The latest trend for tech interviews: Days of unpaid homework • Hacker News Board

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

#311

Post by walshemj » Thu, Apr 19, 2018, 5:10 PM UTC

mieseratte wrote: post #87

dilap wrote: post #82

I worked for a company that did a 3-day, challenging take-home problem. It was a big ask, but it was amazing for getting a sense of people's problem solving and coding abilities. (The final result would only be 1000 lines of code or so, but 3 days provided time to think and experiment with different approaches.) Maybe paying people for the time if you end up saying "no" is a nice compromise? If you are potentially se…

I've met folks, recruiters and (tech) leadership, at companies that do these type of long, arduous interview processes. They make it a point of ego / pride that they have such a long, arduous process. They've even mentioned the occasional candidate who asks about billable hours for an 8+ hour code problem, saying "Who the hell does that guy think he is?" Of course, they were shocked and appalled when I asked who they…

The answer is FYPM

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

#312

Post by Clubber » Thu, Apr 19, 2018, 5:11 PM UTC

TheGRS wrote: post #217

rhapsodic wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>I undertook this project after two 30 minute conversations had convinced both parties that there was a fit, and the project was a next step. In this case, I don't see it as unreasonable, because you didn't have to do the project just to have a shot at someone talking to you in person. I would never do a homework project as the first step in an application process. I would do one as the last step, after I had learned…

I'm rethinking what I did on my last hiring position. I sent a take-home test that should take about 2-3 hours to those who sent in a decent resume. It filtered out a little over half of the applicants I responded to, as in half didn't respond. It further filtered out a small segment who didn't do very well on the test. A filter is definitely needed to weed out those who are simply casting a wide net, are looking for…

>as in half didn't respond

Wouldn't it be funny if the half that didn't respond were the best candidates you heard from, and you threw them away with your take home thing?

It's the irony that the thing you did to make sure you got good applicants was the very same thing that turned the best away.

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

#313

Post by walshemj » Thu, Apr 19, 2018, 5:12 PM UTC

matthewmacleod wrote: post #292

walshemj wrote: post #219

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which is flat out gross misconduct for 99.9 % of all full time employees in the engineering field.

Is that true? I’ve never had a contract that forbade me to work on side projects for cash.

Oh you mean working in the black economy I am sure the IRA will be interested.

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

#314

Post by sidlls » Thu, Apr 19, 2018, 5:12 PM UTC

NTDF9 wrote: post #3

Can someone explain why we need: 1. A phone coding interview (Potentially another phone coding interview) 2. A homework 3. An onsite with 5 rounds Seriously, what does that additional tree traversal round prove?

Think of these interviews as a means by which interviewers assure themselves they're working on deeply intellectual CS problems and working with people who are incredibly intellectually gifted mathematicians practing computer science (like themselves), or that they're of the same caliber as what they believe of developers at FAANG, and it begins to make more sense.

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

#315

Post by FLUX-YOU » Thu, Apr 19, 2018, 5:13 PM UTC

newobj wrote: post #301

It's unreal that will people will bitch and moan about having to invest a couple days, maybe even a whole week in cramming/prepping/interviewing, to perform on-demand, one time, for a job that realistically will earn them $100k, $200k, $300k, $400k+ a year. Meanwhile people that work harder than us 5 days a week for the entire duration of their career will make 1/2, 1/4, 1/6th, or less of income, with none of the per…

Look at other fields for examples. Few have to interview like devs do. Other professionals may have continuing education like conferences, but that's not the same.

Imagine nurses or docs getting asked to take vitals for an interview.

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

#316

Post by Clubber » Thu, Apr 19, 2018, 5:13 PM UTC

dsr_ wrote: post #117

always_good wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wonder how much of the shortage is due to there only being a relatively small portion of jobs that developers actually want. Every time I've worked at a small company that had obvious perks (using a cool language, building a cool product), we had a bunch of applicants to pick from. We could be picky. But the few times I worked at a company on soul-sucking work like internal legacy tools in VBScript for a non-tech c…

I never see a shortage of people applying. I usually see a great shortage of people I want to hire. Mid-level position, asking for 5 years of related experience? 85% of the resumes have no related experience. Fresh out of school, that is. The virtual pile gets much shorter when minimal criteria are applied.

