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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

#831

Post by cocoablazing »

SilasX wrote: post #420
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…

Interesting! How would you recommend someone transition from a startup-y job to one of those? Anything they look for in terms of qualifications?

Apply. I would like nothing more than a flow of applications from smart software engineers with BSs over scientists exiting of postdocing and MCFs.

The skill I look for over all others is an understanding of the standard principles of software design, and principles of testing is a bonus. I want to see that the candidate is honestly interested in our language to the extent that they are familiar with the obvious pitfalls of the standard language features. Candidates who prepared by writing option pricers and passing leetcode challenges won't necessarily understand any of these, because they are simply writing functions.

I assume that anyone who got through a rigorous engineering undergrad has the mathematical preparation to perform as a quantitative developer. This won't be true for all roles, but it's true for all of the QD roles that I have contact with at BB.

If you are interested in a dev role in finance, and see requirements for basic financial knowledge, risk, etc. -- as long as the requirement isn't quite specific, such as experience pricing specific option types, pricing complex products, or with a specific product, I would just ignore it and apply. Many of these concepts are quite simple compared to what SEs are trained to model and implement, and the people on the team who need help know that.

I've seen GPU and C++ skills requested for a Pandas shop. Just apply.

I think hiring managers and HR think they will attract better candidates by adding these things, but it is counterproductive.

From what I can tell from salary surveys, we pay an entry-level dev better than many others. >150 guaranteed all-in first year, and better than that afterwards if you just do your job. Promotion path is good because modern skills are in dire need.

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

#832

Post by skate22 »

I gave a resume to IBM at a career fair.

They made me do coding problems on the spot right there. Given an integer n, write a function to print ever digit backwards. It took me a minute to think about it, but i solved it, and evan ran it at home to make sure.

Several months later they ask me to do an online 3 hour interview. I did it, there was no human interaction whatsoever. I had to record video responses and solve code problems.

More than a month later with no follow up, i got an automated response to take another 3 hour interview with no human interaction.

I did not take the interview and will never re apply to IBM

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

#833

Post by peoplewindow »

dblohm7 wrote: post #788
throwaway84742 wrote: post #331

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That sounds to me like fight or flight response. Happens to me sometimes, and when it does I can’t code worth a damn, in spite of having a decade and a half of experience on the top projects at some of the top companies in the industry. This, in fact, happened to me the first time I interviewed with Google: I bombed that pretty spectacularly. The second time I applied I already had a couple of very generous offers el…

Agreed. I suffer from Generalized Anxiety Disorder, and the environment of the technical interview immediately throws me into a fight-or-flight state. I've never applied to Google and I never will, because it would be nearly impossible for me to perform in one of their interviews.

When I interviewed at Google it was 2006 and they had a reputation for rejecting nearly everyone. I was still a student! So I rocked up to the interviews calm as calm could be because I didn't believe for even a second that I'd actually get the job and really, the whole thing seemed like an entertaining and potentially interesting mistake.

But I did get the job.

No expectations? No stress!

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

#834

Post by preordained »

tytytytytytytyt wrote: post #773
chrisbennet wrote: post #749

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

A lot of that's true or might be true, but how do we improve things? > 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. That's true for any non-perfect interview process at any job. The problem isn't that people don't know this, it's that it's hard to accurately measure who's good. > you might co…

One thing I would say is just talk through problems with candidates as simple as that sounds. Try to grok how they think through software problems. Nothing mind-blowing there, but what I'm saying is how someone codes fizz-buzz tells very little...or to me this is like hiring a driver by taking them out to a parking lot and doing doughnuts. If you can fathom the idea that they can drive a car (at all) it seems like it is much more enlightening to hear about how they organize a schedule, clients they have picked up, problems they have solved...how they react and comment to situations you pose to them,etc. I guess the key here is to do this conversationally, and not like you're grilling them. Or you have to be a good question asker and a good listener..but if you are, or can become one, I 100% believe you can get the information you need in a humane and efficient manner. But even as I type this, I'm wondering if the ability to read people is why this so hard for software interviewers...or maybe it's for lack of that simple skill that our industry has resorted to silly proxies like fizz buzz, etc.

