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Comment by novok | Hacker News Reader

From what I know from doctors, what FANG does is basically the equivalent of doing your board exams every time you want to change jobs. Which usually gets a reaction of dread & disgust when you couch it in those terms to doctors.

Interviews are significantly easier as far as prep time goes for doctors & psychologists.

BUT, you don't have to go through the entire med school & residency rigamarole as a software engineer either, so as far as total effort goes FANG is probably easier. I posit that software engineering is probably the most egalitarian method of socioeconomic mobility, because the only real barrier is time, a laptop, the internet and motivation, while all the other methods require an upper-middle class background and expensive schooling (law, medicine, finance) or just plain luck (business, celebrity art & sports)

But being an interviewer in FANG, I've actually found it rare to find the self taught type in practice. But we do leave that door open unlike medicine.

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> I posit that software engineering is probably the most egalitarian method of socioeconomic mobility, because the only real barrier is time, a laptop, the internet and motivation, while all the other methods require an upper-middle class background and expensive schooling (law, medicine, finance) or just plain luck (business, celebrity art & sports)

As much as we all hate the tech interview process, it's a relatively level playing field as far as hiring goes. It's not perfect, of course, but we have to select on something.

As engineers we have a level of free access to study tools and material that my friends in other professions envy.

The alternative to skills testing is to rely more on credentials, references, and background. People who come from elite universities or lucked into prestigious jobs early in their career tend to prefer this type of interview process because it benefits them the most while excluding those who are trying to break into the industry.

The benefit of skills-based testing, however imperfect, is that it opens the door for people who have skills but not the right background or credentials to skip through the ranks and get a foot in the door.

> it's a relatively level playing field as far as hiring goes

I am not sure that is true at all. People with family or basically any commitments outside of work don't have anywhere near as much time to practice for this sort of thing and why should they need to practice for an interview? You do the job every day, if that isn't enough then the interview is clearly testing for the wrong thing.

>People with family or basically any commitments outside of work don't have anywhere near as much time to practice for this sort of thing and why should they need to practice for an interview?

I've done this rodeo in my thirties and forties, complete with a very busy existing job, family, long commute, etc. The bottom line is that the time investment wasn't terribly large as it was more refreshing than learning things from scratch.

Putting the 20 hours in over a couple weeks for a 2x raise felt like a worthwhile expenditure of my free time, and worth prioritizing over some of my every day commitments.

Relative to going to med school, law school, or a top 10 business school, I can’t see how it’s not true even for those with families or commitments.

You go to med school or law school generally before you have had children. After you've done those things, you don't study for weeks leading up to an interview. Instead, you have a piece of paper that proves what you know and the interviews are more a decision of "do we want to work together" rather than "is this personal qualified".

I see, so among the audience which has been prescreened, life is good. I can see that being nice, if you're in that class of people.

However as someone without a CS degree who is nonetheless able to get jobs as a software engineer because there isn't a process of credentialing, I am glad much of the industry works the way it does.

> From what I know from doctors, what FANG does is basically the equivalent of doing your board exams every time you want to change jobs. Which usually gets a reaction of dread & disgust when you couch it in those terms to doctors.

If Software Engineers want to get rid of algorithmic interviews, all they have to do is come up with a professional exam and a strict licensing body... just like most professions carrying a tittle (MD, Lawyers...).

But as long as "3 months js bootcamp grad" can advertise himself as a software engineer just as much as a guy from Stanford CS then we'll keep having these interviews.

> But as long as "3 months js bootcamp grad" can advertise himself as a software engineer just as much as a guy from Stanford CS then we'll keep having these interviews.

The fact that a bootcamp grad can compete for the same software engineering jobs as a Stanford CS grad is one of the very best parts of the hiring process in our industry. Are you proposing that we start using credentials as gatekeeping?

We need a compromise where proven, experienced engineers can stop having to go through everyone's homebrewed technical interview and new candidates still have a shot if they don't have that credential yet. It should be up to companies to decide if they want to use those credentials, and I suspect companies would switch if it maintained a good reputation because why bother with a job that requires a technical interview?

I prefer homebrewed technical interviews. They can be customized to the needs of the company hiring and can reflect day to day work better.

Treating engineering as an undifferentiated commodity measured by leetcode performance is partly why this charade exists.