If you pay 'market rates,' expect the best applicants to be average.

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

#317

Post by speby » Thu, Apr 19, 2018, 5:14 PM UTC

monocasa wrote: post #250

speby wrote: post #218

Our industry's hiring practices are absolutely obnoxious. In an ideal world, you could trust someone's resume. e.g. "I've written large production programs in C." Ok, great, so then clearly this person knows C so there should be no need to dissect code or run them thru some linked list algorithm and see if they know how to use pointers correctly. Yet, we do. Ok, then what about open source contributions (if they have…

I used to hate it, but have now performed enough interviews of supposedly senior devs with decades of experience. I've literally seen someone who did firmware for the space shuttle grind for 45 minutes on fizz buzz without making progress. Like, I'd they struggle for ten minutes or so, I take a step back and say "Ok, screw syntax, let's just vaguely talk about what needs to happen and mock up some pseudo code.". Even…

I agree w/ you here. And I think a lot of people have some personal experiences encountering this kind of situation. It seems baffling, right?

And yet, you have to really wonder ... what did that person do writing firmware for the space shuttle? Did they really do that? Or did they somehow lose their mind after they left and now couldn't do a simple set of modulus operations on a FizzBuzz test? How can that happen? Even reading this kind of thing makes me totally scratch my head.

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

#318

Post by Clubber » Thu, Apr 19, 2018, 5:14 PM UTC

Paul-ish wrote: post #202

gowld wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have you tried developing your junior talent instead of driving them away so you need to fill a gap at mid-level?

Are there companies where people don't periodically move on? The culture right now is to hop between companies. It's not necessarily a bad thing. People get tired of their work and need novelty.

Yes, not crappy ones that pay well. I worked at a company where everyone automatically got a week and a half off at Christmas. This was above and beyond our normal PTO. I would have worked there forever, but we got acquired by a soul sucker. That was the first perk to go.

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

#319

Post by walshemj » Thu, Apr 19, 2018, 5:15 PM UTC

pwthornton wrote: post #305

walshemj wrote: post #219

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which is flat out gross misconduct for 99.9 % of all full time employees in the engineering field.

No one here has a contract that forbids working for other companies in your own time. I haven't seen that in the DC area. Maybe that's a Silicon Valley thing? People might have clauses to prevent people from working on similar work for competitors, sure, but I haven't seen anything that bars working on other kinds of projects outside of work.

Standard in professional jobs - the US in particular tends to have laws that vastly favor the employers. SV is actually one of the liberal states.

Though as you say your a journalist they tend to be exceptions.

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

#320

Post by incredible12345 » Thu, Apr 19, 2018, 5:15 PM UTC

newobj wrote: post #301

It's unreal that will people will bitch and moan about having to invest a couple days, maybe even a whole week in cramming/prepping/interviewing, to perform on-demand, one time, for a job that realistically will earn them $100k, $200k, $300k, $400k+ a year. Meanwhile people that work harder than us 5 days a week for the entire duration of their career will make 1/2, 1/4, 1/6th, or less of income, with none of the per…

Many programmers make nowhere near $100k and so many programmers do a ton of extra unpaid work; and week-long interview preparations are just one of them. Just last night, a fellow programmer I know is being forced into "mandatory unpaid overtime" for the purposes of learning new things for his company. He has to learn more crap, together with coworkers, in his own 'freetime', regularly, unpaid. And I can tell you he makes nowhere near 100k living near a large city. That may be his problem for, but if the popularity of companies having "mandatory unpaid work" AKA slavery increases we will all feel these things even more so.

That being said, I can't think of anything more viable than actually testing the programmer in question with code. I would personally give them a computer and have them do it right there on the spot in the interview but that is just me.