On asking job candidates to code • Hacker News Board

Re: On asking job candidates to code

#261

Post by iolothebard » Tue, Mar 15, 2016, 6:17 PM UTC

kelvin0 wrote: post #206

jcadam wrote: post #89

A couple of months ago I did a 'homework' assignment for an interview (it involved writing a simple REST service in go, even though I have at least one personal project demonstrating exactly this skill -- to an even greater degree -- in my github profile). During the phone-discussion after turning in the project, the mid 20-something lead developer couldn't find anything to nitpick (I could have) and even told me he…

Never underestimate the dark powers of an incompetent HR department. Not saying this is the case here, but sure has the looks of it ... The person that interviewed was a programmer. The follow up to an interview is usually done by HR. As stated earlier, this is simply an observation I made throughout the years when being in contact with various HR departments. Your mileage may vary.

Any interview I've ever had where HR is involved is somewhere I would never work.

Last time this happened I was informed that Russian and Indian are races. Talking about my coworkers by their country of origin (I was saying how refreshing it was to work with a broad array of people in SF vs what I normally work with [white male] in Oklahoma.)

Russian is a race. Seriously.

HR employees are worthless in my experience (~35 years in the labor force).

Re: On asking job candidates to code

#262

Post by mywittyname » Tue, Mar 15, 2016, 6:18 PM UTC

orng wrote: post #4

I really hate having to solve these kind of programming challenges. I've already sent you my CV, with references from former/current employers and co-workers. Call them up if you are worried that I'm lying on my résumé, don't waste my time by making me work for the chance of maybe getting a job as only payment. Doing multiple interviews already takes up enough of my time, seeing as I'm the one who has to commute to y…

We live in an era of FB/LinkedIn. It's really not that hard to contact someone that they've worked with and ask, "did you like working with this guy/gal?"

Re: On asking job candidates to code

#263

Post by iolothebard » Tue, Mar 15, 2016, 6:18 PM UTC

ska wrote: post #222

jameshart wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And since everybody knows they're an A, the only explanation for a 'no hire' decision must be that the interviewer is a B.

Or more likely the overwhelming majority of people who think they are "A" just aren't. Funnily enough, often people who clearly are top rate don't think so (impostor syndrome). Dunning–Kruger appears to be very healthy in development circles.

I'm a C, I hire A++ and steal all the credit!

Re: On asking job candidates to code

#264

Post by niuzeta » Tue, Mar 15, 2016, 6:24 PM UTC

dominotw wrote: post #215

ryandrake wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Often the "information sideband" is the very fact that the company decided to cut off all communication as a way to convey rejection. If they treat random people that way, how do you think they treat people who are obligated to be on their worksite every day? Companies: DON'T DO THIS! I, for one, actively discourage smart friends from interviewing at places that treat candidates like shit.

I had nightmare of a interview experience with AirBnb in 2012. They asked me take 2 days off from work and fly all the way to SFO after I wasted couple of hours doing their coding homework. The first interviewer started with "your degree is not from a good school" like the very first sentence right to my face. He then asked me a string matching question, and insisted that I code up his brute force solution (with terr…

This is making me think twice about applying to AirBnB, or any one of my friends. I will remember this story.

Re: On asking job candidates to code

#265

Post by jorgecurio » Tue, Mar 15, 2016, 6:26 PM UTC

binaryblitz wrote: post #216

jorgecurio wrote: post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They want someone who uses asynchronous programming in coffeescript to build a blog and use shit load of preprocessors and if the library was just released on HN they expect you to use it in production and deal with it. Don't do these take homework projects. Don't work for free.

My company has you write a simple twitter clone using the php framework we use. If you know the framework, it shouldn't take you more than an hour, if that. I see nothing wrong with simple projects like this. We only ask you to do it after your initial interview to make sure you're a fit personality wise.

Your company would be far down my list. I'm not working for free if what I do isn't open source. If I'm working on a proprietary product I expect to be paid for it.

If you told me to do this take home assignment I would've politely smiled and said 'sure let me do it right away'. Then I go home, research more about your product and the market, try out your demo product, figure out how things work and release an open source version and make it free. Surely, that is a much better indicator than 'Build a CRUD using Yii'.

A few years ago, I did this to one company I interviewed at who were super arrogant and condescending. I just checked their website and it returns 404. Looks like people prefered my free open source version instead of paying them for it.

Don't fuck with me.

Re: On asking job candidates to code

#266

Post by chetanahuja » Tue, Mar 15, 2016, 6:26 PM UTC

dominotw wrote: post #215

ryandrake wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Often the "information sideband" is the very fact that the company decided to cut off all communication as a way to convey rejection. If they treat random people that way, how do you think they treat people who are obligated to be on their worksite every day? Companies: DON'T DO THIS! I, for one, actively discourage smart friends from interviewing at places that treat candidates like shit.

