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Comment by VectorLock | Hacker News Reader

If you've ever posted any job listings in tech recently you might have seen first hand how pervasive "fake it til you make it" is.

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Or if you've ever worked in tech, or interacted with any sales teams. My wife is looking to make a career change and I told her work in low level tech because it literally doesn't matter what you know. Nobody will know what you don't know.

'low level' tech ? like writing drivers and stuff in C?

Presumably he means "junior."

Amusingly, there is also a huge cognitive dissonance between

1. people generally being against cheaters (and people also generally acknowledge that there are statistically significant amounts of cheaters)

2. people also generally (and probably with a decent overlap with the 1st group) being against hazing-style complex and difficult interview processes

I'm not sure what the dissonance is? It's much easier to cheat in that sort of interview process than it is to cheat in a more free-form discussion interview. Of course you can simply lie in the latter, but assuming the interviewer is worth their salt they'll be able to ask questions that will be hard to answer if you don't have the experience you say you have. Whereas for algorithms and coding trivia questions you can search for answers online, have someone watching your screen and sending answers, do this bluetooth embedded approach, etc.

> but assuming the interviewer is worth their salt they'll be able to ask questions that will be hard to answer if you don't have the experience you say you have

I'm not saying being a farmer and lying about being a software developer.

But a mediocre software developer with good social skills can definitely bullshit through a top level software interview, barring the strictest of interviewers.

It pays off for those people because eventually they'll run into a non-technical hirer, who'll take 2 months to realise that they've made a mistake. Rinse and repeat.

There are institutions that are absolutely filled with these kinds of people. It's pretty much a feature, not a bug, at those places. They perceive themselves as "hustlers" and that everyone else is doing it more than them.

I really want to call some of these places referenced on their resume and see if they're outright lying or these places have just departments of people who don't do anything and people filling them just to get referral bonuses or kickbacks from the people they're placing there.

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