On Secretly Terrible Engineers

Re:On Secretly Terrible Engineers by angersock on Sunday March 08, 2015 @03:30PM (#9166841)

Now, to place this in context--was this at a company in Japan, with (by you even!) well-documented social norms about how technically incompetent employees are dealt with, or was this with a company with more conventional engineering culture?

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Re:On Secretly Terrible Engineers by patio11 on Sunday March 08, 2015 @03:45PM (#9166913)

This is not a Japanese-only thing. It is a thing so common in America that there is a named test to detect it -- FizzBuzz [+] -- and this test, or one like it, actually catches many people out.

[+] c.f. Any of the following and note that they're from the nation of, ahem, conventional engineering culture:

http://imranontech.com/2007/01/24/using-fizzbuzz-to-find-dev...

http://blog.codinghorror.com/why-cant-programmers-program/

http://www.globalnerdy.com/2012/11/15/fizzbuzz-still-works/

I would note that a common theme in these posts is "I thought it was a myth but then I tried hiring and the boogeyman sprung to horrifying life."

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Re:On Secretly Terrible Engineers by ig1 on Sunday March 08, 2015 @04:13PM (#9167029)

Not that it invalidates your larger point, but I feel I should point out that I invented FizzBuzz while primarily interviewing European candidates in London :)

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Re:On Secretly Terrible Engineers by tessierashpool on Sunday March 08, 2015 @05:50PM (#9167442)

I've seen it too. I think, if you haven't seen it, it's either due to luck or sample size.

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