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Comment by Retric | Hacker News Reader

I have generally been rather disappointed with Google/FANG software developers. These companies generally though not always avoid the bottom 1/3 of the talent pool, but that’s about it.

Effectively they simply select for people willing to hack their hiring process, which also excludes most actually talented developers. Resulting in a few very talented people, and an overall average workforce.

This is also why most internal projects at these companies are about average for the industry and these companies focus so heavily on acquisitions. Consider the differences between iOS, Android, and Windows phones was not so much about software quality as much as business models.

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Wouldn't surprise me at all.

Fundamentally, companies do not hire for raw technical ability.

Would you hire Linus for your bog standard dev role? Of course not. He'd be bored in days.

You probably wouldn't want a supermodel as a life partner.

The whole thing is about selecting model employees. People who will rock the boat in the correct ways; need money, but are neither impoverished nor independent; are reliable; and so on and so forth.

It's not "hiring is broken". It's "you misunderstand what employment is".

Very good point. The best developer I ever worked with said to me one time "I'm thoroughly unemployable", meaning his skills, motivations and long term goals did not match what-so-ever with those of a employee developer.

He was a great resource but hiring him permanently would be a terrible mistake for all parties.

I've worked with some like that, they're easily bored and will work well as tech-cofounders, the ones who can rewrite the entire code stack in a weekend.

> Would you hire Linus for your bog standard dev role? Of course not. He'd be bored in days.

I've often wondered if Rob Pike or Guido Van Rossum went through the same interview process at Google that we all hear stories about. I'd be very surprised if they did and my guess is, for them, it was much more of a negotiation of what they were going to work on and what their compensation was going to be.

Almost certainly not, indeed.

But then, if you ran a business, that's almost precisely what you'd do. It's completely rational. The hoi polloi need to be filtered aggressively, most companies need to select for hunger, etc.

By contrast, you might as well give a big name an honorary position if you can afford it. If they do useful stuff - bonus. Hell, if I owned a company the size of Google, I'd give Guido some money just because I could.

Agreed but it leads me to wonder if they couldn’t do a lot more hiring using this mode. The mode based on reputation, voucher and referral; you know, the way almost every other field does it.

I read a book by Eric Schmidt, can't remember the name. I remember reading him say that "the way interviews are conducted right now, if I wasn't in Google and was interviewed then I'd probably get rejected."

I asked a recruiter there whether someone like that (like the creator of a popular programming language) would have to go through the normal new-grad-style whiteboard coding hazing gauntlet (phrased diplomatically) interview process that they were expecting me to. The recruiter said no. I decided not to interview, because it turns out the hazing wasn't something "everyone" had to do, and I just didn't rate decent treatment.

The next time a recruiter from there cold-contacted me, I asked again. IIRC, that one said a person could skip at most only the first part of the whiteboard coding hazing (phrased differently), if someone at Google could vouch for them, but that everyone had to do the second part of the hazing, before they could advance to the interviewing phase of professionals with mutual respect (phrased differently). I decided not to interview.

So long as their process comes off as one-sided, arrogant, and negging, the company doesn't seem like a place I'd want to work.

It's like you're meeting a first date in the line at a cafe, and they're physically attractive and rich, but they're rude to the barista -- bullet dodged, we're not together, and I'd like my coffee to-go, please.

At this point in my career I won’t do coding tests or problems at home or over the phone. I’ve done my fair share of hiring and I’ve never needed to resort to such things.

Being asked to perform these tasks is actually a pretty good litmus test to filter out companies. Also, I expect a certain degree of deference given my resume shows a 25 year history of implementing and delivering systems.

I have about the same amount of professional experience, and have done lots of hiring and leading of teams. A few years ago I took a job that interviewed me with a coding test. (Which was only one of many phases of the interview). The coding test was quite fun, the company allowed the test in the language of my choice, and it was mostly about implementing rules for a game, and for bonus points, some A.I. to play the game. Not very long after taking the job, I was doing the interviewing and administering the coding tests to interviewees.

There were applicants with a decade or more of experience who, like you, expected some deference and were annoyed or offended, and complained about having to take a coding test. But they were applying for programming roles, not management. Those people didn’t get hired; negative attitudes are a red flag. In effect, this particular company likewise used them as a litmus test to filter out applicants unwilling (or unable) to demonstrate their advertised abilities.

