Leonardo da Vinci's application letter
lettersofnote.com
lettersofnote.com
Guess what - Leonardo wasn't a superstar back then but he'd worked in Verrocchio's workshop, a workshop that was one of the best in Florence. He learned an immense level of technical skills there. Then he also was a master in the Guild of Saint Luke in Florence. Then he painted the Adoration of the Magi (which was never finished, but whatever). Then he made a silver lyre, which the medici family sent to the Sforzas for a peace accord.
So the modern equivalent of this is something like (and I'm making this up clearly) someone who started at a regionally famous company at a young age, worked there for years to cut their teeth, meanwhile was a regular presence at conferences or Meetup groups in the area, who then worked on a company that generated some buzz but didn't succeed ultimately, and then one of their VCs introduced him to another company.
So, not the same as a person with no experience to show for getting a daylong interview with fizzbuzz and a take home project. In fact the "interview" probably took days to weeks in that case!
edit: And yes, of course I don't think that's a good way to conduct interviews. But it sure as hell wasn't a better or more efficient or more equal opportunity system back then. Progress has happened since then. It just should be happening at a much faster rate now and it's not.
Or maybe how Kent Beck hiring process went at FB: https://www.quora.com/How-was-Kent-Beck-recruited-to-Faceboo...
Edit: first case was Homebrew's creator at google: https://twitter.com/mxcl/status/608682016205344768 (thanks, livingparadox!)
Interesting, did not hear about that. I wonder if a system package manager could be coming to OS X in the future.
So why is this such a big deal? The assumption here is that passing a Google interview is /the/ bar for success as a software engineer. Guy builds homebrew (success) and guy fails google interview (fail). Cognitive dissonance!
It's not surprising that there are a diverse set of skills required for building good software, especially if one is playing every role by themselves. Then it's also not surprising that at a large corporate environment, each one of these roles are usually taken on by separate people, and there is a lot more specialization. Then it's not surprising that they're ignoring all the other skills this person brings to the table - they're probably going to be squandered. It's also not surprising that a large corporation with a massive inflow of great candidates is going to have a diluted and uninteresting interview process because no matter what they're doing, they're going to get some good or at least motivated people one way or the other. It's yet again unsurprising that they fail to take their own advice when their internal studies find out that brain teaser questions or questions that don't have anything to do with the day to day work don't really predict success, because I think a lot of people who are established there passed through that bar, and ascribe their success to it despite the evidence. So it's a cultural change issue too.
Anyway, I got rejected by google when I was in college, and I took it personally at first, and now I don't. I'm not really proud of it, but I've learned to not think lesser of myself because of it. I have a perfectly fine job that I enjoy and even more opportunities. So it's possible!
I have decades of solid experience. Multiple 3-digit starred projects on Github. Typically the person that interviews me learns something from me in the interview process.
As I said, it is getting ridiculous. Possibly it is a way to age discriminate, not entirely sure.
That's what most of tech hr is. The age discrimination that happens is a symptom of a much larger problem.
In general, I feel that a couple of technical questions relating to the fundamentals of the platform you're working with. Getting a feel for who they are and their track record for either delivering on the stack you are working with or in delivering on stacks with which they have little initial familiarity. Some people are particularly adept at learning entire stacks and delivering solutions in times that other developers are incapable of delivering on stacks with which they claim intimate familiarity. Others are amazing at delivering on a particular stack but have no clue how to achieve anything outside that stack.
I think the biggest issue is that interviewers have no idea how to abstract contextual information when removed from their development environment. They think that everyone needs to look and think like them... and if they don't, they're not a good fit.
As for hiring people they like that are technically inept vs. turning away candidates that are technically adept but awkward. I guess it comes down to social aptitude - being technically awesome is only half of the requirement. You've also gotta be likable or you're not getting hired.
In a way, this is a good thing for me. Getting a job isn't part of the equation. There is only one good reason for me to get better at my tech stack. It's because I want it to be easier for me to make good software.
