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Ask HN: Your thoughts about online developer recruitment tools like HackerRank?

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Re: Ask HN: Your thoughts about online developer recruitment tools like HackerRank?

#21

Post by junto »

zby wrote: post #18
jzwinck wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I assure you this is not always the case. I have worked directly with multiple people who could contrive the most exquisite solutions to really difficult problems but whose code was gibberish. Flagging such characteristics during recruitment would be valuable.

Interesting - how would you flag it? In what way was their code gibberish? In my experience people who understand complex concepts can also understand how to write clear code. Maybe those that you are writing about were not motivated to do that - or maybe it never occurred to them that this was needed? Would you mind also explaining what you mean by this in "this is not always the case"? Because it does not seem to r…

I guess that concise implementations (e.g. in a one liner) are often a complete bitch to debug when someone else comes back to it to fix a problem years later.

It is much more difficult to debug and fix existing code than develop it from scratch. Hence, if you found the problem hard to code in the first place, then when you come to debug it again later you've just screwed your future self.

Re: Ask HN: Your thoughts about online developer recruitment tools like HackerRank?

#22

Post by zby »

junto wrote: post #21
zby wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interesting - how would you flag it? In what way was their code gibberish? In my experience people who understand complex concepts can also understand how to write clear code. Maybe those that you are writing about were not motivated to do that - or maybe it never occurred to them that this was needed? Would you mind also explaining what you mean by this in "this is not always the case"? Because it does not seem to r…

I guess that concise implementations (e.g. in a one liner) are often a complete bitch to debug when someone else comes back to it to fix a problem years later. It is much more difficult to debug and fix existing code than develop it from scratch. Hence, if you found the problem hard to code in the first place, then when you come to debug it again later you've just screwed your future self.

The problem with people writing too concise code is with their motivation not with their abilities - and so it is probably impossible to test (at least directly), because on the test they would have the motivation to do the right thing.

Re: Ask HN: Your thoughts about online developer recruitment tools like HackerRank?

#23

Post by hellweaver666 »

onion2k wrote: post #3

In my opinion they test the wrong things for the majority of software developers. Most people who write code don't need the ability to solve especially hard algorithmic problems. Ranking solutions to hard problems is probably useful if you're Google but there aren't many Googles out there. We like to think that we're solving hard problems (and actually, on HN, we're more likely to be), but most companies aren't. A la…

I agree, where I work we use HackerRank (for most roles that require any coding, even designers) and we try very hard to set a challenge that is representative of typical daily work.

Re: Ask HN: Your thoughts about online developer recruitment tools like HackerRank?

#24

Post by anilgulecha »

kbuck wrote: post #16

I've been on both sides of HackerRank. I helped develop/configure a HackerRank test for candidates for my team, and recently I've taken a HackerRank test while applying for a position at another company. HackerRank is just a tool. Its effectiveness depends on how well the company interviewing candidates configures it. I think algorithmic questions are the most popular, but it's completely configurable; you can have i…

(I work at Hackerrank) A couple points:

* the stack trace -- We avoid showing stacktraces to candidates as it has the potential of leaking information (a well created error message/stack can leak test case data).

We can and should show the trace (for languages that provide it) to reviewers. I've added an item to our internal tracker.

* Familiarity of environment: Most (if not all) of the challenges companies created by companies link to a sample test (hackerrank.com/tests/sample). We notice many but not all candidates take this before the actual challenge. Perhaps we should highlight this more.

Re: Ask HN: Your thoughts about online developer recruitment tools like HackerRank?

#25

Post by zo1 »

jakozaur wrote: post #19

I haven't used HackerRank, but got experience with similar product Codility ( https://codility.com/ ). My experience: 1. Works great if engineers apply to you, much less if you try to poach a engineer from great company. 2. Great resumes or credentials sometimes don't correlate with great performance. Especially there are hidden self-trained engineers, who can build great products, but never had CS degree or worked i…

>"a) candidate usually prefer to spend one hour on an online test than to take a day off for full day of interviews"

One additional bit to add to this type of 'testing'. It's write once, "be interviewed" multiple times. Rather than the usual interviewing process that requires you to "write" some sort of test/interview every time they go to another potential employer.

Re: Ask HN: Your thoughts about online developer recruitment tools like HackerRank?

