[Apocryphon]

As mentioned elsewhere, this is discriminatory against people with families and and commitments that prevent them from spending hundreds of hours in prep. Not to mention it affirms Goodhart’s Law, where a single metric- the ability to answer DS&A questions- overrules qualified applicants from becoming hired.

Not to mention such interview styles can be gamed. Suppose a Flatiron bootcamp for DS&A questions becomes big in response. What then? An arms race for more and more difficult weeder questions?

Such questions aren’t necessarily bad, but focusing on them to the exclusion of all other skills is becoming an anti-pattern.

[vsareto]

I think a decent amount would trade "no technical interviews" for credential hiring (degree required for job). The degree would be a well-known, long-standing target vs. the vague moving target of technical interview competence.

This isn't unlike other professions, but you would lose self-taught developers who don't have the time/money to afford the credential. That is currently something special about development compared to many other professions.

This assuming you prevent people who can't do something like fizzbuzz from graduating with a CS degree.

[matz1]

> this is discriminatory against people with families and and commitments that prevent them from spending hundreds of hours in prep

Maybe but its not the purpose to select people with families or commitment. You choose to have families or commitment, you have to deal with the trade off.

>An arms race for more and more difficult weeder questions?

Its always be an arm race. Why to expect otherwise ?

[Apocryphon]

Because hiring doesn’t have to be this adversarial process. And work doesn’t have to be this dehumanizing race to the bottom that excludes qualified people who are being excluded by bad metrics.

[matz1]

bad metrics ? maybe according to you but I doubt it according to the person who do the hiring.

The people who do the hiring get to the decide what the metrics is and what they considered good/qualified.

[Apocryphon]

Not according to me, according to many in this thread, in dozens of articles posted on this site, and many more across the industry. There are all sorts of management principles and truisms people take for granted, and this is one of them that’s being called into question.

[matz1]

>Not according to me, according to many in this thread, in dozens of articles posted on this site, and many more across the industry.

Yes, that what said, but I doubt according to the people who do the hiring.

It doesn't matter if you think you are right candidate according to you or other people. Ultimately its the people who going to hire you who is going to judge you according to his/her subjective criteria.

[Apocryphon]

Right, but this entire discussion is predicated upon questioning if perhaps the hirers are wrong. Are their interviewing practices serving their organization? A lot of the employers themselves have expressed difficulty at hiring and dissatisfaction with the process. Are they screening for the optimal qualities? There's no shortage of engineering projects that have gone bad. Could that be because the candidates being hired with current practices are suboptimal?

Hiring is still an on-going debate. Google SVP of People Ops Laszlo Bock has admitted previously that internal studies revealed that the interviewing practices at the time didn't really correlate to employee success:

https://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/20/business/in-head-hunting-...

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17196974

We're having a debate here. You can claim the current practices are best, that's fine. But you can't just state it and take it for granted without providing evidence.

[andrewflnr]

At a certain scale, intent stops mattering. You need to take responsibility for the incentives in the systems you create. To do otherwise is just negligence.

Families are kind of important. They're usually a large part of the reason people have a job to begin with. To callously disregard the impact of a system on families is exceptionally appalling. You should not do that.

[matz1]

I didn't say families are not important, to some people they are important but you can't use that as an excuse.