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by Artlav 3340 days ago
I get a feeling that the tech job market is oversaturated right now, and there are plenty of people running around with all the "achievements" (diplomas, certifications, etc) and no actual knowledge.

On my last job i sat right next to the corner where we interviewed candidates, so i could hear everything and would occasionally pop in to participate. There was a scary amount of people like that - boasting a big resume but unable to tell a mutex from a semaphore.

So, i suspect you failed to pass some initial HR-level filters designed to filter out the sludge so that the actual programmers would be able to cope with the amount of candidates left to interview.
3 comments
maxsilver 3339 days ago
> boasting a big resume but unable to tell a mutex from a semaphore.

"We passed on hiring that guy to do our drywalling. He boasted a big resume of recent drywall hanging work, but he didn't even know the where the CEO of CertainTeed was born!"

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Fraztastic 3339 days ago
They can build functional, well-written products and solve complex problems, but they don't know this arbitrary task-specific trivia! Terrible!
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Artlav 3339 days ago
Well, it was for a project that deals with distributed low level high performance data processing. Not something a JS or even a typical application level programmer need to know about these days.
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BoysenberryPi 3340 days ago
>boasting a big resume but unable to tell a mutex from a semaphore

Is it bad that I have no idea what either of those are?

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dmlittle 3340 days ago
I'd say it depends what you're focusing on. If you're doing anything that is multi-threading, then yes. Otherwise, it's just not something you'd use but probably interesting to know ;)
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brockwhittaker 3339 days ago
No. The example is entirely arbitrary. A web JavaScript developer probably doesn't need to ever know the difference between those two...
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endisukaj 3339 days ago
A programmer must have heard of them and know at least some superficial difference. A cardiologist probably knows the different parts of a kidney and how they work.
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flukus 3339 days ago
Only if you claim to be experienced in building distributed, multi threaded systems.
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