1505171...

notsoisheep 11y ago

I think this is the right way, rather than just asking typical technical questions like sorting algorithms, complexity, etc.

atom-morgan 11y ago

> To find out whether someone’s smart, I just have a casual conversation with them. I think the value of this is highly underestimated.

omilu 11y ago

aaron's writing style reminds me of PG's.