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Henceforth, All Job Applicants Must Hack Into Our Backend (Dev Challenge)

seatgeek.com

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Re: Henceforth, All Job Applicants Must Hack Into Our Backend (Dev Challenge)

#21

Post by ericwaller »

jayphelps wrote: post #16
jack7890 wrote: post #13

Regarding whether or not it's too easy...that's something we wondered about. We decided we wanted a relatively straightforward initial screen rather than an complex brainteaser. So I would by no means liken this to the Greplin Challenge, but we're trying to accomplish something different. We're hoping to eliminate the crappy applicants so we can spend more time on the good ones.

After I initially overreacted about it's simplicity, I saw the point more clearly. In fact, the more I think about it the more I loved it. (from your business's standpoint) Whenever I've been apart of interviewing candidates, ≈70% of the time was wasted on applicants who fluffed their resumé, got an interview, and were obviously not what they claimed to be. This would probably significantly reduce that overhead and a…

That was roughly our thought process (I'm another seatgeeker btw). We wanted to come up with something that would be pretty quick to solve if you know what you're doing, but at the same time, demonstrates that you've got a pretty good understanding of a bunch of the moving parts of web development.

Re: Henceforth, All Job Applicants Must Hack Into Our Backend (Dev Challenge)

#22

Post by vinhboy »

jayphelps wrote: post #9

Waaay too easy...honestly, I'm not tooting my own horn. But I guess it would keep the lazy applicant from applying. EDIT: on second thought, maybe it is the right level. They aren't likely looking for $100k+ hacker geniuses, just guys who can think outside the box and know how to do basic digging and prevent your typical hack. I retract my statement. Clever application process.

Damn, you guys are way smarter than me. Took me like 2 hours for the first step. The rest was easier. I am not good at riddles I guess...

Re: Henceforth, All Job Applicants Must Hack Into Our Backend (Dev Challenge)

#23

Post by barrydahlberg »

That was fun. Personally I wouldn't make it any harder as it would already weed out a huge portion of the candidates I have interviewed in the past. I would perhaps add something that required a little JavaScript or something written though.

I wonder how many applications you get from people that don't actually want the job.

Re: Henceforth, All Job Applicants Must Hack Into Our Backend (Dev Challenge)

#24

Post by notr00t »

zg wrote: post #18

Would be funny if somebody went overboard and actually rooted the box, deleted the other entries and changed the site so the problem couldn't be solved (or closed the competition). Then I guess you'd have to give him the job by default :-)

Always has to be a "him" right? Myopic macho nonsense, just like this company that wants "hyper-motivated" applicants. Ridiculous, geek-macho, over-caffeinated boys who speak first and (maybe) think later.

Re: Henceforth, All Job Applicants Must Hack Into Our Backend (Dev Challenge)

#25

Post by pavel_lishin »

ericwaller wrote: post #21
jayphelps wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

After I initially overreacted about it's simplicity, I saw the point more clearly. In fact, the more I think about it the more I loved it. (from your business's standpoint) Whenever I've been apart of interviewing candidates, ≈70% of the time was wasted on applicants who fluffed their resumé, got an interview, and were obviously not what they claimed to be. This would probably significantly reduce that overhead and a…

That was roughly our thought process (I'm another seatgeeker btw). We wanted to come up with something that would be pretty quick to solve if you know what you're doing, but at the same time, demonstrates that you've got a pretty good understanding of a bunch of the moving parts of web development.

I interviewed with a pretty big company awhile back, and they told me that 50% of the people they talked to couldn't pass a basic phone screen - the technical portion of which basically consisted of making sure I knew what the modulo operator was, what it did, and some practical applications thereof.

How were y'all's percentages in that regard? How many applicants flat-out couldn't write code to save their life?

Re: Henceforth, All Job Applicants Must Hack Into Our Backend (Dev Challenge)

#26

Post by pavel_lishin »

vinhboy wrote: post #22
jayphelps wrote: post #9

Waaay too easy...honestly, I'm not tooting my own horn. But I guess it would keep the lazy applicant from applying. EDIT: on second thought, maybe it is the right level. They aren't likely looking for $100k+ hacker geniuses, just guys who can think outside the box and know how to do basic digging and prevent your typical hack. I retract my statement. Clever application process.

Damn, you guys are way smarter than me. Took me like 2 hours for the first step. The rest was easier. I am not good at riddles I guess...

The first step being actually accessing the back-end? That took me about 30 seconds, but I got bored as soon as I got there, mostly because I'm just taking a break from working on a personal project.

I actually applied with SeatGeek awhile back, and I guess my resume was tossed in the fluff pile. I sort of wish they'd had this at the time, since I'm sure I could figure it out based on the other replies in this thread. But fuck it, I've gotten a job since then with what seems like a pretty cool company, so I can't complain. :)

Re: Henceforth, All Job Applicants Must Hack Into Our Backend (Dev Challenge)

#27

Post by morganpyne »

I quite enjoyed this :-) Reminds me of an online game that I played through years ago which I'm having trouble digging references to now; hack your way through successive levels, starting with really trivial things like default passwords and working your way up through all the exploitation techniques through to the more interesting ones (buffer overflows, off by 1 errors etc).

I was well hooked on the writings of Aleph1, Mudge and Rain Forest Puppy at the time, and this game was an excellent tool for teaching developers about vulnerabilities and thus how to defend against them. I know that the game spawned a plethora of copy-cats later on of varying qualitites - does anybody happen to know the one I'm referring to?

Re: Henceforth, All Job Applicants Must Hack Into Our Backend (Dev Challenge)

#28

Post by harisenbon »

morganpyne wrote: post #27

I quite enjoyed this :-) Reminds me of an online game that I played through years ago which I'm having trouble digging references to now; hack your way through successive levels, starting with really trivial things like default passwords and working your way up through all the exploitation techniques through to the more interesting ones (buffer overflows, off by 1 errors etc). I was well hooked on the writings of Ale…

I wonder if you're thinking of Uplink? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uplink_(video_game)

I was completely addicted to that game in college. The also apparently have a version on steam now.

Re: Henceforth, All Job Applicants Must Hack Into Our Backend (Dev Challenge)

#30

Post by dwwoelfel »

dwwoelfel wrote: post #19
jack7890 wrote: post #13

Regarding whether or not it's too easy...that's something we wondered about. We decided we wanted a relatively straightforward initial screen rather than an complex brainteaser. So I would by no means liken this to the Greplin Challenge, but we're trying to accomplish something different. We're hoping to eliminate the crappy applicants so we can spend more time on the good ones.

I think that you may have erred on the side of too easy. I have very little web development experience, but I was able to solve it in a few minutes. I didn't even use any developer tools.

Edit: I didn't realize that there was a second part. Maybe it wasn't too easy after all.
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