Hardly. This guy would succeed in just about any market with the attitude he has. The fact that he could even start it off with some random dude at a conference shows how much demand there is for people like this. My situation was very similar to his, and I can clearly point to differences between my mid-20s friends who are succeeding right now and those who are not. Moderation of alcohol/drug use, applying in person instead of online, picking a career track that is actually hiring, being professional publicly (no facebook drunk posts or ron paul rants), having a polished resume, and (perhaps most importantly) making connections with people in the industry and asking for their advice. I studied Philosophy in school, but befriended the chair of the CS department. I met with him a few times and drained his brain for every interview tip I could get, then got a list of companies that were looking for interns from him. After that point, the process of starting my career was surprisingly easy, and now I find myself very comfortable despite that I got into the job market in the middle of the recession. Someone is always winning out there; the trick is to find out who they are and copy them. Back during 2009, CS grads were basically the only ones getting hired so I went to go pick up there scraps, and it worked.
I also typically give them a txt file with a chapter from some old book. Then I tell them to print out all the words in the book in order of frequency with a number beside the word that says the count for that particular word. There are a surprising number of edge cases, so it works well for follow up questions. "How would you make you code able to filter out punctuation?", "Say this needed to be used on 100 chapters. What optimizations would you add to speed it up?" etc.
I just do not see how anyone who fails "fizzbuzz" in the language they have the most experience with could possibly be competent. It is a loop and some "if" statements for christs sake! I would expect most people to be able to do this in their head without even pen and paper. Sorry, but if someone has such bad anxiety that they choke on problem that easy, there is no way they will cut it on the job. A false negative would only be possible if the person was having a stroke during the interview or something.
I don't think anyone really thinks that money should be proportional to work. Work comes into the equation, but the most important factor in gaining wealth is providing value to people. I could see someone starting from scratch and providing a million times more value than someone else. We want to encourage working smart, not just hard. I have no doubt that the guy at McDonalds working doubles works harder than my accountant does, but I would certainly pay my accountant more, since he is providing more value to me (even with less effort).
Most states in the US require a valid reason given for a firing. Unfortunately my state is a "right to work" state. You still cannot fire someone for discriminatory reasons such as race (surprise surprise, it happens to be an issue in this state), but you can fire them for no reason. Basically, if you hate Jim because he is black or gay, you can fire him, so long as you do not tell him what your reasons were.
Honestly, why would you even want a 3 hour lunch? I like the 1 hour I have, but any more time and I get antsy to get back to work. Now coming in 2 hours later, that I could get used to.
my brain has a very hard job accepting that someone who does programming for their livlihood could not solve this in their sleep.
This is my intuition as well, and I think we would both actually be correct. The thing is that most candidates looking for a job do not currently do this for a living, thus the looking for a job. Programmers who keep up with their skills and are constantly learning will be able to solve a problem like this after their first couple weeks of coding. Amazingly, some people never get to this point, slip through the cracks into a programming job at some shitty company, then amass what actually looks like a solid resume. Then when a change in the market occurs, these people get completely screwed. People like this seem to be a good portion of the currently unemployed programmer population. Everyone ends up unemployed at one point or another, but most competent programmers are only without work for very short amounts of time. People that cannot pass a simple test will be permanently applying. The rest are fraudsters trying to play a little "Catch Me If You Can".
Nope, but you might try a Javascript programmer. I would be willing to be a Java programmer would implement this using the ReverseFactoryAbstractFactoryFactory pattern though. They might be able to get it to you in a year, but you would be obligated to sign a 5 year 200k/yr support contract.
I was thinking the same thing. It was pitiful when the topic first came up on Coding Horror. Hundreds of responses, entirely missing the point that it was not supposed to be a challenge to anyone who actually knows how to program, and yet... so many failures.
It's not typically a Swordfish style hacking challenge where someone is holding a gun to your head. These tests are supposed to be simple and the time limit should be long enough that it is not a typing challenge. Ideally you make the time limits long enough that the slowest typer and the slowest thinker could still solve the problem if they were ever going to. I give 30 minutes for really basic problems. Every person I have given it to has either completed it in about 3 minutes with zero effort, or they give up and ask if there are any jobs in marketing available (or some other move that basically lets us know they were BSing us the entire time).
Irrelevant? A senior engineer should be able to knock this stuff out no problem. If they cannot, then there is no way they would be able to do the job. Of course, no need to pick the obscure stuff that no one remembers, but a few basic problems just to make sure they can write some code is essential. After that, then you can discuss the intricacies of whatever specialty they happen to have. Conversation seems to draw out the advanced skills much better, however, there are loads of "expert" coders out there who could not code their way out of wet paper bag.
I never believed the whole "95% of interviewees fail the FizzBuzz test" until I started interviewing candidates. People with 15 years of "experience" on their resume would regularly fail or give up. I also encouraged googling, including just searching for the exact problem, and I encouraged questions and told them that both behaviors were seen as a good thing. IDK how someone could possibly get through a CS program and still fail this test, but it happened regularly.