Leonardo da Vinci spent a full decade — considerably longer than was customary — apprenticing at a Florentine bottega, or workshop, run by a man named Andrea del Verrocchio. A good artist but a better businessman, Verrocchio surely spotted the burgeoning genius in the young artist from an “illegitimate” family, but he nonetheless insisted Leonardo start on the bottom rung like everyone else, sweeping floors and cleaning chicken cages. (The eggs were used to make tempera paint before the advent of oil.) Gradually, Verrocchio gave his charge greater responsibility, even permitting him to paint portions of his own artwork. Why did Leonardo stay an apprentice for so long? He could easily have found work elsewhere, but he clearly valued the experience he acquired in the dusty, chaotic workshop. Too often, modern-day mentoring programs, public or private, are lip service. They must instead, as during Leonardo’s time, entail meaningful, long-term relationships between mentors and their mentees.
https://hbr.org/2016/01/renaissance-florence-was-a-better-mo...
Was hoping for a more informative discussion on one of my intellectual heroes. To me, Da Vinci is up there in the "alien" category along with Von Neumann... there is no field in which he not only excelled, but formed theories that were centuries ahead of their time.
Not only in art and engineering, but in medicine and biology. In his notebooks you can find rudimentary ideas about evolution (in his study of fossils, he notes that different layers have different kinds, and that those at the bottom appear to be the oldest; he then notes that the Earth must be much older than his peers seem to think!). In medicine he noted that the arteries of people who suffer from heart attacks are hardened and thickly coated (another discovery that was not made until the 20th century).
There is also misconceptions about whether some of his designs worked. It was common back then (before IP laws) for inventors to insert crucial flaws into the schemes, with codified solutions that only they know, so that only they could build the product.
For example, his gliding machine, lacking a tail, will bomb. Unless you are astute enough to notice the pages where he writes down his theories about how birds use their tail to stabilize their flight!
Lo and behold, after adding a tail, the glider works: http://www.bl.uk/onlinegallery/features/leonardo/glider.html
The list goes on. If you haven't, I thoroughly recommend reading more about this man. He was not just a great painter and engineer, e was truly a once in a generation mind; and all without formal training -- just his imagination and thought experiments. Perhaps too far ahead of his time... imagine how far we'd be had further pursued his wild ideas!
His facsimiles are also available in print, and offer a fascinating insight into a one of a kind mind.
I found them once when I was at the uni library... before I knew it hours had passed and I was still cross-legged on the floor going through them.
Also "Leonardo's Universe" is great to have... full of illustrations and notes about his time.
I'm sorry a few of us saw a historical cover letter for one of the most coveted jobs in 15th century Europe, then we decided to draw parallels to contemporary life.
Most of us have already been very well educated in Da Vinci's accomplishments, and rehashing them is somewhat boring. I respect your desire to do that, but it's not for everyone here. What isn't boring is using humor to show how a mind like Da Vinci's may have been overlooked by our current tech industry's obsession with brainteasers and academic pedigree. And I think there's room for both discussions without you snarking on our half.
So, I hope you feel good about yourself for thinking that listing some of Da Vinci's accomplishments in this thread makes you superior to us.
I really like his post and he has piqued my interest in learning more about da Vinci, of whom I knew very little.
Your post seems a bit harsh. Not everyone here is well-educated in the same fields. I am not even a high-school graduate.
El Greco (1541-1614) didn't agree with him on that: When he was later asked what he thought about Michelangelo, El Greco replied that "he was a good man, but he did not know how to paint" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/El_Greco#cite_note-Plaka47-49-...
Not much of a reverence there! :-)
[Edit: Sorry for the mixup Leonardo! :-( Choose to let it stay so your comments don't become orphaned]
Also, I will make covered vehicles, safe and unassailable,
which will penetrate the enemy and their artillery,
and there is no host of armed men so great that they would not break through it.
And behind these the infantry will be able to follow, quite uninjured and unimpeded.
Really the only thing that made defensive walls useful for sieges in that era was the fact no one had any decent portable fireproof siege towers, so most towers ended up burnt down, unless the city under siege literally ran out of things to light on fire and toss into the (wooden) tower.
