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The latest trend for tech interviews: Days of unpaid homework

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Re: The latest trend for tech interviews: Days of unpaid homework

#101

Post by maxerickson »

0x445442 wrote: post #85

If the software development industry was the home building industry... I'm a general contractor (Unicorn Homes Inc.) and I'm currently building a number of spec homes. We're going to need electrical work done in all the homes and I'm in the process of sub-contracting out that work. What I need from you, Joe Electrician, is for you to go wire the kitchen of one of these homes. Once you're done I will inspect your work…

It's the other way around. If the homebuilding industry were like the software industry.

If software were like homebuilding, there would be legally enforced licensing.

Re: The latest trend for tech interviews: Days of unpaid homework

#102

Post by JustSomeNobody »

toblender wrote: post #72

I spent days almost 10 hours, completing a massive interview project for one company. I submitted a fully working solution, had unit test, was pixel perfect, and they didn't even give me an interview. Not only that they gave me a vague reason, only after pressing for feedback. Left a very bad taste in my mouth, don't think I'll be doing code assignments again, what a waste of time.

There's no way I'd spend 10 hours on a take home for these reasons alone. I'd spend maybe 2 and call it good. If they expect a "pixel perfect" solution, then I'd better be able to do that in 2 hours max. Otherwise, they get what I submit and it will give us plenty to talk about during the interview.

Re: The latest trend for tech interviews: Days of unpaid homework

#103

Post by nicolashahn »

commandlinefan wrote: post #94
danielh wrote: post #17

I don't get it. The whole industry is complaining about not being able to hire developers, yet there seems to be some kind of competition who can come up with the most awkward hiring process. Requiring homework is a great way to deter the kind of people companies should be most interested in hiring: those who are not actively looking for a new job. I find this trend especially surprising considering that the U.S. has…

Especially irritating considering I've dedicated tens of thousands of dollars and six years of my life completing a bachelor's and a master's degree in computer science where people whose entire job was to give me tests and evaluate me on them - maybe you'd like to take their word for it?

The problem is, there are people with those degrees who still can't even code fizzbuzz.

Re: The latest trend for tech interviews: Days of unpaid homework

#104

Post by azinman2 »

I actually prefer take home. I’m not great at white board solutions as they’re basically asking you to solve something immediately with a gun to your head in real time. It’s very unnatural. Take home gives me time to think about something more like I would job.

That said there needs to be a balance where the tasks are enough of a test to give indication of quality of work without taking 3 full time days to finish.

Re: The latest trend for tech interviews: Days of unpaid homework

#105

Post by zero_intp »

0x445442 wrote: post #85

If the software development industry was the home building industry... I'm a general contractor (Unicorn Homes Inc.) and I'm currently building a number of spec homes. We're going to need electrical work done in all the homes and I'm in the process of sub-contracting out that work. What I need from you, Joe Electrician, is for you to go wire the kitchen of one of these homes. Once you're done I will inspect your work…

For contractors in properties I own I do this, but the initial work is paid.

Re: The latest trend for tech interviews: Days of unpaid homework

#106

Post by zero_intp »

pwthornton wrote: post #98

If you're going to expect people to do real work, you need to pay them. This is common in a field like journalism. Want to do a one or two day trial of a reporter? Pay them to write for you! Have them work in a real environment and do real work for publication. If you're not willing to pay people for their time, and it's not an executive position, asking for days of a person's time is asinine. Also, if the homework i…

Thank you for an excellent write up of the duties of a hiring manager.

Re: The latest trend for tech interviews: Days of unpaid homework

#107

Post by JustSomeNobody »

xab9 wrote: post #50
gaius wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Where do you get 2-4 days to work on an entirely speculative project?

Weekends, plus you may want to take a day off. Otherwise chip it off from your evenings. 7pm to 11pm through a week does the job.

If I take a day off, I am now essentially paying to be able to take their test. Absolutely NOT.

Re: The latest trend for tech interviews: Days of unpaid homework

#108

Post by commandlinefan »

some_account wrote: post #89

I prefer homework to timed, monitored programming sessions. But the task should never be a big task. When i interviewed for a backend development position, the task was to set up flask with two routes, connect to a dB and retrieve a couple of rows when user visited the routes. It was not hard even though I never worked with flask before, and it wasn't supposed to be hard either. It was a test if I had basic programmi…

> timed, monitored programming sessions

When I found myself out of work last year, I interviewed for a big auto company - their interview process involved an online coding session. They gave me a spec for an assignment and asked me to complete it in 20 minutes - I could pick Java or Python. I picked Java, and got the spec - it was ridiculously simple. I can't remember the exact wording, but it was something like, "write a function that will print out the text value of a number in the range 0-4, given the numeric value (so if you got an argument of 3, you'd return 'THREE')". Well, in my haste to complete the assignment in the generous 20 minutes they gave me, I... didn't read the specification closely enough. I started writing a program that took in a _list_ of numbers on the command line and output their text values. It took about 10 minutes to code it and sanity test it - then I thought to double-check the description and, "shit, I misread it". So now, with 10 minutes remaining, I'm thinking, "if I change this to fit the description, they're going to see that it took me 15 minutes to come up with a pathetic function that should have taken me 2 minutes." So, I started refactoring the whole program to _contain_ the function that they asked for, but call it from a main routine that would parse the input, call the function, and write out the results. With 19 minutes on the clock, I submitted my abomination. The recruiter was kind enough to call me back and tell me that they had decided they had "better qualified candidates in the pipeline". Oh, well...

Re: The latest trend for tech interviews: Days of unpaid homework

#110

Post by newshorts »

Not going to name the company but I topped 38 hours over a weekend to land a job at a tech company. It was brutal.

But I still prefer that to those stupid algo questions.

At a different company, I literally had an entire dev team sit on the opposite side of a table in a board room and play stump the programmer. After the interview I left hating the company regardless of the job offer.

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