The response that stuck in my memory was from Jonathan Blow (whom I greatly admire, apart from the following), and amounted to "then you're not a very good programmer".
Personally, I strongly suspect that the predictive power of interview questions depends ~90% on the knowledge and experience of the interviewer, and the specific questions aren't that important. I reckon the disconnect here is that you and JBlow are judging things as the guy had failed the interview question as you would have administered it. And it's possible that that's roughly the case, but it's also possible that he failed the interview as administered by a bad interviewer - who, say, cut him off after the first trivial error rather than suggesting he check his answer for bugs, or whatever.
As such, I take no issue with data structure questions per se, I just find it hard to buy this idea that they're massively predictive - compared to, say, having shipped lots of good code for a long time.
> With respect to Max Howell - I will, indeed, leave speculation out..
This would read better if it wasn't followed by speculating where the guy's qualified to work (based on memories of a tweet from three years ago!) and then speculating what he does and doesn't know about an interview he was in.
> This would read better if it wasn't followed by speculating where the guy's qualified to work (based on memories of a tweet from three years ago!) and then speculating what he does and doesn't know about an interview he was in.
The process at Google (of which I'm not intimately familiar with, I admit, but I have read a lot about) is such that if you are rejected, you are very rarely told why (I know of one case in about 30, and it was an offer that was rescinded based on some bureaucratic reasons). It might have been the reason, for sure; but it is extremely unlikely that this is what he was told, thus I infer speculation on his side. By accounts from Googlers I know (and some who commented on those threads at the time), it should be considered truism, not speculation, that he was not told the reason.
Also, I'm not speculating about where the guy is qualified to work. I was referring to several places I know for sure (some high profile, mostly in finance) where such a rant on Twitter is enough to disqualify you (and get you fired if you're already employed). I don't know Yelp specifically, but it seems like one of those places[0]
> It might have been the reason, for sure; but it is extremely unlikely that this is what he was told, thus I infer speculation on his side.
Nobody's suggesting HR sent him a letter - presumably he formed his conclusion based on what was said in the interviews. It may be that he did so unreasonably, as a defense mechanism, and it may be that whatever was said left little doubt why he wouldn't be getting an offer. All we know is that he felt there was enough information to form a conclusion, and the principle of charity compels us to assume that such may be the case.
Honestly, I'm not trying to pick an argument or anything here. I just think your confidence judging this guy's character and hirability and so on is way out of whack considering that it's based on a three year-old recollection of a tweet.
Personally, I strongly suspect that the predictive power of interview questions depends ~90% on the knowledge and experience of the interviewer, and the specific questions aren't that important. I reckon the disconnect here is that you and JBlow are judging things as the guy had failed the interview question as you would have administered it. And it's possible that that's roughly the case, but it's also possible that he failed the interview as administered by a bad interviewer - who, say, cut him off after the first trivial error rather than suggesting he check his answer for bugs, or whatever.
As such, I take no issue with data structure questions per se, I just find it hard to buy this idea that they're massively predictive - compared to, say, having shipped lots of good code for a long time.
> With respect to Max Howell - I will, indeed, leave speculation out..
This would read better if it wasn't followed by speculating where the guy's qualified to work (based on memories of a tweet from three years ago!) and then speculating what he does and doesn't know about an interview he was in.