dunpeal

36 ms·

301.
by dunpeal 8y ago
> Working conditions are so dire that the temp workers can’t offer suggestion on working conditions, conditions that would help Amazon integrate better automation in their current system, and make paying workers more comfortably more sen
302.
by dunpeal 8y ago
"Retraining" is a reassuring little myth. While it's possible that some manual warehouse workers have the capacity to "retrain" to a more skilled job, the reality is that there are more than enough incentives for th
303.
by dunpeal 8y ago
Not weird at all. This is Bezos generating hordes of candidates for Amazon to keep wages down for the next century.
304.
by dunpeal 8y ago
Pretty much what I expected. When I've spoken to engineers involved in Amazon operations, they rather proudly mentioned how aggressively they are automating everything. Their goal seem to be 100% automation, and the only remaining jobs
305.
by dunpeal 8y ago
> My understanding is that they are moving towards it, but raising the price of human labor shift the frontier where changing to automation makes sense. Human labor is so far behind machine labor, that raising its cost by a little bit wo
306.
by dunpeal 8y ago
If Amazon and Walmart could automate all these jobs, do you think they wouldn't have already?
307.
by dunpeal 8y ago
I can't speak for all of them, but generics do tend to add a bunch of rules to a language, and make it more complex than before.
308.
by dunpeal 8y ago
In a static language, functions, classes, and types are often parametrized by other types. For example, with a function: imagine you wrote a `sum(array)` function. In Ruby that's not a problem, because array can contain any types, as l
309.
by dunpeal 8y ago
By far. Why South America? Move to a safe location in Mexico.
310.
by dunpeal 8y ago
Why would you retire in the Bay Area?
311.
by dunpeal 8y ago
> The tipping point came in January, when management offered additional stock to a handful of high-level male engineers, including Westergard. Employees suspected Lanetix planned to fire lower-level female engineers, many of whom graduat
312.
by dunpeal 8y ago
Indeed. Harvard's legal argument isn't that they are racially discriminating and that it's legal. They know it's not. Their argument is what you'd expect from an institution that is racially discriminating, but tryi
313.
by dunpeal 8y ago
Pretty much. For a while he could do no wrong. Now he can do no right. Typical overhype/crash cycle.
314.
by dunpeal 8y ago
The key facts of this story is that Harvard has been discriminating against Asian-Americans based on race, which is illegal in the US. Harvard knows they've been acting unlawfully, which is why they desperately try to resort to evasive
315.
by dunpeal 8y ago
> "We would not need affirmative action if [reality was different]." > Ergo, we need affirmative action. Logical fallacy. "I have a good immune system, so I would not need medicine if I got a cold." Doesn't me
316.
by dunpeal 8y ago
> Many of us from early on argued that SV had no vision. I don't know what it means for a geographic region to "have vision". Either way, SV was the birthplace of an incredibly large portion of the ventures and entrepreneu
317.
by dunpeal 8y ago
> Impact of high levels of toxic air ‘is equivalent to having lost a year of education’ Since when is education equivalent to intelligence? I thought that the current definition of intelligence is a relatively stable performance measure
318.
by dunpeal 8y ago
Communication is obviously being tested in both phone screens and onsites. It's not like a candidate in a coding interview can simply start coding silently, finish, and then pass to the next stage because their code works. A big part o
319.
by dunpeal 8y ago
Cultivate programming as a skill. Pick up a good introductory programming book. I recommend Think Python 2e: http://greenteapress.com/wp/think-python-2e/ Go through it cover to cover and do all the exercises. All
320.
by dunpeal 8y ago
Sounds awful. I'd be interested to know what startup it was. But it's no secret that some of the well-known names do tend to drop the ball on hiring and various other aspects of operations.
321.
by dunpeal 8y ago
> My experience is that most startups just put you in front of people and tell you to figure it out. Some do, sure. And that's the difference between a startup and a regular company right there: that "figure it out" bit. Y
322.
by dunpeal 8y ago
That's a benefit of the coding interview, actually. We don't ask you about that particular feature of some library from 10 years ago, which is basically a luck question: you either happen to know or you don't. We ask you to c
323.
by dunpeal 8y ago
This is a key point. I see a lot of criticism of the coding interview. But what's the viable alternative? My goal is to figure out the candidate can do their job - write software - and that myself and the rest of my team would enjoy wo
324.
by dunpeal 8y ago
> If you want a reasonable coding assessment, sit them down at a terminal and give them an hour (and an appropriately difficult problem). I am doing just that. > But literal whiteboard tests are a recipe for complete blackouts. Not al
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by dunpeal 8y ago
I should stress I didn't ask fizz-buzz specifically, but similarly basic questions. I should also stress (again) that back then I brought candidates directly to onsites when their recruiters sent an impressive resume with 3+ years of &
326.
by dunpeal 8y ago
> What do these people do all day, if not design and build software? Indeed this is a fascinating question, and I explored it a few times. Some folks who have multiple years of "software engineering" on their resume worked in a
327.
by dunpeal 8y ago
If it's any comfort: everyone performs worse under the stress of an interview. This is widely recognized by hiring employers, and accounted for in the interview evaluation. For example, if I test-run a new question, and it takes my eng
328.
by dunpeal 8y ago
There are different approaches, but you can come up with any simple programming task. Doubts are fine, so just run them through some of your existing engineers, especially those you think are really good. If people you consider excellent en
329.
by dunpeal 8y ago
> Note that "junior interviewers" are not necessarily junior, just junior as interviewers. Sure, but these are highly correlated. If you've been working in startups for a few years, you will have some experience in both co
330.
by dunpeal 8y ago
OK, I suppose lack of seniors is a legitimate constraint. Still, interviewing is so important, that I typically give it a high priority. Even when I had only one other senior engineer, I made sure each candidate spent a long time with each

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