Neither leetcode nor homebrewed are what we want anyway. But homebrewed is IMO worse because it could be a weird format and people have issues with surprises during technical interviews, least of all anxiety. And when there's a bunch of different flavors and formats, candidates either prepare for them all or accept that they won't do well at some formats and forgo those jobs.

IME candidates are spooked way more by leetcode than homebrewed tests that mimic the job they do every day.

I'd estimate (from browsing graduate boards) it's probably among the top 5 most hated aspects of the industry. #1 for many - because it's so anxiety inducing.

Your experience must be different than mine then, which, it's a large field so it's totally possible. Dunno, it'd be great to not have to repeat any kind of technical test, regardless of the format preferred.

I agree it's great.

But it has this side effect that you need to test every candidates.

> Are you proposing that we start using credentials as gatekeeping?

No. As a fast-track sure. So you don't have to start every interview with a FizzBuzz [0].

[0] https://blog.codinghorror.com/why-cant-programmers-program/

Ironically, that article was written in a era where there weren't really boot camps, only CS Grads from actual universities, and in that article it specifically calls out many CS grads cannot code.

The filter is usually a 15 minute test, while later you have multiple-hour interviews, sometimes even whole day in the office just doing interviews. So you're not even getting that much, unless you somehow fear failing the first test, while being confident in the multi-hour interview skills?

This is absolutely the worst thing about hiring in our industry. The reason interviews are so abusive is that there is no way to effectively filter candidates. There's no reason to say a four year degree is the requirement, mostly because such a degree does not predict ability very well. But on the other hand, it is possible to design a credentialing system that would be effective. If we, as an industry, want self taught people to be able to get jobs we can design the system so that it the credential is obtainable by someone who is self taught. Personally, I'd like to see a system that combines testing, a practical exam, and then a further credential that you can get after you have some work experience.

This is how we become doctors. And we don't have the excuse that a swashbuckling frontend dev could literally kill people.

> The fact that a bootcamp grad can compete for the same software engineering jobs as a Stanford CS grad is one of the very best parts of the hiring process in our industry. Are you proposing that we start using credentials as gatekeeping?

But we already do use credentials as gatekeeping. There's a lot of talk about bootcamps and whatnot, but how many of these people actually get passed the resume screen when compared to a Stanford CS grad? FAANGs famously recruit from same 20 universities, and then complain about "lowering the bar" if they branch out anywhere else.

We could stop gatekeeping, but it still happens.

I have been doing this for 20 years. I used to be good at algorithmic challenges 20 years ago straight out of university - because that is a ,lot of what we did.

I have these I have used "challenging" algorithmic stuff a handful of times in my careerer. Same with recursion, I have used it, but not too many times.

If I do hackerrank or leetcode or something similar these days, it's pretty much luck if I will get it. If I sat down long enough I could work it out, but with a 2 hour time limit, its usually 50/50 whether the answer appears in my head in that time frame.

And here's the thing. I write a lot better code than I used to. I know what is important, and it isn't clever algorithms, it's choosing the right abstraction, and keeping things maintainable. Making the code easy for the next developer to follow. For the vast majority of software roles out there this will be so much more valuable than algorithmic knowledge. Sure knowledge of computer science fundamentals is important, but I think we give it too much emphasis over what really counts.

Basically these are testing for a computer scientist when the job is for a software engineer.

Fundamentally, they are using algorithms and problem solving as a proxy for IQ, because IQ tests are a minefield in the US.

It would be interesting to look at the correlations between the two, as I'm not sure if that's every been done.

> But we already do use credentials as gatekeeping. There's a lot of talk about bootcamps and whatnot, but how many of these people actually get passed the resume screen when compared to a Stanford CS grad?

At some point there's a signal to noise ratio issue here as well.

That's gatekeeping logic.

Most every company I know would love to exploit any high-conversion, high-quality pocket of candidates.

If companies are passing on specific pockets, it’s likely from a belief that the conversion from top of funnel to successful hire is low.

Companies don’t examine their efforts. They copy off of each other. How many processes are simply aped with the excuse, “Well, BigCo does this, so it must be right”?

There’s plenty of excuses for gatekeeping, but the real reason is laziness. Of course, we don’t call it that, we call it a meritocracy and apply our biases as “common knowledge”, “proven”, or if we’re feeling particularly full of ourselves, a “sufficient statistic”, but never what it is: a bias, a blanket assumption, a gate.