Also see "moat".
Defensive troops on the walls were pretty good at tipping towers over with ropes or whatever, too.
You'll note like a good engineer he promises all the easy stuff like logs being pretty good at stopping arrows, and doesn't mention the unfixable parts like "it'll burn" or "it'll tip over".
His engineering talents were ignored!
So, more in line of "I am good at Angular, but if there is a need, I can use React", "I have experience in ad optimization and SEO", "I can optimize predictive algorithms for stock prices, so they can have an edge over competitors".
I would think a good challenge on that is to ask he demonstrate by constructing a tunnel in secret that opens up in my current enemy's fortification.
Of course, Leonardo could respond with "I don't tunnel for free!"
Sure, Leonardo Da Vinci syndrome can come to mind, maybe he was trying to get the innovation out of him as quick as his teeming brain demanded.
If it worked for Leonardo da Vinci, maybe it could work for me. The next time I’m looking for a job, I’ll try this:
“Most Illustrious Proprietor, Having now sufficiently considered the specimens of all those who proclaim themselves skilled developers of applications of business, and that the invention and operation of the said programs are nothing different from those in common use: I shall endeavor, without prejudice to any one else, to explain myself to your Company, showing your Management my secret, and then offering them to your best pleasure and approbation to work with effect at opportune moments on all those things which, in part, shall be briefly noted below.
1. I have a sort of extremely light and strong functions and modules, adapted to be most easily ftp’d, and with them you may pursue, and at any time combine them with others, secure and indestructible by standard mean time to failure of hardware and denial of service, easy and convenient to compile and catalog. Also methods of unzipping and storing the data of the customers.
2. I know how, when a website is besieged, to shard data onto the cloud, and make endless variety of mirrors, and fault tolerant disks and RAIDs, and other machines pertaining to such concerns.
3. If, by reason of the volume of the data, or the structure of the btrees and its indexes, it is impossible, when conducting a search, to avail oneself of sub-second response time, I have methods for benchmarking every process or other function, even if it were interpreted, etc.
4. Again, I have kinds of functions; most convenient and easy to ftp; and with these I can spawn lots of data almost resembling a torrent; and with the download of these cause great terror to the competitor, to his great detriment and confusion.
5. And if the processing should be on the desktop I have apps of many machines most efficient for data entry and reporting; and utilities which will satisfy the needs of the most demanding customers and users and consumers.
6. I have means by secret and tortuous scripts and modules, made without leaving tracks, to generate source code, even if it were needed to run on a client or a server.
7. I will make secure firewalls, safe and unattackable, which, entering among the hackers with their utilities, there is no body of crackers so great but they would break them. And behind these, software could run quite unhurt and without any hindrance.
8. In case of need I will make big properties, methods, and collections and useful forms, out of the common type.
9. Where the operation of compiling might fail, I would contrive scripts, functions, routines, and other parameter driven processes of marvellous efficacy and not in common use. And in short, according to the variety of cases, I can contrive various and endless means of data entry, reporting, and storage.
10. In times of low revenue I believe I can give perfect satisfaction and to the equal of any other in maintenance and the refactoring of code public and private; and in guiding data from one warehouse to another.
11. I can carry out code in Javascript, PHP, or C, and also I can do in network administration whatever may be done, as well as any other, be he who he may. Again, the intranet app may be taken in hand, which is to be to the immortal glory and eternal honor of all your customers of happy memory, and of the illustrious house of Google. And if any of the above-named things seem to anyone to be impossible or not feasible, I am most ready to make the experiment in your data center, or in whatever place may please your Businessperson - to whom I comment myself with the utmost humility, etc.”
[edit]
On the other hand, seeing a letter like that reminded me of how James Joyce [?] used to go to Shakespeare and Company [1] and rearrange the display to make sure Ulysses was prominently displayed!
[?]: ?!!!
[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shakespeare_and_Company_%28boo...
This is humility? Cool.