Why do companies like Google and Asana push developers into writing "production quality" code in a non-IDE like Google Docs during tech screens?
Ask HN: Why do companies interview using Google Docs as a coding environment?
1–10 of 20 posts
Re: Ask HN: Why do companies interview using Google Docs as a coding environment?
#2why do they care if you have memorized all of each languages specific apis when you can easily look them up on the fly with intellisense or similiar. My own pet peeve since being super dyslexic despite being a solid programmer I memorize very little just the general idea and capability of how different constructs generally work across languages.
Re: Ask HN: Why do companies interview using Google Docs as a coding environment?
#3Worse is better. It's an easy place to do collaborative editing. For google specifically, I think they leverage some google docs automation for capturing artifacts for hiring committee in their interview workflow.
Re: Ask HN: Why do companies interview using Google Docs as a coding environment?
#4why do they care if you have memorized all of each languages specific apis when you can easily look them up on the fly with intellisense or similiar. My own pet peeve since being super dyslexic despite being a solid programmer I memorize very little just the general idea and capability of how different constructs generally work across languages.
My biggest issue is hitting spacebar 20 times in a row. I usually work in Python via Vim so Google Docs is a pure shitshow for me.
"Do you want tabs or spaces?"
> "Spaces please"
"Fuck... okay I guess..."
Re: Ask HN: Why do companies interview using Google Docs as a coding environment?
#5Worse is better. It's an easy place to do collaborative editing. For google specifically, I think they leverage some google docs automation for capturing artifacts for hiring committee in their interview workflow.
It's not though. They expect shit to run afterwards. As someone who primarily writes Python (whitespace matters) in Vim (it's universal), having to code in Google Docs is a horrifying experience
Re: Ask HN: Why do companies interview using Google Docs as a coding environment?
#6I've never heard of this, and it's completely insane. It sounds like satire.
Stay away from companies that do this if you can. It indicates a deeply broken hiring culture.
Re: Ask HN: Why do companies interview using Google Docs as a coding environment?
#7Worse is better. It's an easy place to do collaborative editing. For google specifically, I think they leverage some google docs automation for capturing artifacts for hiring committee in their interview workflow.
It's not though. They expect shit to run afterwards. As someone who primarily writes Python (whitespace matters) in Vim (it's universal), having to code in Google Docs is a horrifying experience
They expect shit to run afterwards.
No reasonable interviewer expects you to write perfect code on a whiteboard or in a non-IDE editor. I'm sure there are plenty of unreasonable interviewers, which is an indicator that you don't want to work for them.
Re: Ask HN: Why do companies interview using Google Docs as a coding environment?
#8I've never heard of this, and it's completely insane. It sounds like satire. Stay away from companies that do this if you can. It indicates a deeply broken hiring culture.
lol it's literally the initial tech screen for Google
Re: Ask HN: Why do companies interview using Google Docs as a coding environment?
#9Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's not though. They expect shit to run afterwards. As someone who primarily writes Python (whitespace matters) in Vim (it's universal), having to code in Google Docs is a horrifying experience
They expect shit to run afterwards. No reasonable interviewer expects you to write perfect code on a whiteboard or in a non-IDE editor. I'm sure there are plenty of unreasonable interviewers, which is an indicator that you don't want to work for them.
That was my thought, but I got syntax complaints after my first tech screen with Google. Now Asana is asking me to do the same so I'm hesitant to even move forward.
Re: Ask HN: Why do companies interview using Google Docs as a coding environment?
#10I think we're going a little bit crazy with the complaints about the tech interview process lately (I'm not a fan as well). Now it's the shared scratchpad to blame as well?
It's just a shared buffer that works pretty reliably and no interviewer cares about your typos or lack of indentation.