As soon as you’re relying on assumptions, it’s not a meritocracy. It’s bias promotion, ie gatekeeping.

That's also why there is so much shit software out these. Small companies saving money initially by using inexperienced developers. Then once it is making money they need to hire a load of seniors to clean up the mess. (Though plenty of seniors are capable of overengineering a mess as well)

Another way of reading your statement: That's also why there is SO MUCH shit software out there.

If small companies weren't able to use inexperienced developers to spin up half-assed MVPs, we'd be at the mercy of whatever large companies are interested in developing, and time has shown that as companies get bigger, they lose interest in niches in favor of products that will be massive successes.

You're not wrong, but I also don't think the world you are describing is a problem.

> If small companies weren't able to use inexperienced developers to spin up half-assed MVPs, we'd be at the mercy of whatever large companies are interested in developing

That's an interesting perspective. I would say there is some truth in it, but a lot of small companies get plenty of investment money.

But then you just ignored the whole micro-ISV market which is cranking out tons of software solving interesting problems. And investment money has its own issues. VCs view their companies as a portfolio, they are only interested in ideas that have the potential to be huge. There are plenty of software products that should exist but are not interesting to investors because they are not potential unicorns, but interesting to smaller software shops since that revenue will provide a nice living for them.

Yea, but I also think it's more complicated than that. I would think that if you already work for a FAANG or other well-respected tech company, that would de facto serve as your "professional certification" and help avoid these ridiculous interview processes. If you work at Google as a SWE, then you've already passed a pretty high bar to become a SWE and when you apply somewhere else, ideally they would see you can pass that bar and not ask you to leetcode your way over the bar again. But IME, that's not the case. I know some FAANGs that, even when doing an internal transfer within the company, still require you to go through the full leetcode interview process.

There seems to be some kind of inherent or cultural distrust amongst tech interviewing, where nobody trusts that anyone has tech skills unless they personally verify it. I don't think a professional exam/certification would solve this distrust.

Back in the day I remember stories about candidates who would get an offer from Amazon and then Google/MS would just automatically counter-offer without interviewing as it was assumed that if they passed the Amazon interview then it was good enough for Google/MS.

Or maybe that was just an urban legend...

> you've already passed a pretty high bar to become a SWE

The problem with the algorithm/leetcode style is that you can run it at a very high bar and you end up selecting people extremely skilled at that one thing, but which has very little to none correlation with shipping reliable & maintainable production code.

I've never needed to hire (and surely never will) people who can reverse binary trees with a hand tied behind their back, so that style of interview is not a meaningful signal.

> "I would think that if you already work for a FAANG or other well-respected tech company, that would de facto serve as your "professional certification" and help avoid these ridiculous interview processes"

Nope, not at all. Despite their rigorous hiring process, even the FAANGs have bad hires, burn outs, or people who simply can't keep up with the pace. Some FAANGs require an interview loop even for internal transfers to guard against a bad hire.

I highly doubt there are even a few software firms who would offer you a job sight unseen purely because you have a prestigious company on your resume. It might help you get your resume to the top of the stack but you’ll still unfortunately be leetcode grinding and whiteboard hazing.

The IEEE has taken the first step toward professional software engineer licensing with the "Software Engineering Body of Knowledge" and associated certification program. So any company that wants to could accept that certification as a substitute for their own algorithmic interviews. (I am not necessarily recommending that, just pointing out that the option exists.)

https://www.computer.org/education/bodies-of-knowledge/softw...

https://www.computer.org/product/education/professional-soft...

My colleague just left after doing a load of AWS exams. I am left to fix his mess. He will create another over engineered over complex mess. He values clever over maintainable. I am not sure exams are the answer, but I don't have a better suggestion.

Except they existed before a boot camp was a thing and were about evaluating whether CS grads could write real code.

>If Software Engineers want to get rid of algorithmic interviews, all they have to do is come up with a professional exam and a strict licensing body... just like most professions carrying a tittle (MD, Lawyers...).

By the time the exam is designed - not complete, designed - it will be obsolete. By the time the exam is completed, there will be 3 new languages invented.

This would be like changing what animal you have to study as a doctor every six months for the test.

Definitely not. The vast majority of computer science and software engineering practice needed for successful product delivery was developed back in the 50s to the 70s and has not substantially changed since.