Note especially how the coding test is actually being used to evaluate attitude and things other than coding skill. It’s not valid to assume that being asked to do a coding test implies that someone doesn’t believe you about your experience.

That said, resumes are very easy to fluff up with big sounding projects, so talking through past project details and demonstrating your abilities with a coding test should be par for the course if you want to change companies.

I actually agree and I don’t think coding projects are necessary for hiring, but I do think they’re useful, not bad, and I don’t give deference to anyone when I’m interviewing, no matter how accomplished. I look for people who are smart, willing to learn, excited to do the job, excited to interview for my company, and willing to try.

How much hiring and interviewing have you done? I've seen countless resumes with 25 years of stated glorious achievements, and they couldn't write a for loop.

I've done quite a bit and have never had any difficulty sniffing out "gloss" with just a few minutes of questions over the phone using the applicant's resume as a starting point for the conversation.

When you're focused on system implementation, delivery and maintenance you can pick one of the past projects listed and start probing. It's not hard to quickly get a picture of what the candidate did and didn't do on the project and whether or not they're blowing smoke.

Exactly. Of course, we do have to be a bit careful how we ask about past projects, to avoid the appearance of being exposed to IP, but it's doable. We can also just talk about hypothetical design problems (and they can learn about us based on the questions we ask, even if we're not doing a collaborative exercise). But no whiteboard CS101 coding negging.

I don't expect deference. I expect an experienced developer to be able to tell -- from talking with me, and from looking at open source work, and from asking my references -- that we are peers.

I'm happy to have real technical discussions and sketch out things, but I've seen enough negging "coding interviews" administered by smug people, and it seems to have little-to-nothing to do with legitimately assessing competence.

I'd also like to have an opportunity to get a sense of the people from talking with them. The FAANG coding theatre performance that undergrads now drill for doesn't tell me much about the team's personality, competence, and working style -- all it tells me is that apparently they are willing to play along with that dysfunctional one-sided game.

> Would you hire Linus for your bog standard dev role?

The question is incorrect. By hiring Linus you eliminate the need for 5 bog standard dev roles. Bog standard dev roles is not a requirement. It's what you end up with if you hire mediocre people.

I doubt linus is any good at modern web dev. Might take him a while to learn and will probably never enjoy it.

Your last sentence is the bullseye. On the whole, companies like FAANG hire for employees that supply the bulk labor throughput they need in large quantities with overall low risk. Their interviewing process very deliberately selects for this.

This is one of those statements that is too broad to be true. We can't wave a wand and just say developers at FAANG companies are better than the bottom 1/3 and no more.

You do have a point here which I do agree with which most of those companies would refer to as "culture fit". Agree with it or not, having an employee that gels with the team is a critical aspect to hire for. You could have 10 Jeff Deans and get nothing done if they refuse to work together.

A significant problem I see here is that we are trying to define "good" on a linear scale which makes no sense to me. Is candidate A better than candidate B based on 6 hours of interviews about the same topics or a single take home test. Even Madden breaks down a person into dozens of traits and uses that to compare people. Tech companies like to flaunt how data driven they are but why hasn't that made it into hiring. For the most part, these decisions are still made on personal feelings of the interviewers which...yeah, that's not going to be very consistent and reproducible.

That’s a fair point, but in my experience professionalism trumps what is generally considered cultural fit. Also, while I agree ranking people is going to be team and role specific, much of what makes people effective is fairly universal.

Personally, I would place technical skill at around 50% of what makes up a talented software developer. Effective communication, ability and willingness to work with others, flexibly, work ethic, attention to detail, prioritization, etc are all important. But, I have found these things really tend to go together.

I think this is an important point: they tend to go together because, imho, they are necessary qualities for someone who will "get the job done" (as opposed to someone who will get stuck with no iption to dig themselves out).

Who they hired are good enough for the jobs.

Not everyone in FAANG are in charge of shaping the industry.

In fact, even with such hiring process, I would say FAANG problem is still having too many of such talented people but not enough internal growth so that they can't retain them.

I’be noticed similar. I have some brilliant friends who don’t bother with FANG because the interview process is a pain. They are highly compensated at their startups, though, and have good reputations from their open source work anyway.

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