
My Startup Job Interview - sgustard
http://blog.galler.io/startup-screen
======
facorreia
> Wait, it's on production? What is this, Ender's Game?

Great description of surprise push-to-production.

~~~
jzwinck
This happened to me once, as in my first month at a new job, I came in one day
to find I had caused a bug in production. But I hadn't deployed any software!

It turned out that the department had carefully orchestrated a system whereby
all checked-in code would move automatically to alpha the next day, then beta,
then production the next week. But nobody told me.

A manager there later told me, "If the code we write is strong enough, it does
not need to be released--it will escape."

And the student understood.

~~~
enry_straker
What did you understand?

\- That the manager decides what gets pushed into production?

\- That the manager decides not to inform the programmers concerned?

\- That you have a clown for a manager?

\- That it's probably time to quit the company?

~~~
jackmaney
I imagine that the answer would be "Yes".

------
bookface
Every "bad interview" story that graces the front page of HN has this common
theme that the interviewee is an infallible genius who aces every question.

I know there's a bias here (better engineers are probably more likely to blog
in the first place and most people would rather write about an experience
where they're the "victor"), but it would be nice to read an article from
someone acknowledging their own failure just once.

~~~
reikonomusha
I see what you're saying, but I can provide at least one counterexample. This
was on the front page whenever:
[http://symbo1ics.com/blog/?p=2055](http://symbo1ics.com/blog/?p=2055)

There were loads of interviewee issues that occurred in the article. Hopefully
that balances things a little.

~~~
bookface
Good read. Thanks for that.

edit: HN discussion:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6243627](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6243627)

------
jaredstenquist
I'd look at this as a positive experience. You were able to realize in an hour
or two, with one visit, that XYZ company was not a good fit for you.

There's a good chance the next company will suck for some reason or another.
On to the next one.

------
soneca
This is the first post of their "saga": [http://blog.galler.io/startup-
dialog](http://blog.galler.io/startup-dialog)

Maybe it will help everybody understand that this is a satire...

~~~
mathattack
Ahh... The rabbit hole question seemed like a hint too, but this confirms it.
Unfortunately this means that the Enders Game line wasn't said in reality.
Though perhaps in the future it will be.

~~~
idProQuo
Oscar Wilde: I wish I had said that. James McNeill Whistler: You will, Oscar,
you will.

------
redfhendrix
It seems that 90% of the comments have missed the fact that this is obviously
hyperbolic satire....

~~~
philangist
It's not really that hyperbolic. Only thing that clued me in was surprise push
to production.

~~~
redfhendrix
After staring at the rabbit, black hole, and troll question for a few seconds
and going "WUT?" I started to get the feeling this didn't actually happen.

~~~
czbond
I thought it funny but tried to start formulating an algorithm - seemed do-
able

~~~
ssw1n
To me, some important information seems to be missing for it to become a legit
brain-teaser: the numbers of rabbits? the number of holes? how does each round
work?, etc.

------
redcan
What was the closed form expression for the number of rabbits?

~~~
benjaminwootton
I've made a good living as a programmer for a decade now, and I'm not afraid
to say I don't even understand the question.

It's a silly question unless it's for a quantitative role.

~~~
agibsonccc
Edit: Redacted: left for consistency. Had him confused there.

A closed form expression is basically just a mathematical function used to
model a potentially infinite series.

Take a look here: [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Closed-
form_expression](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Closed-form_expression)

Look at the first and second examples.

You'll see the big summation sign (for loop: i to infinite) and then an
explicit function.

If you want to think, what the heck is this math crap used for: think about a
more basic everyday concept like recursion. How do you know it will terminate?

~~~
pmelendez
I don't think he is talking about the closed form expression (at least I know
what a closed-form is and still couldn't understand the question).

