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Comment by MortimerDukePhD | Hacker News Reader

My all-time favorite FizzBuzz story:

https://css-tricks.com/tales-of-a-non-unicorn-a-story-about-...

What a silly story. They applied for a job that made it clear they were looking for someone who could proficiently program, and they couldn't do it. So they didn't get the job. What a surprise.

Asking for a list of tasks that will come up or code examples is particularly naive. Technical jobs aren't a laundry list of exact needs.

Being an engineer in any field requires versatility, including the ability to solve problems on your feet and to learn new technology, or to learn tech you already know to a greater depth, at the drop of a hat.

This is one of the few times I've ever read a story about impostor syndrome where the story teller actually was an impostor. Bizarre.

I think you missed the point of the story, which was that the company was asking for a combination of skills that never exist in the same person. An unicorn. In that context it is reasonable to assume that if you have the core competency (in this case design skills, not coding), then you should apply.

Also fizz buzz has nothing to do with the kind of programming that was expected from the job description. Now you might reasonably object that fizz buzz is supposed to be something so rudimentary that any programmer could implement. But the point is UI/UX people don't typically do any algorithms work at all. Their interaction with JS is often just to call an API and shove the resulting data where it needs to be in the DOM. They may never have to use a loop, ever. Or conditional testing. Or think about infinite sequences. To a proper software engineer like you or me fizz buzz seems ridiculously simple. But I could totally see a UX designer whose only interaction with self-taught JS is to glue APIs together being tripped up.

So you're saying that you don't expect UI developers to ever implement a test?

FizzBuzz is an "algorithm" in the same way that touching one's toes is gymnastics.

> I think you missed the point of the story, which was that *the company was asking for a combination of skills that never exist in the same person.*

I've asked the people I work with that have this combination of skills but, unfortunately, they all popped out of existence the moment the question left my mouth.

Perhaps they were impostors too?

The story is hilarious, because FizzBuzz actually worked as the hiring filter it was designed to be!

"Write FizzBuzz" - "OMG, MATH!"

Impostor meets Dunning-Kruger.

Her point about the title "engineer" being in nearly every job posting while basically conferring zero meaning is definitely on point, but her mock outrage about being asked an extremely rudimentary programming question surprised me given that one of the requirements of the job was JavaScript...

You don’t need FizzBuzz to do that job. Ask her about KnockoutJS or Angular

In this context, I was expecting another unusual/proficient implementation of FizzBuzz. I didn't enjoy this story about someone who was asked FizzBuzz in an interview and didn't think the position should require her to know that.

Well it’s a silly test. Her point is that the interview should match job description. These FAANG coding tests are stupid

The job description required Javascript familiarity, FizzBuzz is a bare minimum for familiarity

It is barely in the same family tree as FAANG coding tests.

No, you need to go back and read it again. According to her story, it said:

“ HTML5, CSS3, JavaScript. I’m a master at the first two, but since there was no mention of programming stuff and the responsibilities section was so design-centric, I figured my jQuery proficiency and capacity to self-teach would suffice.”

The entire job description read like a UI/UX designer with a minimal understanding of JavaScript.

Her point is that if they wanted a software engineer then they should have hired one. She isn’t trying to be one.

> Experienced with Object Oriented JavaScript and modern JavaScript libraries such as Ember, Backbone, or Angular.

There's no version of a person who meets this requirement that cannot fizzbuzz. They put engineer in the title of the position.

"UX Engineer" is a completely reasonable title for someone who uses Javascript, HTML, and CSS to build web frontends. That person is absolutely a programmer, and absolutely must be able to fizzbuzz (and much, much more).

I understand that you are not familiar with the difference between basic qualification and preferred qualification.

In HR parlance, if the person meets the BQs then they are considered qualified. If someone comes along and you have two equals but the one of the two had the preferred then they are the preferred candidate. Preferred candidate would be expected to know fizzbuzz.

The part you pasted was in the preferred qualifications.

Also engineer term is overloaded here which is also her point

If you cannot fizzbuzz you are not basically qualified. Fizzbuzz is the basic qualification test. If you cannot do conditionals and remainder you cannot be expected to be reasonably proficient enough to do anything else of note in the language.

This is not a point of contention. It is the entire point of fizzbuzz. Fizzbuzz was designed to stop wasting interviewer time by filtering out people who could never in any way be construed to be qualified for a position that involved writing code.

You do not need to know FizzBuzz to hire as a UI/UX designer. End of story

All civil engineers think they have the right skills to be architects

She’s complaining that the job description didn’t mention coding as a requirement, but it actually says “deliver solid, reliable code”..?

And fizzbuzz is not a math problem. I’m sure the interviewer would’ve even given her a hint if she came as far as writing a loop and writing the different branches but not figuring out how to differentiate the cases. I’d shrug that off as nervousness perhaps.

Reading all the comments on there about people not knowing how to write fizz buzz was actually scary. I get that fizz buzz isn't a useful project or whatever, but it's not like you have to be a genius to figure it out. Someone mentioned needing CS161 or something... Not really a requirement, more like knowing how to write basic code.

i will share mine https://joelgrus.com/2016/05/23/fizz-buzz-in-tensorflow/

"Thanks a lot, machine learning!" ahha

Yeah... I read all the way to 32 to find an error (and didn't check my working before posting this comment).

I wish I could meet these people who can't code a fizz buzz.

I love this story because I run across jobs all the time that sound great in the title and then you read the job description - it often sounds like a list of buzzwords or a combination of multiple people into one job. It’s like she says, they lumped everything into one position.

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