I hate ASP.Net with a fiery passion (VS the ram hog, leaky abstractions, encourages poor design, tries to be stateful, etc.), but Linq using lambdas has to be one of the most productive features of any language. You have to be careful, since it can easily turn perl-esque, but it dominates with throw away scripts with crazy powerful one liners. It is the one thing I have missed since switching to rails a couple years ago.
But there is no such thing as an interval of 20 years, or even 2 years for that matter. At any point in time, even the very next day an employer can say to you "Sorry, your redundant". So to actually believe you have even 2 years of job security is a pure fantasy.
If you are at a company older than 5 years, growing at 20% per year or higher, and you are one of the drivers of the growth, then I would say you have close to 99% chance of keeping your job. If you are working for a company that is down 20% year over year then start looking now and do not make the same mistake again. Treat the interview process as you interviewing the company. You cannot get it right every time, but most people do not even try to figure out the trajectory a prospective employer is on. Simply looking at the big number on the check and not realistically considering how likely the company will be able to continue writing it will cost big in the long run.
I can say with 90% certainty that I will be at my current job for the next two years. I can find a new job in a couple weeks in my market since I keep my skills up to date with what is most in demand. Have a good laugh about how I am just a tech hopping shill or whatever, but I call it "job security". A quality developer can become proficient in a platform in ~6-12 months. With standard full time employment that lasts at least 2 years per gig, there is plenty of time to build your own escape tunnel. Give it 10 years and you will most likely be qualified for any senior developer position. If you cannot find something with that sort of CV then you probably need to take a bath, put on a tailored suit (nobody likes wearing them; suck it up for the interview), and stop acting creepy during the HR portion of the interview (cannot count how many times I have seen this. Last one got asked "How would your best friend describe you in 2 words?". response: "Probably.... um... sort of a loner.. um... and a drunk because I like to drink a lot..". This guy was in my CS program and was a really talented guy much smarter than me. Too bad the HR girl got the vibe that he was some creepy alcoholic rapist, and I don't blame her).
So no, you cannot count on any one job being there forever, but reasonable job security is very attainable in this field if you are constantly improving in a way that companies are after (which, more or less entails providing more value to them than other things they could spend their money on).
Who would give a homeless person a golden retriever??? That seems like a stretch to me. I have seen lots of homeless in Asheville, NC with dogs as well. I tend to think of them as the "poser" homeless. Instead of being homeless due to addiction, mental illness, or disability, they do it because they romanticize the old hobos of the 1930s and like the idea of hanging out downtown playing music all day. Obviously, most homeless do not fall into this category.
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Hardly. This guy would succeed in just about any market with the attitude he has. The fact that he could even start it off with some random dude at a conference shows how much demand there is for people like this. My situation was very similar to his, and I can clearly point to differences between my mid-20s friends who are succeeding right now and those who are not. Moderation of alcohol/drug use, applying in person instead of online, picking a career track that is actually hiring, being professional publicly (no facebook drunk posts or ron paul rants), having a polished resume, and (perhaps most importantly) making connections with people in the industry and asking for their advice. I studied Philosophy in school, but befriended the chair of the CS department. I met with him a few times and drained his brain for every interview tip I could get, then got a list of companies that were looking for interns from him. After that point, the process of starting my career was surprisingly easy, and now I find myself very comfortable despite that I got into the job market in the middle of the recession. Someone is always winning out there; the trick is to find out who they are and copy them. Back during 2009, CS grads were basically the only ones getting hired so I went to go pick up there scraps, and it worked.
I also typically give them a txt file with a chapter from some old book. Then I tell them to print out all the words in the book in order of frequency with a number beside the word that says the count for that particular word. There are a surprising number of edge cases, so it works well for follow up questions. "How would you make you code able to filter out punctuation?", "Say this needed to be used on 100 chapters. What optimizations would you add to speed it up?" etc.
Well in a real job, my code would be as short as possible, but with comments explaining any tricky bits.>
OMG. Shoot me right between the eyes if I ever have to maintain any of your code.
I just do not see how anyone who fails "fizzbuzz" in the language they have the most experience with could possibly be competent. It is a loop and some "if" statements for christs sake! I would expect most people to be able to do this in their head without even pen and paper. Sorry, but if someone has such bad anxiety that they choke on problem that easy, there is no way they will cut it on the job. A false negative would only be possible if the person was having a stroke during the interview or something.
Wow, that is totally true! I just tried it out and completed it in 1 hour! ;)
I don't think anyone really thinks that money should be proportional to work. Work comes into the equation, but the most important factor in gaining wealth is providing value to people. I could see someone starting from scratch and providing a million times more value than someone else. We want to encourage working smart, not just hard. I have no doubt that the guy at McDonalds working doubles works harder than my accountant does, but I would certainly pay my accountant more, since he is providing more value to me (even with less effort).
