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from the prove-Fermat's-last-theorem-using-only-a-protractor-and-straight-edge dept.
Saw this discussion on Reddit, and thought it might be of interest here, too (as such things perennially are):
I've been a successful software engineer for 10 years at various startups and small businesses. I do a lot of contracting on the side too. I've recently had cause to start looking for work again.
What the hell is up with these interview questions? They don't really have much to do with the ins and outs of clean code, architecture or collaboration. I had hoped they'd stop with this bullshit already. There's a lot of companies that promise 'No whiteboard interviews' like Triplebyte, only for that to be a complete and total lie.
They're more like annoying riddles I'd find in an Sierra adventure game or D&D. I'm just not very good at these types of 'riddle questions'. I know they always wind up having to do with binary trees, graph algorithms or something like that, but the dress-up and time constraints are unrealistically stressful.
I honestly wasn't very good at these questions when I'd graduated and I'm still not good at them now. How screwed am I? Are companies willing to hire based on projects and seeing live code?
I'm always careful to speak with my employers and convince them to write a 'portfolio' clause in my contract that allows me to keep code for the purpose of seeking further employment.
I really don't want to spend 3 months of my life learning how to solve riddles just to get another job.
I also suck at these kinds of questions, despite having designed and written a lot of software and systems. What say you, Soylentils, are these kinds of interview questions necessary to find good software engineers?
(Score: 3, Interesting) by bzipitidoo on Wednesday March 08 2017, @07:17AM (3 children)
Wish I could have had more interviews like yours. What I kept running into were bullcrap interviews where I can't get past the initial screening to get to the tests, if there were any. So many companies are horrible at interviewing people, sometimes intentionally because they have a hidden agenda which may be to hire an H1B, or the boss's nephew who stinks at coding but needs a job. Can even be straight up discrimination. I've noticed some Indians strongly prefer fellow Indians over Americans. Sure, it's illegal, but how do you prove that there's bias?
The first thing the HR weenie does is invent bullcrap reasons why most of my experience does not actually count. For instance, I taught C/C++ for several years. But all they have to do is apply "those who can't do teach", and cross off 5 years of relevant experience. Oh, and I also get tagged for having lied about my experience since I was supposed to know I shouldn't have counted the teaching job. Then they whittle it down further by tossing some job experience because it was unpaid because the company was going bankrupt. Volunteer work for open source projects? Cross that off, doesn't count if you didn't get paid. Okay, open source for which you did get pay? Cross it off too, it's open source, and open source is not serious software, it's low quality hobbyist garbage, so it doesn't count. I go from over 10 years of relevant experience to under 2 years, and am summarily dismissed for not having enough experience. Not that I want to work for a company that pulls stunts like that anyway.
That kind of malarkey happens when employers are inundated with candidates and are desperate to winnow the pile of applicants way down. It has little to do with the competence and skills of the applicants, and everything to do with how tight the job market is. Competence and skill is not irrelevant, but it's definitely not the top criterion. When they can't get applicants, then it's the other way around. "We need a Perl programmer" "I know C++ and Java, but never used Perl." "Good enough, you're hired!"
(Score: 2) by FatPhil on Wednesday March 08 2017, @11:17AM
Personally, I'd value OSS work, in particular hobby work done for no pay, at least as highly as handle-turning just-for-the-pay-cheque work - at least it shows motivation (if indeed it does show motivation).
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Wednesday March 08 2017, @02:05PM
The market seems to be heating up a bit - turning in favor of candidates. Get in while you can, it will swing back the other way soon enough.
Sadly, some places HR is very distant from the R&D/software departments, so getting past HR is an entirely different game from actually working with the people you'd work with - kind of double jeopardy.
Україна досі не є частиною Росії Слава Україні🌻 https://news.stanford.edu/2023/02/17/will-russia-ukraine-war-end
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 08 2017, @04:35PM
For what its worth, many many white americans are downright rude and even reject resume because it has an Indian name. I once pointed this out and was told that it is a correct strategy to weed out bad programmers. Similarly in my experience, Indian managers are downright abusive to Indian developers, especially if the Indian manager has managed to get a green-card/citizenship.