Hacker News Reader

Comment by carlosrg | Hacker News Reader

More like a story of someone that applied for a job that asks for Javascript skills without knowing Javascript and then blamed the company, and made a blog post/rant about it, because they hired someone else that probably fits that particular position better.

View on HN

The job description was a bit disjointed, and she chose to ignore relevant portions and focus on irrelevant ones. The company in question could have done a better job with the posting (wtf is a "B.Sc. in Design"?). On the other hand, her reaction that FizzBuzz is only for some uber CompSci geeks is nonsensical. First sentence from the Wikipedia page for FizzBuzz:

  Fizz buzz is a group word game for children to teach
  them about division.

Agreed, I can't believe people are taking that blog post seriously. It's literally FizzBuzz we're talking about.

I thought so too at first (and its not like FizzBuzz is hard), but if you read the post you'll see the job advert was for design, only listing JS as "HTML5, CSS3, JavaScript" after talking about design up until then (and then only listing further JS stuff as nice to haves).

The person made clear that they can do all the design stuff and can use JS to add basic interaction to the frontend.

The job post didn't ask for a programmer. I don't see how its the designers fault for not being a programmer.

The job advert asked for someone that knows Javscript. This person doesn't know JavaScript. The person that got the job probably knew Javascript.

I don't think this deserves a blog post ranting against that company because they asked you a Javascript question in, I repeat, a job listing that specifically asked for Javascript knowledge.

The advertised job was for a "UX Engineer/Interaction Designer".

The responsibilities listed were:

    * Create low and high-fidelity mockups to effectively convey interaction and design ideas (e.g. wireframes, sketches, 'pixel-perfect' mockups, etc).
    * Deliver engaging, innovative prototypes, and contribute to front-end development of our products.
    * Collaborate with and synthesize feedback from other members of the team.
    * Evaluate the usability of new and existing products, apply user research findings, and make constructive suggestions for improvements.

The minimum qualifications:

    * B.S. degree in Design, Computer Science or related technical field or comparable practical experience.
    * 2 or more years of designing clean, valid, and compatible websites and applications.
    * Knowledge of Adobe Photoshop and Illustrator.
    * Clean and elegant visual design aesthetic.
    * HTML5, CSS3, JavaScript.
    * Passionate about creating responsive and delightful interfaces and experiences.

Everything except the HTML5, CSS3, JavaScript. scream visual/ux designer. Nowhere does it say programmer. I don't think its a stretch that if you came across that job post that you would assume that Javascript is needed in a small way to tie bits and pieces together, like the author assumed. EVERY thing else in that post[1] is about UX or visual design. They didn't say they wanted a programmer, they said they wanted a designer who knows a small bit about technical things. I think the author fits the bill, especially since most job posts are now completely inflated with impossible requests (ten years experience in a technology that's only existed for five? I've seen it done!)

[1] I'm ignoring the "preferred qualifications", since that heading makes it sound like nice to have not must have

Minimum qualifications: "HTML5, CSS3, Javascript". I think it's pretty clear. You can question why the company needs a JS programmer in a design job. I don't know. But it's clear in the requirements that Javascript could come up in the interview. Knowing Javascript means you can code a loop and some conditionals, which is all FizzBuzz requires. They didn't ask her to implement a red-black tree or the Dijsktra's algorithm.

And besides that, who told her the rejection was about the FizzBuzz or JS issue? Maybe another designer had a better portfolio or whatever. Again, a blog post that got more attention it deserved to rant about something that happens every day and has happened to a lot of us: a job interview that doesn't go well.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com