Hacker News Reader

Comment by kamaal | Hacker News Reader

>>Much harder to interview for the very best, the mythical 10x productivity programmers[2], those who can handle 100k LOC, 1M, or more. Perhaps this is the difference between an experienced non-expert and a real expert[3].

Only that the 10x productive programmer deosn't quite really have time in his day job to memorize and master arcane facts and puzzles.

And since it turns out the big Web brands are all about this facts and puzzles in their initial rounds. This means they are missing out on nearly all 10x productive programmers.

View on HN

well, you have to figure that the true 10x programmers are probably smart enough to figure out how to attract and close other 10x programmers. so either a) the puzzle-people aren't 10x programmers so who cares, or b) they are, and we don't understand their process because their process isn't designed to find us. i mean, i tend to go with (a), just sayin.

Jane Street Capital (world-class FP shop) is famous for two things: a) having a ridiculously hard interview, and b) hiring the best of the best. their interviews are blogged all over google. they ask everything from "three bags - apples, oranges, mixed; all mislabeled; how many guesses do you need to label them properly" to "implement a perl-style regular expression parser. on the whiteboard. in 45 minutes."[1]

i'm not sayin' i dig the puzzles, but I've read a few of their whitepapers, they are definitely better engineers than I am. and if i ever decide to interview again (once upon a time i insta flunked a phone interview), you can bet i will be a godly puzzle master. no matter the outcome, i bet i learn something about why they ask the questions they do.

[1] https://www.quantnet.com/forum/threads/detailed-in-person-ja...

Well I am sure they are.

But so far the best people in the industry I have seen so far have no time for puzzles and facts. They have better things to do and build. And they are busy enough and generally have enough of the actual work, to keep themselves busy enough to be adding meaningful value.

I now follow the same principle. I've cut down on my social network interactions. Once a day email communication. No more fact hunting. No more evaluation of every single open source software that gets released. No more worrying about language wars. No more text book reading etc.

I plan my actual work in a GTD model. I execute in pomodoro style. All aligned towards getting work done and keeping me busy and productive all day.

I have received amazing results. I've developed new hobbies like music. I spend meaningful time on things like meditation and exercise in whatever spare time remains.

I am for sure not going back to any puzzle and algorithm shopping any more. My experience reveals provided I can remain a order of magnitude more productive then others everything else will get automatically get taken care of.

On another note, the work environment is a crowded open space with people constantly yelling to each other. They advertise a 50 hour work week with no lunch break. My impression is that your base salary is just over $100k, without any indication of bonuses for software engineers.

If (emphasis on if) that is true, the only reason I can see people going there is a false sense of elitism.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com