Most states in the US require a valid reason given for a firing. Unfortunately my state is a "right to work" state. You still cannot fire someone for discriminatory reasons such as race (surprise surprise, it happens to be an issue in this state), but you can fire them for no reason. Basically, if you hate Jim because he is black or gay, you can fire him, so long as you do not tell him what your reasons were.
Honestly, why would you even want a 3 hour lunch? I like the 1 hour I have, but any more time and I get antsy to get back to work. Now coming in 2 hours later, that I could get used to.
I believe it this morning, but like everyone else on the planet, will stop believing it by about 3pm when my hangover wears off.
I would accept that for creativity alone. Clearly you know how to cut through the red tape.
my brain has a very hard job accepting that someone who does programming for their livlihood could not solve this in their sleep.
This is my intuition as well, and I think we would both actually be correct. The thing is that most candidates looking for a job do not currently do this for a living, thus the looking for a job. Programmers who keep up with their skills and are constantly learning will be able to solve a problem like this after their first couple weeks of coding. Amazingly, some people never get to this point, slip through the cracks into a programming job at some shitty company, then amass what actually looks like a solid resume. Then when a change in the market occurs, these people get completely screwed. People like this seem to be a good portion of the currently unemployed programmer population. Everyone ends up unemployed at one point or another, but most competent programmers are only without work for very short amounts of time. People that cannot pass a simple test will be permanently applying. The rest are fraudsters trying to play a little "Catch Me If You Can".
Nope, but you might try a Javascript programmer. I would be willing to be a Java programmer would implement this using the ReverseFactoryAbstractFactoryFactory pattern though. They might be able to get it to you in a year, but you would be obligated to sign a 5 year 200k/yr support contract.
I was thinking the same thing. It was pitiful when the topic first came up on Coding Horror. Hundreds of responses, entirely missing the point that it was not supposed to be a challenge to anyone who actually knows how to program, and yet... so many failures.
Please optimize our production database by 40%. You have 30 minutes starting... Now!
It's not typically a Swordfish style hacking challenge where someone is holding a gun to your head. These tests are supposed to be simple and the time limit should be long enough that it is not a typing challenge. Ideally you make the time limits long enough that the slowest typer and the slowest thinker could still solve the problem if they were ever going to. I give 30 minutes for really basic problems. Every person I have given it to has either completed it in about 3 minutes with zero effort, or they give up and ask if there are any jobs in marketing available (or some other move that basically lets us know they were BSing us the entire time).
Irrelevant? A senior engineer should be able to knock this stuff out no problem. If they cannot, then there is no way they would be able to do the job. Of course, no need to pick the obscure stuff that no one remembers, but a few basic problems just to make sure they can write some code is essential. After that, then you can discuss the intricacies of whatever specialty they happen to have. Conversation seems to draw out the advanced skills much better, however, there are loads of "expert" coders out there who could not code their way out of wet paper bag.
Should take 3, I give 30. Still fail. Also, any language they want no matter what the job requires.
I never believed the whole "95% of interviewees fail the FizzBuzz test" until I started interviewing candidates. People with 15 years of "experience" on their resume would regularly fail or give up. I also encouraged googling, including just searching for the exact problem, and I encouraged questions and told them that both behaviors were seen as a good thing. IDK how someone could possibly get through a CS program and still fail this test, but it happened regularly.
I hate ASP.Net with a fiery passion (VS the ram hog, leaky abstractions, encourages poor design, tries to be stateful, etc.), but Linq using lambdas has to be one of the most productive features of any language. You have to be careful, since it can easily turn perl-esque, but it dominates with throw away scripts with crazy powerful one liners. It is the one thing I have missed since switching to rails a couple years ago.
But there is no such thing as an interval of 20 years, or even 2 years for that matter. At any point in time, even the very next day an employer can say to you "Sorry, your redundant". So to actually believe you have even 2 years of job security is a pure fantasy.
If you are at a company older than 5 years, growing at 20% per year or higher, and you are one of the drivers of the growth, then I would say you have close to 99% chance of keeping your job. If you are working for a company that is down 20% year over year then start looking now and do not make the same mistake again. Treat the interview process as you interviewing the company. You cannot get it right every time, but most people do not even try to figure out the trajectory a prospective employer is on. Simply looking at the big number on the check and not realistically considering how likely the company will be able to continue writing it will cost big in the long run.
So no, you cannot count on any one job being there forever, but reasonable job security is very attainable in this field if you are constantly improving in a way that companies are after (which, more or less entails providing more value to them than other things they could spend their money on).
The AC transcends petty human conditions like age and health.
...Now get off his lawn!
And it all leads back to mother fucking reptilian humanoids
Who would give a homeless person a golden retriever??? That seems like a stretch to me. I have seen lots of homeless in Asheville, NC with dogs as well. I tend to think of them as the "poser" homeless. Instead of being homeless due to addiction, mental illness, or disability, they do it because they romanticize the old hobos of the 1930s and like the idea of hanging out downtown playing music all day. Obviously, most homeless do not fall into this category.