Daniel H. Alcojor (he/him)
Ron Gilbert (GrumpyGamer)I've been programming for 40 years, 35 of that professionally. I've built my own compilers and entire game engines and I don't think I could pass a programming test for a job interview these days. We never gave programming test for RtMI, we just talked about programming with the candidate and never got a bum hire.
Annamal@grumpygamer I'm in a different industry altogether but we've phased out programming tests in favour of asking candidates to communicate ideas in a useful way to non-technical people (it's one thing to cite jargon and another to boil down concepts).
Jeiel Aranal@annamal @grumpygamer this is such a great idea!
@subjnerd @grumpygamer It's not perfect and it could definitely risk accidental discrimination in favour of native language speakers (and communication can be extremely subjective which also introduces potential bias in a way that a programming test might not). Having said all that, some of the better communicators have been people who aren't working in their first language because they've had to think about how they communicate in a way that monolingual people (like me) have not.
@annamal @grumpygamer I worked as a technical artist before and one of the aspects of doing that work is communicating technical aspects of games to artists who usually aren't technically minded, so I have a great appreciation for doing something like that.
@subjnerd @grumpygamer Doing it well seems to be tricky.
juv3nal@grumpygamer there's a whole range programming tests. some are totally trivial & will only weed out people who are completely bullshitting on their cv, but there's also ones that are trying to wrangle free work and never intending to hire in the first place
Raul Portales@grumpygamer I am against programming interviews where you wrote actual code. My company insists on having them. We managed a middle ground.
They are simple enough to be solved in 1-2 hours and we use then for a conversation in the technical interview.
Derek Hansen@grumpygamer I have switched to doing a code reading exercise for junior positions just to verify they know something about coding. Other than that, having a conversation about previous roles and projects is the most effective way I have found.
⛧⛧⛧J.d.B.⛧⛧⛧@grumpygamer
That is the best strategy. Unless you're a corporation with an HR team that needs to hire 1000 people a month...
That is the best strategy. Unless you're a corporation with an HR team that needs to hire 1000 people a month...
ferreo@grumpygamer I dislike doing them but it's better than the "design this system with not enough information" or "code this pointless algorithm nobody uses day to day" in the interviews themselves.
100% agree that talking about programming is easily the best way, you get an understanding of how the person communicates and their passion for it too. Tests don't give you that.
Robin Ward@grumpygamer in the early days of Discourse we pitched it to Valve. I only made it half the way through the full day of interviews because I failed the programming stuff. It was a bummer but obviously Discourse worked out well so I can’t really complain.
When we hired devs we always just gave them small (and paid!) audition projects. If they did well we hired them.
Steven G. Harms@grumpygamer well you also have the edge of pitching working on a beloved game franchise. That’s probably insulated your process from comp-maximizing parasites. Agree on the take though.
David Fox 🌻🥸@grumpygamer That's a good thing. I'm not great on tests. I guess my test was Maniac Mansion coding.
James Aitchison (叡智さん)@DavidBFox @grumpygamer I think the RtMI results speak for themselves 👍
Gen X-Wing@DavidBFox @grumpygamer I rather code Maniac Mansion than doing coding tests for interviews. I stink at those.
Doug BostromThese tests might be thought of not as answering "can they code," more about revealing "can they functionally tolerate an obnoxious environment."
Arguably, the "need" for tests is a positive correlate with "lousy management."
Some outfits go out of their way to make things obnoxious starting at the very beginning of the relationship.
Don Meyer@grumpygamer So true! Nice that it’s not just me.
After also having 40+ years as a programmer, I don’t have any desire to jump through a “write code to reverse the bits” hoop!
After also having 40+ years as a programmer, I don’t have any desire to jump through a “write code to reverse the bits” hoop!
StephenThat's my biggest fear if anything ever happened to the job I have. I'm not a great programmer on the spot, but I do love it. I'm good at talking to folks, working out solutions, optimizing things, etc.
I suck at random arbitrary programming tasks.
Conflagration-As-Code@grumpygamer Absolutely agree - with a technical interviewer who can ask the right questions and tell when someone is truly knowledgeable and passionate, it is by far the best approach.. that said, sometimes people just don't interview well, but you can still tell that a spark is there behind the anxiety - in those cases, a take-away coding exercise or review of a previous project (e.g. on GitHub) can be a good hybrid approach to allow them to demonstrate capability with less pressure.
Carly Sagan@grumpygamer thanks for saying this! Coding tests are such a joke, just bc you don’t know how to do the one obscure thing they ask on the spot doesn’t mean much. Nothing you do on the job is timed/on the spot. irl you get weeks/months to google everything 😂
Hugh Ferguson@grumpygamer agree with that. My first introduction to computers was about 40 years ago. I've been in IT since 1994, and had a sort of coming interview once in 2003. Then it was paper and pencil, writing pseudo code. Given I type faster than I write, I could have coded it faster.
Ralph Caraveo@grumpygamer - common themes I see when it comes to companies interviewing candidates: Big-O notation, stupid Google-like question like how many golf balls fit in the Empire State Building and lastly making the candidate swear by asking them obscure API questions that can easily be looked up in a doc. I’ve interviewed plenty of people and the interview is a chance for the candidate to show off their skills not the other way around.
グレェ「grey」@grumpygamer Extremely relatable.
vikkio@grumpygamer I think tests are useful to have an even and measurable performance comparison between candidates, on the knowledge and problem solving ability, though the most important thing should not be that but how they'll fit personality-wise within the team.
Olivier Lau@grumpygamer totally agree, companies who rely on programming tests are probably missing many good programmers.
draxil@grumpygamer that's how I got hired for my current gig, more incisive questions, less very fake task to spend too long over engineering.
rollspelosofen@grumpygamer I agree with this even though I've only been programming for 14 years.
I've heard from colleagues and other people in the business what they've gone through in their interviews and I doubt I would manage to pass any of those tests.
But I still get hired, I still get business and I still get happy customers.
András N.@grumpygamer Sounds like the tests are regressing. You were doing then what research proved since then works better: Instead of stressful raw knowledge tests, more of an attutude test with personal assessment by you, the experts and future colleagues.
Dr Johnny Blanchard@grumpygamer yep, even good devs don’t know everything and can freeze up. Plus, isn’t that what the probation period is for?
salyavin@grumpygamer That happened to an excoworker of mine. He still has not found another programming job. He thinks they see him as old and slow.