Hi folks! People who are hiring or take developer interviews, have you noticed in dip in quality? I consistently see developers not being aware of fundamentals or theory. Ask them about usage and they’ll go on for hours but when I ask “why”, I get crickets. Anyone has a different experience?

This is the foremost trend with the data science jobs. I have been taking interviews for 3 yrs now, and have come cross only a couple of profiles that were fit for the job. It's not like that I set the bar too high for them to cross, but even if I ask 101 kind of questions, the candidates have no clue or they will spit out some bookish definition.

Nothing new in Backend side as well. Same things here as well.

A nephew is getting a degree in data science in college. He has no clue about basic computer architecture, networking, basic hardware. To him GBs of data just magically appears and he has to deal with it. I walked him through a real-world usecase we solved a few years ago where we were able to convert the GBs of data to MBs by understanding how often we needed the sensors generating data to wake up, tweaked the application protocol to batch things together leading to better battery life. And I asked him what was more valueable - just mindless processing of data or being able to optimise the entire pipeline. His reply was that most jobs just required the former.

Precisely @quick-judge-84214. Building a team now seems to only be possible by training freshers ourselves. Folks who are capable are either starting companies or are in FAANG (MANGA)

To a good extend, I believe the culprit behind the downfall in quality is the plethora of online degrees being offered by various institutes. A hot topic is quickly converted into a degree/diploma where the curriculum covers mostly on "how to do things" and less on "why do they work and the nitty gritty details". And the incentive shown is drastic increment in salaries, if you have this degree/diploma. This "quick" way of going into a field is lowering the quality. And, this is consistent across roles (junior/mid/senior).

That’s a great assessment

Yep. Been taking a lot of frontend interviews and I rarely come across someone I feel is really good.

Yeah. I relate to that. I was getting concerned that I am setting the bar too high as I recently started interviewing. I always had trouble explaining things in interviews so cut some slack for some people but did realise that they weren't having trouble explaining, they just didn't know stuff.

Interviewing is a skill in itself. Since I have always been highly introverted, early on in my career I failed interviews because I struggled to articulate my thoughts clearly and would get nervous. I ended up looking incompetent in a lot of interviews even though I knew the answers. Not ashamed to admit it. I had to force myself to grow out of my shell and learn to manage situations where the interviewer puts you on a spot.

Agree @faint-energy-11966. Interviewers must know how to pry information out of the candidate, make them comfortable, etc. There are interviewers who take hard line approach “If the candidate doesn’t talk and walk like me/us then no good”. This is entirely wrong. Candidates have varied experiences and fresh perspectives. However the truth is, even basic 101 questions no matter how many hints, or examples, majority just don’t know it. Their existing orgs don’t invest time or money in grooming and skilling up

I once interviewed someone who could write React but couldn’t write vanilla javascript 😅

Same observations in non-dev (Cloud SAs, Platform and Ops roles) interviews for me. I see a lot of superficial know how, but as soon as you try to go into why, the interview derails. I even spend a few minutes to get supper chatty and friendly before interviews to tone down the anxiety levels.

Even if buzzword skilling happens, there is zero motivation from the individual to self-learn and improve once they get the job. Engineering used to be an art form 🙂

So same situation as 25 years ago when the IT services boom started - flooding the market with "bodies" trained in specific skills - with financial incentive being the overwhelming driver. Fair enough. People have a right to maximise their earnings in any legal way. Makes my job hiring people with more well-rounded skills much harder, but that's my problem. I had to stop using AngelList for this reason - the SNR was terrible.

The problem is universal. As an academician too, I have seen the average level of students falling down across years (25+ years). Earlier there used to be 1 or 2 brilliant students in every class ready to do and learn everything you have to teach. Rest just concerned with passing. Now most just concerned with passing, rarely one gets a motivated student.

Sir what type of questions we need to prepare to good at fundamentals @best-animal-3294 . I'm a college student will be very helpful, if you share points

An article pertinent to this thread. AI/ML and data science degrees seem to be the next BBA.