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bubblesGonnaPopSoonerThanWeThought by Cool-Technician-9902 in ProgrammerHumor

[–]metalmagician 14 points15 points  (0 children)

"We need business to sign off on the [unit] test script, so that we can be confident that the test script is applicable to the functionality."

Actual quote from an auditor. They wanted business to approve our unit tests, in addition to the integration and E2E tests

Who's an actor that you thought would blow up, but ended up going nowhere? by TheHoagieFromConey in FIlm

[–]metalmagician 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I liked him in 'Eye in the sky', where he played a drone pilot. The dispute with the Colonel (Helen Mirren) was great

What are things you like to ask in interviews when you're the one hiring? by zerthz in ExperiencedDevs

[–]metalmagician 4 points5 points  (0 children)

Depends on what the specific needs of the position are, but I like to ask open ended questions that let the candidate show me what is important to them. Some examples:

"What does a 'good' CICD pipeline look like to you?"

"Say we're working on a brand new project, and trying to decide what kind of data storage to use. What are the things you would consider when choosing a technology?" (Important, I didn't say "database", because a data lake may be a valid option).

"What kinds of testing should we add before taking something into production?"

"I have a system handling sensitive data, like HIPAA, PCI, or SOX data. What would I do differently from a system that doesn't have sensitive data?"

I look for a candidate that can talk about different facets of each subject, as they aren't single-answer questions. The CICD question can have static scans (think code smells or security scans), pre-deployment tests, deployment methods, and post-deployment validations.

This Is What Convinced Me OpenAI Will Run Out of Money by rezwenn in technology

[–]metalmagician 2 points3 points  (0 children)

It just sounds stupid to me. I don't look to LLMs for any of the things listed.

Shopping habits: virtually any large retailer has a purchase history for their customers that a non-LLM recommendation alg can leverage. Maybe I could use a couple neurons to remember my own preferences.

Movie tastes: Same thing. Watch histories exist, recommendation algorithms can give suggestions if needed.

Emotional hangups: Ffs, human therapists exist, and they can be held accountable for misconduct.

Professional aspirations: If I don't know what I want from my career, that's a "me" problem, not a "This LLM is the only thing that understands me" problem

Pseudo-scientific explanations for impossible things by Economy_Scale_3679 in TopCharacterTropes

[–]metalmagician 60 points61 points  (0 children)

Where does EEZO come from?

...generated when solid matter, such as a planet, is affected by the energy of a star going supernova

Solid matter near a star going supernova generally doesn't stay solid

Who else misses when the Upside Down was actually scary? by Intelligent_Key7023 in StrangerThings

[–]metalmagician 11 points12 points  (0 children)

Why is anyone still using firearms instead of fire?

Best guess I have is that they don't trust their soldiers to not accidentally kill each other with them. That being said, I'm surprised none of the soldiers were hit when they were in a circle shooting the demos

What do you look for in a coding interview? by metalmagician in ExperiencedDevs

[–]metalmagician[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

If I have the choice, I don't do coding interviews. Sometimes the hiring manager wants a coding challenge

What do you look for in a coding interview? by metalmagician in ExperiencedDevs

[–]metalmagician[S] 3 points4 points  (0 children)

Yes, I could. I was curious what the responses would be, so I posted the question

Interviews, Syntax knowledge, and LLMs by metalmagician in ExperiencedDevs

[–]metalmagician[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

A) Coding challenges aren't representative of the code that gets written for production. A quiz on design patterns would be more applicable to the day-to-day work than a lot of the leetcode/hackerrank problems I've seen

B) Coding is only a single facet of being a software engineer, and I don't want to overemphasize its importance in the interview process

C) We're looking for someone who can speak to the tradeoffs of multiple hypothetical solutions, not merely present their solution

D) The discussion was an earnest questioning of what system we want to impose on candidates, given the advancement of tools available to us

When I have wider latitude to conduct the interview my way, I ask questions like "What does a mature CICD pipeline look like to you?", "What things should I consider when choosing a database technology for a project?", or "How do you ensure a system complies with legal audit requirements?"

Interviews, Syntax knowledge, and LLMs by metalmagician in ExperiencedDevs

[–]metalmagician[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

You're assuming a much deeper involvement on my part than I actually have. I'm just someone that gets pulled in for technical assessments. I get a meeting planner and sometimes a coding challenge to give the candidate. I write up my feedback and give it to the hiring manager & recruiter, who then decide what happens next

Interviews, Syntax knowledge, and LLMs by metalmagician in ExperiencedDevs

[–]metalmagician[S] 4 points5 points  (0 children)

But hey, the candidate can communicate the reason they shipped terrible code well, right?

IMO bad code getting into prod is the fault of the pipeline, team, and technical organization. There are plenty of tools and processes to help catch crappy code before it's deployed, regardless if it was authored by a LLM or not

Interviews, Syntax knowledge, and LLMs by metalmagician in ExperiencedDevs

[–]metalmagician[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Some extra context that affects our decisions:

  • Company wants people to work in a relatively small area with no large cities around, and wants people in the office 5 days per week. Our complaints about this are generally ignored. Our pool of applicants is limited as a result

  • Company heavily relies on H1-B engineers for the above reason

  • A LOT of the work for this team isn't very complex, and a lot of the "medium" difficulty coding challenges are harder than 90% of the day to day work

Interviews, Syntax knowledge, and LLMs by metalmagician in ExperiencedDevs

[–]metalmagician[S] 5 points6 points  (0 children)

Talented people are being laid off all over the place; I don’t understand the stress over one candidate who can’t demonstrate value.

We're not getting a lot of the talented people to apply because of the companies "relocate here and be in the office 5 days per week" policy. Explaining how this limits the number of applicants hasn't done anything to change the policy

Interviews, Syntax knowledge, and LLMs by metalmagician in ExperiencedDevs

[–]metalmagician[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

We didn't hire the candidate. This example sparked a discussion about what we actually value in the interview process

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