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

#835

Post by simonbarker87 »

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 blazer, shirt and tie for every year of school from 11 to 18 years old, everyone did. In fact the last two years we a full tweed jacket that spelt like wet dog when it go wet and was nigh on indestructible.

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

#837

Post by fwdpropaganda »

meesterdude wrote: post #806
fwdpropaganda wrote: post #262

Come on. People complain about problems they have to solve on the whiteboard. People complain about problems that they can take home. This is approaching simple lazyness / entitlement.

It's lazyness / entitlemant because we want competent hiring practices that are respectful of our time? Because when you have to work 40 hours in a week doing nothing but take home tests & quiz projects for companies you are interviewing for - for the 38th week in a row - and still not taking in any money for all this - it's more about affording food and paying rent. The free work is the issue. Pay me for a day to do…

Ok, so what do you do when you're asked to do homework?

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

#838

Post by hulahoof »

regularfry wrote: post #805
hulahoof wrote: post #682

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be fair, In my (admittedly limited) experience contracting at BigCorp - the IT department's procedures are often a bottleneck in a workflow or solutions. We all know they are following business procedure, but there will always be some unconcious tension with departments that hinder a solution (I see marketing and legal butt heads all day).

In my experience they're also critically understaffed.

Right, but putting a face to a blocker in a project is hard to remove mentally.

In an ideal world, IT and Devs would be on the same page - after all who will be first contact when an end user encounters an issue?

The separation of development and support makes sense from a budgeting point of view, but operationally should be intertwined (IMO).

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

#839

Post by Clubber »

_o_ wrote: post #781
retbull wrote: post #351

Earlier quoted context omitted.

IT fixes peoples computers. Software Developers don't do that. We aren't Network Admins, we don't know how to set up or fix AD and we don't manage hardware. IT is a different field. I write software to process data and mostly I don't interact with hardware or troubleshooting arbitrary software directly. If I am offering support I am a level above IT. I understand that IT needs to be done but it is a very different jo…

... and that is wrong with the software development today. Our generations of developers started with playing games, using computer, reinstalling, configuring computers, then we started to mess with computers, os, hardware, network, routers, programing came in somewhere in the middle (we wanted to make a game, demo scene, ), cleaning malware, then we started automating the computer tasks, learned multiple programing…

>web and sql is all I know

Honestly, people who actually know sql enough to build a decent table design are super rare these days.

As far as everything else, you're pretty spot on.

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

#840

Post by exDM69 »

user5994461 wrote: post #648
dominotw wrote: post #642

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is the format at almost every single company these days. 1. Initial phone screen with recuriter - 30 mins 2. Phone screen(s) - 1-4 hr 3. (optional) phone live-coding on coderpad - 1 hr 4. Take home assignment - 4 - 8 hrs 5. Full Day onsite interview - 2-3 days if traveling. Rinse and Repeat for atleast ten interviews minimum you are looking at almost 1 month of pure interview time. Add on practise time for algor…

This is stupid. They should always do the take home test first or after a short phone call. It's easier and saves everyone time.

> They should always do the take home test first or after a short phone call.

Absolutely not. If most applicants need to do 4-8 hours worth of homework, they'll never have the time to review the results for every applicant. And making me do 4-8 hours of work without getting it reviewed thoroughly and getting personal feedback is not valuing my time.

In the process above there already was a screen sharing coding test. Adding the homework on top is redundant. You should be able to tell if someone can code in one hour of screen sharing, but you can't really tell if someone is mediocre or top notch from a single homework assignment.

Only once have I been given a homework from an interview and it was a solid 10-20 hours worth of work. I refused to do the work and I got the offer anyway, but I turned it down in favor of another offer.

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