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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

#741

Post by rdiddly »

teachrdan wrote: post #265
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…

Real talk? I'd be concerned that, at a non-tech company, I'd be seen as a IT rather than a software engineer. And the conventional wisdom goes that IT is a cost center. Some of the best career advice I've ever gleaned is to work on something that visibly makes money for the company. I get to do that every day at my tech company. I don't know that I could say that if I worked in a technical capacity in another industr…

The solution to the first point is to go to a place that already has an IT department.

The second (making a bottom-line impact) is probably a non-issue. If it's not a tech company, that means they are likely failing to use tech fully, in places that really could benefit from it. Automate stuff that needs it, and quantify the time saved as:

(time it took before - time it takes now) * number of times each person has to do it per week * number of people * what those people get paid / what you get paid = time T you saved in a week, in terms of your own hours.

Each time you do something, add its T value to a running total. Likely an hour here, an hour there. Eventually it hits 40 and you and the managers can clearly see that your employment is paying for itself. Keep going and you're making them money.

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

#742

Post by ajeet_dhaliwal »

geebee wrote: post #403
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…

To me the problem usnt fizzbuzz, its “find all matching subtrees in a binary tree” in 45 min at a whiteboard. I dont need to hit the book to write fizzbuzz, and i could probably code up dfs and bfs without prep but i dont walk around ready to retake my undergrad algoriths midterm. Especially when i really dont even know what the topic will be. Im aware that the question i posed isnt terribly difficult and perhaps it…

I agree, may be it’s just the places I’ve applied in the past but ive never been asked anything near as straightforward fizzbuz.

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

#743

Post by tzakrajs »

rozenmd wrote: post #669
tzakrajs wrote: post #659

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Part of the interview process is selling the organization and its people. Maybe companies prioritize phone screenings and interviews first to steer the process and educate the candidate about the company and the position. Maybe candidates would be less likely to try the coding project if they hadn't built some rapport with an employee.

Also need to figure out if the candidate is a lizard person - having a real life conversation with them about the company is a good start.

I will also add that lizard people require a lot of electricity to keep them at the optimal temperature.

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

#744

Post by goatherders »

nikanj wrote: post #543
ams6110 wrote: post #284

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The best "work environment" tech job I ever had was at an investment bank. Didn't disrupt anything (quite the opposite) but got great experience with databases, unix, C, scripting, working with internal clients, determining requirements, managing projects, etc. 9:00 - 4:30 daily hours, no nights, no weekends. Full benefits, good salary, good yearly bonus, quiet office, great people who were there to get a job done an…

There's a very strong correlation "you have to dress like an adult", and "you will be treated like an adult". Yes, a lot of adults wear sweatshirts and hoodies now. However, if you wore a shirt and tie to a high school, they would make fun of you for dressing up like your dad. We have collectively agreed on a "grown-up" attire.

I wore a tie to school every day in high school. Then I did it again at a well know startup. In both instances someone pulled me aside to tell me "keep dressing like that and you're going to stand out."

Yes.

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

#745

Post by foobiekr »

reaperducer wrote: post #255
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…

> 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…

I would be very interested in learning what this entails, actually.

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

#746

Post by maxk42 »

kybernetikos wrote: post #710
maxk42 wrote: post #580

This literally happened to me last week. On a Friday night before my girlfriend's birthday they sent me -- without warning -- an assignment that "should take about 8 hours". I told them to give the job to someone hungrier than me which was the politest way of telling someone to stuff it I could think of. The company in question advertises here on HN's "Who's hiring?" threads, but the role was brought to my attention…

> If you expect to take more than 2 - 3 hours of someone's time, you should be paying them. Do you want to work with team mates who have been vetted over less than 2 hours? I've worked with people who couldn't code, it's not a fun experience. There are a lot of people who can talk a good talk but can't actually code. This was the reason for the FizzBuzz test (which I dislike, but it was invented to solve a real probl…

I'm specifically referring to a coding challenge taking eight hours. A two-hour total interview process would be fairly minimal.

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

#747

Post by majormajor »

nugget wrote: post #449
reaperducer wrote: post #271

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>If I hire someone who seems great on paper and turns out to be a dud, then I immediately let them go. If you keep hiring duds, you shouldn't be allowed to hire people. In spite of what the headhunter firms and cookie-cutter websites would have you believe, interviewing and hiring is a skill, not a punchlist. >If a 10 hour project-specific coding task reduces mis-hires by 50%+, isn't it better for both parties? Only…

I've hired about 50 full-time w2 on-site developers over the last decade and maybe 3 or 4 of them were total duds (due to extreme mis-representation of technical skills) once employed. I'm not sure how this ratio compares to others but it certainly seems to be an issue that the industry talks about, so I'd be surprised if it were ultra rare. > Only if you pay me for my ten hours. Otherwise, you've already indicated t…

That's pretty good, I know people who've had worse results.

Some of them were former coworkers who leaned very heavily on algorithm problems and whiteboarding because they were terrified of people who couldn't code at all (though wouldn't that be the easiest kind to let go?). But they still missed sometimes. Both on people who'd studied purely for algorithm questions and got through, despite having little practical ability; and on people who could knock out a task but had no ability to reason about its place in a larger system, so created more work for others than they contributed themselves.

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

#748

Post by flerchin »

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…

Pivotal and Amazon would not meet the rate and benefits that my current real company was paying, let alone the one that just poached me for a 15% raise. She's spot on.

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

#749

Post by chrisbennet »

tytytytytytytyt wrote: post #368
adreamingsoul wrote: post #354

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Check your premise. It sounds to me that an assumption is being made because they didnt meet the expectations within a fixed time period. The danger with this is that this is not a real world scenerio of how two people would approach a task or problem. It’s also important to recognize that everyone is different with regards to how they process information. Stress has a real biological effect on how the brain processe…

> It sounds to me that an assumption is being made because they didnt meet the expectations within a fixed time period. Of course, you have a limited amount of time to interview people. Please let me know when you figure out how to give someone an infinite amount of time to answer questions during a 1 hour interview. > The danger with this is that this is not a real world scenerio of how two people would approach a t…

I realize that you’re doing the best that you know how given the time pressures you have as an interviewer. There is no perfect answer to this problem.

Here’s the thing though, you are “leaving money on the table” when your interview process deselects great programmers because of a mistaken belief that Test A is a good proxy for developer talent. When HN developers are telling that Test A is a bad proxy for developer competence, perhaps, just perhaps, you might consider trying to improve it with the advice given.

The upside of being able to accomodate developers who “lock up” in stressful interviews, is that you now have access to great developer that are (according to your competitors) “impossible to find”.

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

#750

Post by aidenn0 »

poulsbohemian wrote: post #393
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…

I’m going to show some vulnerability… this happened to me this week. I’m probably like a lot of you here: professional software developer for 20 years, have shipped countless products in multiple languages / technologies. Work has appeared on tv and print media multiple times. Have generated millions and millions in cost savings and revenue for employers and clients. But I totally failed a technical screen. It’s been…

Failing a high-stress technical screen and being unable to write fizz-buzz in pseudo-code are two very different things though.
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