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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

#671

Post by newobj »

spookthesunset wrote: post #587
heyoni wrote: post #518

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have you ever had to do homework as part of a job application? I ask because in my experience, the companies asking for these tend to be a bit shady. For instance, one company asked me to do this extract/load to Spark and analyze data thing. I did it because their e-mail said that they would reply to each individual with feedback. Guess what? 3 weeks later I get a canned response! Another job assignment took me 4 day…

If you are getting paid $15/hr to code in new york, you are getting massively, massively, massively underpaid.

People in "offshored-to countries" are making ~$15USD/hr ... if you are making this anywhere in the primary market for doing code work, you're getting massively^3 underpaid ... nevermind NYC

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

#672

Post by heyoni »

spookthesunset wrote: post #587
heyoni wrote: post #518

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have you ever had to do homework as part of a job application? I ask because in my experience, the companies asking for these tend to be a bit shady. For instance, one company asked me to do this extract/load to Spark and analyze data thing. I did it because their e-mail said that they would reply to each individual with feedback. Guess what? 3 weeks later I get a canned response! Another job assignment took me 4 day…

If you are getting paid $15/hr to code in new york, you are getting massively, massively, massively underpaid.

They said it would be like that for 3 months and if they were satisfied they would make me an offer...but they would not say what the salary range was!

I almost took it just to get my foot in the door but decided I could do better with 3 months of polishing up my portfolio.

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

#673

Post by underwater »

bearforcenine wrote: post #290
Clubber wrote: post #280

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is only a good chance if you misrepresented your abilities and aren't able to get up to speed in 30-90 days. If that is the case, you deserve to be let go.

Is it, though? There are so many other ways that someone might not be a good "fit." Maybe you found another, slightly better candidate who is willing to accept a lower offer. Maybe a manager or individual contributor feels that their position is threatened by the candidate. Maybe they don't attend weekly happy hour.

I can’t imagine firing a competent employee for any of those reasons. Hiring (and firing) an employee involves a lot of work and is a big onvestment. You don’t throw that all away to roll the dice on someone who might be incrementally better.

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

#674

Post by iandanforth »

mlboss wrote: post #276
iandanforth wrote: post #144

I'll take a 3-day take-home project over a whiteboard interview or live coding session any day. Working at my pace with my tools in my space? Yes please. The article makes two good points re: bias and lack of research. To the first I think it's up to us as interviewees to mention this in all of our calls. "Do you have a non-take-home option? For some groups this could be an exceptional burden." To the second there's…

Problem with take home projects is that there is no commitment from the interviewers side. Candidate wastes time coding up the solution but interviewers does not have any obligation to even look at the solution. I wasted a week coding up a ML paper but never heard back from the interviewer. At least in white board interview they spend time with you with real time feedback.

What paper? I'm always interested to see implementations and this is something I expect to be doing in the near future. Maybe I could read it and ask you some questions about your process?

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

#675

Post by heyoni »

timr wrote: post #600
newobj wrote: post #575

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, for example, I spent two days implementing a typeahead search results system for Etsy, including writing my own ingestion pipeline, map-reduce framework, index builder, and request processor. Of course Etsy already had their own stuff, this was just a toy done in Java. It was fun. Got offered the job but didn't take it for personal reasons that cropped up concurrent w/ the interview process.

"I spent two days implementing a typeahead search results system for Etsy, including writing my own ingestion pipeline, map-reduce framework, index builder, and request processor." Seriously? You did all of that? For a take-home interview problem?? Oy. This is why companies get away with this crap... I'm going to say something harsh, but you really need to hear it: you failed at your number one responsibilty. It does…

Yep, that’s what I needed to hear. I’m really glad I retracted my resume. Even though I’m nowhere OP’s level, it felt a bit degrading.

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

#676

Post by newobj »

timr wrote: post #600
newobj wrote: post #575

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, for example, I spent two days implementing a typeahead search results system for Etsy, including writing my own ingestion pipeline, map-reduce framework, index builder, and request processor. Of course Etsy already had their own stuff, this was just a toy done in Java. It was fun. Got offered the job but didn't take it for personal reasons that cropped up concurrent w/ the interview process.

"I spent two days implementing a typeahead search results system for Etsy, including writing my own ingestion pipeline, map-reduce framework, index builder, and request processor." Seriously? You did all of that? For a take-home interview problem?? Oy. This is why companies get away with this crap... I'm going to say something harsh, but you really need to hear it: you failed at your number one responsibilty. It does…

Your speech is very impassioned, but you did nothing to defend your point of view, just reiterate it multiple times.

Why is an employer asking for "proof of capabilities" tantamount to abuse? Seems a little hyperbolic, yeah?

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

#677

Post by ubernostrum »

monocasa wrote: post #551
ubernostrum wrote: post #485

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I always end up linking this piece in response to people like you, and here I am again. These folks have real data on lots of interviews, and have done some analysis on them: http://blog.interviewing.io/you-cant-fix-diversity-in-tech-w... The takeaway that's relevant to you is the section titled "Interview outcomes are kind of arbitrary". Specifically, things like: As you can see, roughly 25% of interviewees are cons…

I'm amused at the idea that because I pass on senior devs who literally can't do FizzBuzz, that I must have a terrible interview process.

FWIW my FizzBuzz solution involves no 'for' loops, and in fact involves no control-flow keywords at all.

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

#678

Post by itronitron »

0xdeadbeefbabe wrote: post #405
psyc wrote: post #388

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I'm intrigued by the on the spot performance aspect, so I wonder if anyone has performed a skit at an interview. It's a tempting idea. Some people are intrigued by live performance, especially the kind with constraints like this, people like Frank Abagnale for example.

Probably, most likely on the Ali G show. If you know enough inside details on the typical interview pattern at a company this would be easy to do, and you would probably get the job.

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

#679

Post by sudosteph »

henrikschroder wrote: post #567
carlosdp wrote: post #459

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 4. Removal of vacation time (unlimited PTO means you have no vacation days) That's just not universally true at all. Using my current employer as an example, they have been very good about encouraging employees to take advantage of unlimited PTO. Managers take PTO and encourage people that haven't taken it in a while to do so. Even the CEO goes in front of the company at all hands every once in a while and tells pe…

How many days of vacation per year does the average employee take? > I personally am so spoiled by this I had the standard six weeks of vacation per year at my first real job. How many weeks of vacation do you use per year?

6 weeks is not standard in the US. I'm used to seeing 15 days of flexible pto/sick time and 6 holidays. Also, due to how the pto time would accumulate per each pay period, it can take many months to save up a whole week. I'm much happier with unlimited pto, as I now take 4-5 weeks spread out however I prefer.

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

#680

Post by newobj »

ggggtez wrote: post #593
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…

The whole point is that these people DO make $100-$400k+. At the high range, that's $1000 for a day of work. Imagine asking someone "Hi, please give me $1000 application fee for this job." With a whiteboard interview, at least you get to talk to the engineers directly. You could argue a company that is willing to spend it's engineer's time doing hiring is spending more than you are, which is not true for a homework a…

I would never take a job, or even interview for a job, where I wasn't also able to effectively interview the company and team. That's just stupid.

My rant is more about an otherwise normal interview, which has in-person coding, and possibly longer at-home demonstrations of work.

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