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Comment by j45 | Hacker News Reader

If insulted doesn't begin to explain it, entitled might.

I think the tests are annoying too. Still is ultimately called work for a reason, we show up to get things done that are challenging, sometimes unpleasant and often necessary.

As a developer who hires other developers, I don't place the value in testing on what a developer can code, but how quickly they can learn and how well they can solve problems and communicate - testing can help shed a light on non technical strengths or shortcomings.

A good test focuses as much on higher level analysis as coding. The majority of new developers with a few years of skills may not have developed quickly enough in this regards yet.

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Do you mean the employer is entitled or the employee? I have seen low skilled employers (supermarkets) complaining about university grads. When someone should point out that they are a "jumped up grocer" and they don't get to employ firsts from Oxbridge

And turn it the other way around what if a potential employee insisted on employers doing a test.

Imaginin interviewing at uber and asking

"So MR Manger" what's the difference between a worker and an employee :-)

Or asking a series of q on the companies anti discrimination bullying discipline or grievance procedures.

The thread is about a developer's issues with being tested during interviews, so I would say the potential employee is entitled if balking about being asked about their abilities to the extent that the employer is the one signing the cheque, and a basis for the employer being able to add value in exchange for salary is still being established.

Knowing a little more than non-technical employers doesn't place an inexperienced developer in a position of expertise, only knowing a little more than the guy testing them.

If you are referring to non technical folks not being skilled at hiring for technical positions, I agree to the point that this is a common challenge where non tech people are put in charge of digital transformation, among other things.

Even highly competent and technical teams can struggle with testing incoming hires we.

An interesting idea is contemplating if tech people will be able to learn and transform business skills easier than non techs business folks might be able to learn tech. If this was attractive to tech folks, the hiring tests would include more business problem oriented questions than fizzing and buzzing. It's still a little surprising how few developers can do this in any country, so it might remain an inconvenient test and filter for a while yet.

> If this was attractive to tech folks, the hiring tests would include more business problem oriented questions than fizzing and buzzing

And yet business people don't get any tests. No one else on the entire planet gets tests for almost every role opportunity they want to explore. So why do developers have to?

Actually, I can answer that. The answer is because the overwhelming majority of a modern company's productivity is up to the performance of the developers. The business guys get away with under-performing because their underprformance is not a significant factor on the bottom line.

The commonplace testing of developers has nothing to do with ratios of good to bad developers, or the relative ease of assessing developer skill compared to other professions. It has everything to do with the fact that developers drive the lions share of modern business value so they've been singled out for shitty treatment with testing and kaggle competitions and similar garbage. I really hope to see a software engineering union rise in the next few years which cracks down on this and empowers developers to negotiate relative to their actual value in modern business.

People like you aren't needed in the world of high tech. Your role is redundant.

I'm a developer. Possibly a little more experienced from the level of ad hominem negativity you're comfortable directing at others to feel better about one's self.

A software developers union would be interesting. Accreditation from testing to be in a professional body will still have people who can hide among the work of others, but much less so. Also a challenge for a tech union would be the rapid changing nature of software development compared to other unionized industries to maintain a baseline. Not the first time it's been thought about.

Non tech positions are even harder to test for at hiring. Especially since so many hr, accounting jobs themselves are requiring increased digital transformation skills of knowing how to select and implement business systems.

Tech hiring interviews were designed largely by tech people.

The real hilarious part is seeing a non tech hr person try to buy a hr software system and implement it. Being the subject matter expert no longer means an ability implement and roll out programs as it used to - its a growing issue that requires people who can understand and work with detail.

Working with details requires an ability to care about the plight of others, organizations and their processes to prove to lower the suffering of people at the hands of their employment environments.

> I'm a developer. Possibly a little more experienced from the level of ad hominem negativity

Perhaps if you were actually more experienced, you wouldn't stoop to the ultimate irony of dismissing every point I made by attacking my tone. I stand by what I said, people like you are redundant in modern tech. I think when you tell yourself you're more experienced than me, you're conflating that with you being older and 'wiser' and less confrontational because your testosterone levels have dropped. The tech industry assigns a negative value to age and wisdom, sorry.

Email me, happy to compare how much experience we might have and the relevance.

Attitude carries one past those with just skill and knowledge.

Learning to channel energy instead of raging at others is the ultimate productivity.

Why the UK has several Unions the represent highly technical managerial and professionals and its the employers job to manage the competence or not.

Unions don't really want to get involved with being the accrediting body to many conflicts of interests.

Your right though that untrained people should not really be doing interviews let alone designing them.

The funny thing is that for all your grandstanding about developer importance and productivity and what not, the only point you successfully manage to get across is that you are an obnoxious child that no one would wish to work with.

I could say the same for HR at BT we had one HR person come to present to our team meting and they did not know that the developers in BT are M&P Grades and not CWU blue collar grades.

Though I would agree that asking we have a business problem how would you solve or improve on what we do now is a much better q to ask.

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