#26

Post by kbuck »

anilgulecha wrote: post #24
kbuck wrote: post #16

I've been on both sides of HackerRank. I helped develop/configure a HackerRank test for candidates for my team, and recently I've taken a HackerRank test while applying for a position at another company. HackerRank is just a tool. Its effectiveness depends on how well the company interviewing candidates configures it. I think algorithmic questions are the most popular, but it's completely configurable; you can have i…

(I work at Hackerrank) A couple points: * the stack trace -- We avoid showing stacktraces to candidates as it has the potential of leaking information (a well created error message/stack can leak test case data). We can and should show the trace (for languages that provide it) to reviewers. I've added an item to our internal tracker. * Familiarity of environment: Most (if not all) of the challenges companies created…

Sorry for the confusing wording; I intended for "segfaults" and "failing non-sample testcases" to be interpreted as separate things. Showing stack traces or any other info from the program's execution for non-sample cases would be a bad idea. However, if it segfaults for a sample testcase, showing a stack trace should be fine (and this will probably catch the vast majority of segfaults).

Re: Ask HN: Your thoughts about online developer recruitment tools like HackerRank?

#27

Post by talles »

zby wrote: post #22
junto wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I guess that concise implementations (e.g. in a one liner) are often a complete bitch to debug when someone else comes back to it to fix a problem years later. It is much more difficult to debug and fix existing code than develop it from scratch. Hence, if you found the problem hard to code in the first place, then when you come to debug it again later you've just screwed your future self.

The problem with people writing too concise code is with their motivation not with their abilities - and so it is probably impossible to test (at least directly), because on the test they would have the motivation to do the right thing.

I disagree.

Knowing how much to abstract and writing clear code is indeed an ability.

Re: Ask HN: Your thoughts about online developer recruitment tools like HackerRank?

#28

Post by ninadmhatre »

anilgulecha wrote: post #24
kbuck wrote: post #16

I've been on both sides of HackerRank. I helped develop/configure a HackerRank test for candidates for my team, and recently I've taken a HackerRank test while applying for a position at another company. HackerRank is just a tool. Its effectiveness depends on how well the company interviewing candidates configures it. I think algorithmic questions are the most popular, but it's completely configurable; you can have i…

(I work at Hackerrank) A couple points: * the stack trace -- We avoid showing stacktraces to candidates as it has the potential of leaking information (a well created error message/stack can leak test case data). We can and should show the trace (for languages that provide it) to reviewers. I've added an item to our internal tracker. * Familiarity of environment: Most (if not all) of the challenges companies created…

I could not attempt 1 challenge out of 4 because i didnt get the question, and needed more information maybe another sample data? I was struggling for 30+ mins to understand the question but couldn't get any clues. I could not complete last challenge because of not understanding the question/pattern of question (maybe its my fault but a hint or 2 would have helped) rather than my coding ability. Maybe you can (as you work there) add 1 or 2 (optional) hints & make at least 2 samples of test data for tough questions. Anyways, it was a different and nice experience!

Re: Ask HN: Your thoughts about online developer recruitment tools like HackerRank?

#29

Post by gedrap »

onion2k wrote: post #3

In my opinion they test the wrong things for the majority of software developers. Most people who write code don't need the ability to solve especially hard algorithmic problems. Ranking solutions to hard problems is probably useful if you're Google but there aren't many Googles out there. We like to think that we're solving hard problems (and actually, on HN, we're more likely to be), but most companies aren't. A la…

>> We like to think that we're solving hard problems (and actually, on HN, we're more likely to be), but most companies aren't. A large amount of software is literally just a CRUD form and a database.

I think it's simply 'well, everyone is doing it so...'. So for some people it feels just safer to do what a lot of others do, while others can't be bothered, and a just don't know any better. I'd believe that's a very common reason for this approach :)

Re: Ask HN: Your thoughts about online developer recruitment tools like HackerRank?

#30

Post by madsonlife »

I failed an interview a couple days ago, from a hackerrank challenge. The tools was awesome, but could be better. I got really nervous, and could clear the challenge 10 minutes after the stipulated time in fact. One of the things that made me most nervous was that i was not able to debug my code as i can easily on chrome console. The "click to run your code" gives you a bit of a harder time. (my opinion)
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