I had nightmare of a interview experience with AirBnb in 2012. They asked me take 2 days off from work and fly all the way to SFO after I wasted couple of hours doing their coding homework. The first interviewer started with "your degree is not from a good school" like the very first sentence right to my face. He then asked me a string matching question, and insisted that I code up his brute force solution (with terr…

Whoa... That sounds just terrible. What makes it especially terrible is that they already had you do some coding work before flying you in.

Something is utterly, terribly wrong with their process if the coding exercise made them think that you were worth flying in for an interview and then they cut short the interview process because they thought it was going so badly.

There are other signs that the tech leadership at airbnb is confused. Witness this almost parody of a video of their devs describing how they worked their way through pretty much every javascript hotness de jour through the years. I honestly thought this was some sort of a parody initially...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gMvvb6F8dgk

Re: On asking job candidates to code

#267

Post by logfromblammo » Tue, Mar 15, 2016, 6:28 PM UTC

emodendroket wrote: post #211

logfromblammo wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That isn't the only other alternative. The way a company signals their respect for my time is by either compensating me for the time I spent on them instead of literally anything else, or by demonstrating that they are spending an equivalent amount of time on me rather than anything else. If I am doing a project that takes me 8 hours, that company should either be writing me a check (for somewhere between $100 and $5…

Reneging on paying for interview expenses is the most scummy thing that companies regularly try to get away with (well, OK, no it isn't, but in this industry it is, mostly).

That's exactly why I tattle on this particular company--Tyler Tech, in Lakewood--at every available opportunity. (In the U.S., truth is sufficient defense against defamation.)

They also had me drive my own car from Madison to Milwaukee, to catch a flight that actually stopped in Madison after the first leg, just so they could save a few bucks on the airfare. And then they refused to pay for the mileage between Madison and Milwaukee, after promising earlier to reimburse all my travel expenses.

I put up with an awful lot of inconvenience from interviewers without comment, but every little slight is ratcheting up the minimum acceptable offer from that company. And if you act like sleazebags at the interview, you had best be prepared to lose any candidates with an ear to the grapevine.

Re: On asking job candidates to code

#268

Post by justinlardinois » Tue, Mar 15, 2016, 6:28 PM UTC

ryandrake wrote: post #149

maxaf wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You may have dodged the proverbial bullet. Wish I could upvote this twice! Every rejection I've ever received came with an information-rich sideband that told me more about the prospective employer than an acceptance would have. In at least half of such cases I said to myself: "phew, that was a bullet I was lucky to dodge... imagine how it might feel to work with these people!"

Often the "information sideband" is the very fact that the company decided to cut off all communication as a way to convey rejection. If they treat random people that way, how do you think they treat people who are obligated to be on their worksite every day? Companies: DON'T DO THIS! I, for one, actively discourage smart friends from interviewing at places that treat candidates like shit.

This so much. No response is only really acceptable when you sent a job application, and their only communication back to you was an automated email letting you know they received it. If you were actually in communication with someone at the company, they can at the very least give you a two-line "we've decided to move forward with other candidates" message.

I've had rejection emails from huge companies and tiny startups personally written by the hiring manager. It's not that hard.

Re: On asking job candidates to code

#269

Post by encoderer » Tue, Mar 15, 2016, 6:28 PM UTC

I don't usually ask candidates to write code for free. They're professionals and I expect them to _review_ code with me -- some of theirs and some of ours -- but not write it. I find that asking a candidate to write code for no true economic purpose that I will lightly read and then throw away does not inspire somebodies best work and I can gain more insight by an exercise where i have them read an explain code to me.

Re: On asking job candidates to code

#270

Post by verelo » Tue, Mar 15, 2016, 6:29 PM UTC

A lot of people here seem to suggest it is unreasonable to ask someone to do some coding in an interview given that you've shown a series of projects and provided references. Unfortunately I've been through a variety of interviews where I feel the conditions which I was asked to code were unreasonable (whiteboard, overly complex problems while under pressure, using a language I was not comfortable with or just academic problems that are rare in the real world), but I really think confirming their ability to write code, beyond things like github repos etc, is an important step of hiring a developer (because i've seen great github repos and references, but ended up with developers that are very, very average)

I've only hired tens of people, and while that is not a massive sample size, I'm still astonished by the simple questions we ask that people get stuck on. The one that continues to shock me:

"In any language of your choice, write a function that takes an array of ints and returns the sum of those ints (If you use a language such as php do not use array_sum)"

I'm just looking for something like:

function sum($ints) {

    $sum = 0;

    foreach($ints as $i) {

        $sum += $i;

    }

    return $sum;

}

Then we follow up with something like: "lets say your input array contains [4,-7,0], walk me through the code"

And we finally ask "talk to me about some things that could go wrong at runtime that might cause issues with this function". Expecting people to talk about overflows (maxint?) or if its a dynamic language like php, checking for non-integer values.

I estimate that around 50% of people get ruled out during the "coding" exercise mentioned above. It is astonishing that these people even apply for developer jobs.