There was no information whatsoever about what changes on each iteration... if
nothing changes then the answer would be a constant of whatever rabbits were
at the beginning... and that doesn't sound about right :/

~~~
agibsonccc
Bah got ya.

------
corobo
This is one of those blogs that needs an RSS feed or email subscription. I'm
interested in reading more from it, however will have forgotten the domain by
the end of the day

~~~
at-fates-hands
One of the reasons HN needs a search function for stories. Don't know how many
times I remember a cool story a co-worker would want to read and can't find it
for the life of me - even after trying to wrestle the story out of Google.

Also, if there is some decent way to search the links or stories which I don't
know of, by all means, tell me.

~~~
unimpressive
[https://www.hnsearch.com/](https://www.hnsearch.com/)

------
alexmorse
I'm looking forward to the collected essays "Somewhat verbatim guide on how
not to run a company."

~~~
advisedwang
Verbose.

Verbatim means "in exactly the same words as were used originally."

~~~
redfhendrix
I think that's what the "Somewhat" is for. It's supposed to enhance the
satirical qualities of the pieces.

i.e. "This is exactly how I perceive start-up interviews but I've taken some
creative liberties to drive my point home."

------
bliti
A guy in a shirt, a guy in a polo, and an Asian lady. Why not a lady? Not
calling you racist, but it is interesting how the race of non-whites seems to
be included in some manner like it is always relevant. Why not mention the
race of the two other people? Is it less relevant? You only mention the lady
once. What role did she play in the situation?

Just curious.

~~~
hackinthebochs
That actually stood out to me as well, but I disagree with the others that the
detail was meaningless. Of course, the detail we choose to convey has very
specific meaning, sometimes unintentionally. The point of "asian lady" does
paint a specific picture, but to me it conjures an image of an older,
motherly/grandmotherly image (no one refers to a woman in their
age/social/cultural group as 'lady' these days). The point was likely to
describe a very unusual group of people: "Two Daves, one in a T-shirt, and an
[old] Asian lady". The lack of racial details of the Daves indicates that
they're the typical archetype of a young startup programmer. They could
essentially be any race, so it didn't matter to point it out. The asian lady
was meant to be the oddball, so that specific detail was necessary to paint
that picture.

~~~
bliti
I see. Your interpretation makes sense. I did not take into account the word
_lady_. I now understand the implication of her being mentioned. Normally, I
use lady to refer to every, well, lady. It was my own habit that kept me from
understanding the context behind the words.

------
girvo
I know this is satire... But quite literally, at a place I worked at (for two
months, I quit) they actually did push code that wrote in the second interview
to production.

~~~
mason55
I was at a talk last week where pushing interview code to production was
highlighted as a good lean practice and recruiting tool

Someone in the audience asked if they made the interviewees sign anything
since the company was using their unpaid labor and the guy giving the talk was
seriously dumbfounded as if the idea had literally never even occurred to him.

~~~
Apocryphon
Sounds like they don't even need to recruit anyone, just continuously hold
interviews.

------
dandare
“If you could change anything, what would it be?”

I want to be smarter.

~~~
ianstallings
“If you could change anything, what would it be?”

"My honesty"

"I don't see honesty as a problem that needs changing"

"I don't give a shit what you think"

------
ryandetzel
Sounds about right. You forgot the ridiculous comp sci question that you'll
never use (or you could lookup easy enough) but they want to make sure you
paid attention in class 5 years ago.

------
ssw1n
On the next episode, I guess the character Mike will get an offer, and will be
asked to move-in to the company house where all 5 employees of the whole
company live in the same big apartment?

~~~
jackmaney
And then there will be a reality show called "Six is a Company".

------
basicallydan
Um, I'm not sure what the point of this post was apart from an mildly
interesting story, well told. I enjoyed reading it, thanks.

------
untitledwiz
I thought it was very well written and was quite amused!

------
viennacoder
It's funny because it's true.

------
mlashcorp
Sounds like fiction

------
tharshan09
the guy is exaggerating right?

