[9-2-2008] In which our man reflects on a truely bizarre past job interview...
I have to confess that it was with a slight smirk that I read that games mega-corp Electronic Arts had made a loss in the third quarter, and that the loss was partly due to the way they account for on-line enabled games. Serves them right for turning me down as a network programmer a couple of years back!
I've never been to such a bizarre interview in my life. They didn't know why they wanted a network programmer, or even what one did. They gave me a written test that was all about 3D math and video programming, the few C++ questions were laughable, some of the code examples should have got the perpetrators a written warning, and the concept of optimising compilers seemed to have gone completely past them.
The interviewers were stuck in the world of the early 1980s - the only true code is 6502 and Z80 assembler, and it must be written in a garret by an unwashed pimply faced youth...
The face-to-face interview was full of embarrassing pauses while they desperately tried to think of questions to ask. In the event the only thing they could think of was to ask what the difference between between TCP and UDP. Actually, I think the guy who asked the question was in the process if trying to impliment TCP over UDP!
In the event they rejected me on the grounds that:
1. I didn't have a degree in Computer Science. This true - there wasn't such a beast when I went to University in 1967. On the other hand, if they'd asked, I could have pointed out that I did have computer experience as part of an engineering course - on a then state of the art valve based analog computer!*
2. I didn't have any experience with the Xbox360. At that time the 360 had only been available to developers for about 6 months. Had they asked I could have pointed out that I'd worked on nine different operating systems in the previous 15 years - including a Honeywell Bull machine with a 34-bit machine word! Xbox would have been a relief after that little affair...
In the event, I suspect, given the lousy hours and pay in the games industry ('If you don't like it, there are kids queuing round the block looking for jobs in computer games.'), I had a lucky escape.
At the time I thought this was just a problem with their developers, but the financial results indicate that perhaps the problem runs a little deeper :)
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*The mean time between failure for all the valves was about 4.5 minutes. If you were wise you made damn sure you got all the results out within 4 minutes!
I've never been to such a bizarre interview in my life. They didn't know why they wanted a network programmer, or even what one did. They gave me a written test that was all about 3D math and video programming, the few C++ questions were laughable, some of the code examples should have got the perpetrators a written warning, and the concept of optimising compilers seemed to have gone completely past them.
The interviewers were stuck in the world of the early 1980s - the only true code is 6502 and Z80 assembler, and it must be written in a garret by an unwashed pimply faced youth...
The face-to-face interview was full of embarrassing pauses while they desperately tried to think of questions to ask. In the event the only thing they could think of was to ask what the difference between between TCP and UDP. Actually, I think the guy who asked the question was in the process if trying to impliment TCP over UDP!
In the event they rejected me on the grounds that:
1. I didn't have a degree in Computer Science. This true - there wasn't such a beast when I went to University in 1967. On the other hand, if they'd asked, I could have pointed out that I did have computer experience as part of an engineering course - on a then state of the art valve based analog computer!*
2. I didn't have any experience with the Xbox360. At that time the 360 had only been available to developers for about 6 months. Had they asked I could have pointed out that I'd worked on nine different operating systems in the previous 15 years - including a Honeywell Bull machine with a 34-bit machine word! Xbox would have been a relief after that little affair...
In the event, I suspect, given the lousy hours and pay in the games industry ('If you don't like it, there are kids queuing round the block looking for jobs in computer games.'), I had a lucky escape.
At the time I thought this was just a problem with their developers, but the financial results indicate that perhaps the problem runs a little deeper :)
-------------
*The mean time between failure for all the valves was about 4.5 minutes. If you were wise you made damn sure you got all the results out within 4 minutes!