The library and framework of the week is not fundamental experience.

I always advocate computer science training really needs more history of the discipline. So many new languages and libraries turn out to be a rediscovery of ideas thoroughly explored in decades prior, just that the creator didn't know.

An orthopedic surgeon gets new types of tools and implants in their toolbox through their career, but the structure of the bones they operate on is the same forever. It's the same with software.

A new grad from Stanford is no more an Engineer that someone from a boot camp is.

Fwiw, Triplebyte has a fast track program which allows candidates to do a 2 hour proctored pairing session. Companies can use that as a way to filter and take over at least part of their hiring process - it’s a one and done thing for a candidate dealing with any companies through the platform. We’re currently experimenting with it.

It would be nice to have something like this completely divorced from a recruiting engine though.

Screw companies trying to make money by using developer time for free.

I’m genuinely confused by this comment and any downvotes. No candidate is doing unpaid work for us or for this service (ie. building out their platform). It's a way to validate a skillset, pure and simple, and that's how this platform makes its money. The output from a candidate has no business value aside from this.

I can understand distaste about having a time imbalance (ie. a candidate is not investing the same # of ours as our staff), but like I said, this is a one and done thing and can be used w/ a way to cut down time working with any other companies using the platform.

For us it means going directly to the final rounds, whether they took it at our suggestion, for another company, or just did it for themselves. If they do it for us and they don't end up with an offer, they are not left empty-handed from the process.

In sum, it moves toward some sort of accreditation system, that’s the reason I mentioned it. It's a shame my comment is at the bottom of the pile as I too would love a future where the only time spent interviewing is just a couple hours getting to know my future teammates, and I truly feel platforms like this may eventually get us there.

All the same I'd appreciate feedback on why they're disliked. I've seen them mentioned in other HN threads without any vitriol.

Ok, so why not pay devs for their time? Because you prefer to use that time as profit, no?

The system encourages the default distrust of developers resumes. That most of them out there are lying, and we need a test to be sure that they can actually code. How many people have actually hired the mythical devloper that can talk well in an interview and not code?

ONE MORE TIME - NO ONE IS PROFITING FROM INTERVIEW OUTPUT - THIS IS TO ASSESS ABILITY AND ONLY THAT. Forward, backward, sideways, up and down.

If you're doing work that benefits the company that is another matter, but that's not what's happening here (or anywhere I've ever worked) and is ethically dubious regardless. That's not the point of an interview. I can't believe I'm having to explain this.

You don't pay a dev for their time during the interview process for the same reason no one pays anyone for their time to interview in any industry.

To hire straight off a resume is beyond wild. I'm in the process of hiring a dozen developers for my team, and have had 3 people who had great resumes fail a basic pairing session - they couldn't code. In the 24 years I've been in this industry, probably had at least a few dozen encounters like this. Sure, 90% of the time this isn't true, but it's true enough that it's insane to do it.

"How many people have actually hired the mythical devloper that can talk well in an interview and not code?" I actually have. Twice. Earlier in my career when I believed these sorts of things. And was on hook for cleaning up the mess. Never again. The harm to the team's morale is not worth it.

For what it's worth, I worked with a talented self-taught engineer. He stated he hit a ceiling and needed to get a degree and so he did through a remote learning program. In the event that this is common, it may explain why they're rare. The resumes of the ones that don't hit that ceiling probably don't make it to your desk.

I don't know if there's a ceiling for degree-less software engineers in the Bay Area. Speaking as someone who dropped out of college and is now a "senior" software engineer at Google, I've worked with a couple folks who are much more senior than I am without a degree.

That said, it's much harder to get your foot in the door without a degree, even in the Bay Area. I had to go above-and-beyond to get my first job at a small startup (I created a program that used their API and was useful enough that I ended up continuing the work when they hired me). With my second job at Dropbox, the recruiter told me that they only reason they interviewed me was because I went to Recurse Center (which is a free programming retreat for programmers that also acts as a recruiting firm). Multiple companies have grilled me during interviews about why I dropped out, including Google.

As a college dropout myself, this really makes me think about continuing my degree. What did you answer to Google and others who grilled you?

It seems kind of strange that you would go to university to progress. I feel the opposite, university was a good starting block but the vast majority of my knowledge is from on the job.

I think they meant a salary ceiling.

That makes more sense.

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