Hacker News Reader

Comment by solraph | Hacker News Reader

The problem is that the majority of so called programmers in the market cannot actually write code, and there's currently no other way to weed them out.

When I say they cannot write code, I mean that when presented with a simple problem such as toy robot or fizzbuzz which requires them to break down a problem into steps and implement those steps, they are unable to do so.

There doesn't seem to be any particular pattern to this. I've seen it across different companies, different languages, and different seniority levels. I am at a loss as to explain if these people know they are incompetent, don't care, or are just plain desperate for some kind of work to pay the rent. Nonetheless, until we find a better way to weed out the majority of applicants who can't actually write code, this is the best option we have.

View on HN

I’ve encountered this claim a number of times and since it is repeated without any evidence - I will offer the following rebuttal to this claim also without offering any evidence - In my opinion and experience this claim is nonsense and an attempt to gaslight developers, or to gate-keep.

Anyone who has interviewed more than a handful of developers knows this is true. It is a very painful experience for both sides of the table. Any kind of evidence is difficult to provide without potentially leaking personal information - unless you just want pipeline stats, which could just as easily be made up if you're not believing what the other person is saying...

And yet somehow I’ve managed to not encounter any of those fabled Paula Bean developers. Though I did encounter a fair share of the other kind - toxic know-it-alls who are immediately dismissive of anyone who doesn’t immediately regurgitate some in-crowd trivia that they favor, and are quick to call them idiots.

Maybe so, I wouldn’t dismiss your claim of that experience.

I have encountered them in teams that I’ve inherited, and although I don’t find that it’s the majority of applicants at interview it’s a significant proportion and you get no indication of it from other parts of the interview. I’m talking about people who struggle to work out that they need a loop.

Being able to talk about playing the piano is not the same as being able to play the piano.

I’ve conducted probably approaching a 100 interviews in my career. I don’t know if it’s a low or a high number, being that I am not a recruiter.

My interview approach is simple - I talk to people about the things they’ve done and ask questions based on that. I discuss higher level concepts and don’t worry about syntax. I take about one hour, sometimes a little longer. I have never hired or recommended a hire of a dud.

80% of the people in this industry write CRUD apps, web apps at that, or simple API backends for said apps. Some of course create new languages and kernels, and I don’t know what an interview process needs to be for that skillset, but for 80% what I do is perfectly adequate.

My post was written from direct experience of having run and being on multiple interviews over the last decade. It's not a one-off thing. It's a depressing majority of applicants.

In the spirit of constructive discussion, I have several thoughts about why other people may not see this. One, it's quite possible this is a very locale specific phenomena.

Secondly, I have tended to work in - and therefore interview people for - very mainstream languages, I suspect the experience of someone who works in/interviews for Haskell would be very different.

Finally, it's entirely possible that most of the applicants are by definition, the ones who find it difficult to get and/or hold on to a job, and that throws out the experience of the recruiting process, and that means they make up a disproportionate number of applicants, despite being a minority of programmers in the workplace.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com