One where I'm hired at the end
Ask HN: What should an ideal developer interview process look like?
91–100 of 289 posts
Re: Ask HN: What should an ideal developer interview process look like?
#92My most enjoyable interview was for an internship in college. I had a take home coding challenge where I had to write some simple code to fetch information from an API using whatever language I liked. I was given a week to do it, but it only took me an hour or so to meet all of their explicit requirements. I liked that there was no time pressure in that regard. After the week was up I went into the onsite and in the…
With this approach you'll miss good senior people; I have dependants and very little free time outside work. Last time I was looking for a job I skipped everyone who wanted me to do prep/homework. If the other interviews hadn't worked out I'd have gone back to them, but I didn't need to.
Senior people will be able to do the two hour coding homework in way less than two hours. If someone can't manage this as part of an interview process, it might be a sign of their time management abilities.
Re: Ask HN: What should an ideal developer interview process look like?
#93Most interviews have asymmetric costs. There’s a potential payoff for both parties, but costs are higher for the interviewee (time off, prep, work done). I recommend trying to make the cost/benefit more symmetric. One way of doing this, is offering compensation for real work. Essentially, hire interviewees to do a small amount of useful (a day?) and evaluate them based on that. This isn’t going to work for all interv…
I would argue this in reverse. The costs are all on that side of the table. I love interviewing. Love it. I am honestly not being sarcastic.
I am more than happy to take the time off just for the opportunity. If it doesn't go well or the position is not a good fit then I go back to my current job.
Re: Ask HN: What should an ideal developer interview process look like?
#94When I was at Bytemark, we decided it was important that you knew up-front exactly what the demands on your time would be, what challenges there would be, and we don't deviate from that:
http://careers.bytemark.co.uk/full-process
It's also anonymous until the 3rd stage, so you (by and large) interview remotely and without anyone knowing your name / gender.
(this dates from 2015)
Re: Ask HN: What should an ideal developer interview process look like?
#95Earlier quoted context omitted.
With this approach you'll miss good senior people; I have dependants and very little free time outside work. Last time I was looking for a job I skipped everyone who wanted me to do prep/homework. If the other interviews hadn't worked out I'd have gone back to them, but I didn't need to.
Senior people will be able to do the two hour coding homework in way less than two hours. If someone can't manage this as part of an interview process, it might be a sign of their time management abilities.
Senior does not mean you type faster.
It means you don't do unnecessary work, you avoid pitfalls and traps you have seen before, you don't over-engineer but you keep it as simple as possible. It also means that you push back against non-constructive requests from business and management and focus your time and effort on what matters.
I also avoid anyone who wants me to do a coding exercise for a few hours over the weekend.
If you want pay me for that time, and make it not a dig and fill hole exercise - find a OSS project that needs some contributions. Decide that you and your team will do thsoe via your ongoing interview process that hires people before the need arises, so you can all take your time selecting and onboarding people.
Value your own time, or no one will
Re: Ask HN: What should an ideal developer interview process look like?
#96The interview should not focus on assessing basic competence, it should look at relevant experience and understanding of the business in question as well as communication and teamwork style. Of course in order to get there would require a working certification system. Requiring candidates to write fizzbuzz in person over and over is a waste of your time and theirs, but it exists because nobody's managed to crack a "f…
It's even worse than it first sounds, because the good candidates get hired, but the candidates that get screened out by the fizzbuzz tests don't exit the scene - they move to the next company along to try again. So although the people in question are a minority as a proportion of the population, the amount of fraud you need to filter out in practice is high, and the people you most want to filter are continuously practicing getting past initial quick filtering steps.
Re: Ask HN: What should an ideal developer interview process look like?
#97My most enjoyable interview was for an internship in college. I had a take home coding challenge where I had to write some simple code to fetch information from an API using whatever language I liked. I was given a week to do it, but it only took me an hour or so to meet all of their explicit requirements. I liked that there was no time pressure in that regard. After the week was up I went into the onsite and in the…
With this approach you'll miss good senior people; I have dependants and very little free time outside work. Last time I was looking for a job I skipped everyone who wanted me to do prep/homework. If the other interviews hadn't worked out I'd have gone back to them, but I didn't need to.
> With this approach you'll miss good senior people
Aren't you already spending many hours researching a job as the part of the process? Aren't you already taking a full day off work for the interviews? Why is that time all fine to spend, but not fine to spend a couple of hours on doing an assignment?
Re: Ask HN: What should an ideal developer interview process look like?
#98My most enjoyable interview was for an internship in college. I had a take home coding challenge where I had to write some simple code to fetch information from an API using whatever language I liked. I was given a week to do it, but it only took me an hour or so to meet all of their explicit requirements. I liked that there was no time pressure in that regard. After the week was up I went into the onsite and in the…
With this approach you'll miss good senior people; I have dependants and very little free time outside work. Last time I was looking for a job I skipped everyone who wanted me to do prep/homework. If the other interviews hadn't worked out I'd have gone back to them, but I didn't need to.
Wait, what is the difference between taking the time for an interview (no matter if via phone or in-person) and one for a gate-filter task?
Re: Ask HN: What should an ideal developer interview process look like?
#99Earlier quoted context omitted.
With this approach you'll miss good senior people; I have dependants and very little free time outside work. Last time I was looking for a job I skipped everyone who wanted me to do prep/homework. If the other interviews hadn't worked out I'd have gone back to them, but I didn't need to.
> With this approach you'll miss good senior people Aren't you already spending many hours researching a job as the part of the process? Aren't you already taking a full day off work for the interviews? Why is that time all fine to spend, but not fine to spend a couple of hours on doing an assignment?
That's only at a later stage when you get an interview - with a company that looks good.
Coding tests are just an early stage filter for experienced people - so those companies get dropped early on.
Re: Ask HN: What should an ideal developer interview process look like?
#100The ideal process is having one that actually exists. Most startups basically try to wing this without any definition of how they want the interview process to work. IMHO this is about 50% of the problem. On the flip side, large companies appear to be overburdened by process (anecdote example - I've heard from several people that getting into Google takes 6 months on average, along with the notorious b-tree whiteboar…
That's longer than some TLA's with DV Clearance (allegedly) :-)