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

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

#611

Post by recharged95 » Thu, Apr 19, 2018, 9:13 PM UTC

Yes, I had that offered too, a 6hr Xp assigment with a selected employee.

But intentionally blew off the 2nd quiz (thus the interview) before starting the assignment due to a family medical emergency (I thought, WTF am I doing, there's more to life!)

Nowadays I find it's either: a. multiple quizzes or HW assigment b. a presentation (that takes 4-8hrs to make anyway). c. and that github was a source of code eval, not anymore! ...cause everyone forks everyone's stuff (that's ok, by design).

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

#612

Post by spookthesunset » Thu, Apr 19, 2018, 9:13 PM UTC

marssaxman wrote: post #583

kilbuz wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agree. I'm going to spend days of unpaid time 'cramming' for whatever random whiteboard questions I think they might ask me anyway. I'd rather put the time into showing how the work I actually do might be useful to their team. Makes a lot more sense from both sides IMO.

This is a job interview, not a college exam; if you have to "cram", you're doing it wrong. (If they are interviewing you in such a way that "cramming" would make a difference, they're doing it wrong, and why would you want to work there?)

A lot of whiteboard interviews require cramming. You never use any of the 'skills' these whiteboard interviews ask for in your day job at all. As somebody with decades of experience, your best bet is to get a "cracking the interview" book and run through all the practice test questions. After all, it is basically a little exam like back in school (because apparently that is who these people want to hire.... fresh grads who took their algo class a few quarters ago....)

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

#613

Post by the-pigeon » Thu, Apr 19, 2018, 9:18 PM UTC

poulsbohemian wrote: post #444

I've noticed an interesting trend in my career: the more grueling the interview, the less-satisfying the job. The jobs I enjoyed the most, had the most interesting challenges, etc, were the ones where it was little more than a handshake. The ones where they put me through hoop after hoop turned out to be the ones that were the least interesting and had the least upside.

On the flip-side I've worked with engineers that were so entitled it completely undermined their ability to work with others in the company.

Work is going to involve some bullshit. That's life. If you can't jump through a few hoops for a job then you don't want the job very badly or have an ego problem.

Don't get me wrong, expecting someone to spend three days on a technical solution is nonsense. But the "special snowflake rockstar" mentality of some developers is not helpful and important to check for during an interview process.

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

#614

Post by pishpash » Thu, Apr 19, 2018, 9:18 PM UTC

psyc wrote: post #388

monocasa wrote: post #250

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Perhaps it's because you insist on testing their ability to live code on the spot as a performance piece, and misinterpreting that as testing their ability to code. If you're turning down someone who wrote space shuttle firmware, because they "can't do fizzbuzz", then you are administering a terrible test and getting a false negative. I have 20 years of industry experience. Everything on my resume is the truth. I've…

The equivalent would be asking a math professor to do integration by hand. They can do it, but that's probably not the job they want anyway.

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

#615

Post by sampleinajar » Thu, Apr 19, 2018, 9:22 PM UTC

Arzh wrote: post #406

FLUX-YOU wrote: post #315

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Cooks do a stage after a phone / in-person interview where they work in the restaurant for a day or so (multiple days if they are expected to work with different people). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stage_(cooking)

Yes. As a former cook, it's only the high end jobs that do this, not the chain restaurants. I think that is some of the problem with our industry, imagine if Applebee's started doing this because The French Laundry does? But, I think that this example is a good one, because even a chef with 20+ years has to demonstrate their abilities in an interview. Where should that line be in our industry?

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

#616

Post by rrix2 » Thu, Apr 19, 2018, 9:23 PM UTC

s2g wrote: post #604

neurobashing wrote: post #295

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Real talk? There is nothing wrong with being in IT. Imagine if someone said "I would be concerned I'd be seen as a carpenter and not a woodworking artisan". You're a carpenter. You nail boards together to serve the business interests of the company. Even if the boards are SQL queries or ReactJS or whatever. Companies need tech. You can bring value by making everyone's jobs better with your technology - sand off those…

> Imagine if someone said "I would be concerned I'd be seen as a carpenter and not a woodworking artisan". It's entirely reasonable for a carpenter not to want a job where they just nail pieces of wood together. Not really building anything, not really using skill. Just nailing a few boards together all day.

Nailing boards together is building something. Carpenters aren't pissed off that they didn't grow the trees themselves and and chop them and haul them and plane them.

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

#617

Post by fao_ » Thu, Apr 19, 2018, 9:25 PM UTC

lajhsdfkl wrote: post #591

reaperducer wrote: post #255

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Our industry's hiring practices are absolutely obnoxious. Agreed. The solution is to not work at a tech company, but instead work in a tech capacity at a real company. - No silly games (before or after hiring). - Better benefits (I'd rather have proper health coverage and a pension than a room full of toys and vaporware stock options). - Immensely more job security (Henry Ford didn't have an "exit strategy"). - Peo…

>Agreed. The solution is to not work at a tech company, but instead work in a tech capacity at a real company. Ha ok, this is a sure fire way to experience the worst of what the industry has to offer. >Better benefits (I'd rather have proper health coverage and a pension than a room full of toys and vaporware stock options). Tech companies have the best benefits period, what "tech" company did you apply for that didn…

Have you considered that you might both be talking about different sectors of tech, and different countries? The EU / UK / US / etc. tech markets vary wildly in these things.

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

#618

Post by pnw_hazor » Thu, Apr 19, 2018, 9:25 PM UTC

stupidcar wrote: post #247

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…

The hiring process is a response to the fact that employers cannot trust a single word candidates say about their experience. This isn't paranoia. Literally, most candidates we see cannot code, even when they supposed have a decade or more of industry experience. If the industry wasn't so full of lying incompetents, it wouldn't be an issue.

Well just fire the frauds.

Hire using NN days contract-to-perm. Make the permanent offers after NN days.

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

#619

Post by underwater » Thu, Apr 19, 2018, 9:29 PM UTC

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…

Most programming happens in a team environment. It can be difficult to separate the impact of a good programmer from a substandard programmer in a good team.

GitHub and code samples can be useful, but not every candidate will have shared code on GitHub (in fact, most don’t) and retaining copies of code they’ve written for a previous employer is a major red flag.

The biggest issue with using prior experience is that it’s hard to compare the ability of programmers who work in different languages and different domains, it can be like comparing apples and oranges.

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

#620

Post by itronitron » Thu, Apr 19, 2018, 9:29 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 think you should consider that most interviewees expect to be asked any question from their entire work history which doesn't leave much room for anything else. It's probably worth separating the problem-solving interview and the techno-archaeological trivia game into separate days.