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Ask HN: What should an ideal developer interview process look like?

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Re: Ask HN: What should an ideal developer interview process look like?

#131

Post by zimpenfish »

rococode wrote: post #43
lawnchair_larry wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For #3, it’s not really a red flag. I am guessing you are a fairly recent grad? Most people who learn algos & DS never have to implement them on the job, and often haven’t actually written their own since their CS classes. If the question is any deeper than “what are some good and bad choices of algorithms for this problem”, you’re selecting more for who has just graduated or has been grinding leetcode and doesn’t ha…

Yeah, I'm currently a grad student so there's definitely some bias haha. The kind of question I had in mind would be along the lines of "say you have a tree, how could you find the nearest common ancestor of two nodes in that tree?". I actually got this question during an interview recently, and I felt it was of a suitable difficulty where I could figure out a solution without any specific knowledge other than what a…

In the 20+ years since I left university with a CS degree, not once have I directly used any of the algorithmic stuff I learnt commercially. (Obviously I've used sort routines in libraries.)

Re: Ask HN: What should an ideal developer interview process look like?

#132

Post by scarface74 »

1. Test for basic competence to make sure they know the language - what’s OOP, the difference between a class and an object, etc.

2. Whiteboard database design of a problem. I’ve found that it weeds out people who can’t model a solution. I also ask them to write queries that can answer simple questions.

3. A sample skeleton of a project with failing unit tests. They have to make the unit tests pass.

Re: Ask HN: What should an ideal developer interview process look like?

#133

Post by hvidgaard »

stult wrote: post #111
pjc50 wrote: post #80

The interview should not focus on assessing basic competence, it should look at relevant experience and understanding of the business in question as well as communication and teamwork style. Of course in order to get there would require a working certification system. Requiring candidates to write fizzbuzz in person over and over is a waste of your time and theirs, but it exists because nobody's managed to crack a "f…

You're right. We ask fizzbuzz simply because it eliminates a shockingly high percentage of applicants. We then ask more challenging and open ended questions to evaluate actual competence if they get that question. Fizzbuzz is there as a shibboleth of sorts. But I don't see it as a waste of time even for qualified candidates. For many qualified applicants, getting them to relax and speak naturally is the greatest chal…

It's amazing how many junior developers fall flat on that, and I've even had candidates claiming several years of experience to unable to make a for loop with an if statement. And I honestly don't think we lose any good candidates to it.

I don't ask FizzBuzz because many expect it, but I ask equivalently simple questions. I have the following criteria for an interview code question

1. Have an obvious KISS implementation. 2. Ability to modify requirement so the KISS no longer works.

I expect 2. to enable us to gauge their thinking. I don't expect a working solution to it, but they should be able to identify why it does not work anymore and outline ideas to solve it. This part is a conversation where we can lead them if they are not good at controlling the conversation.

Re: Ask HN: What should an ideal developer interview process look like?

#134

Post by vibrato »

mchannon wrote: post #119
rglullis wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wait, what is the difference between taking the time for an interview (no matter if via phone or in-person) and one for a gate-filter task?

In theory there shouldn’t be any, assuming it’s limited to an hour, both in description and in reality. In practice there’s a pervasive phenomenon called asymmetry of effort. The hiring manager may crib a task set either from a perfunctory google search or their own body part. The sum total of time spent on their part is often five minutes, including coming up with the problem and their review of your code. This foll…

Or when they ask a seriously difficult np hard problem (probably looking for an algorithmic solution to their real world problem) and never reply whatsoever when you send them a solution for a slightly simplified version.

Re: Ask HN: What should an ideal developer interview process look like?

#135

Post by johnnyfaehell »

cjCamel wrote: post #117

I find the move to take home tests extremely unfair. Anyone with dependents will typically need to block out most of a day of a weekend, or risk doing it in intervals through their week. Got a decent CV? Good luck trying to juggle applying for more than 2 interesting opportunities at once. We mostly hire full stack web devs. IMO It's impossible to really test the abilities of each candidate across the changing landsc…

During my last job hunt, I literally told one company I wouldn't do their take-home test. They literally told me it takes days to do, which if you're going to do greenfield code is extremely easy to do. They came back to asking people questions "People memorise that", "people can learn that", etc which is super weird since a take-home test I can literally have a dude from China do and they would be none the wiser.

But the main thing for me was the arrogance of the company/CTO, was pretty much a no-name e-commerce company that was expecting someone to do days worth of work for a job. I've not even heard the like FANG or anyone expecting that during their interview and they are actually places some people really want to work at. Which made me worry about the quality of developers they had if they all had such trouble in the job market that they had to spend days on a tech test to find a job.

Weird thing was, I said I was willing to be tech tested in their office over a period of hours I just wasn't willing to do a take-home tech test, apparently that was too hard for them to figure out and they just did the good ole no contact rejection.

Re: Ask HN: What should an ideal developer interview process look like?

#136

Post by drakenot »

cjCamel wrote: post #117

I find the move to take home tests extremely unfair. Anyone with dependents will typically need to block out most of a day of a weekend, or risk doing it in intervals through their week. Got a decent CV? Good luck trying to juggle applying for more than 2 interesting opportunities at once. We mostly hire full stack web devs. IMO It's impossible to really test the abilities of each candidate across the changing landsc…

I’m never dropping the Fizzbuzz style problem. It has absolutely blown me away the number of people who market themselves as senior people who can’t perform the most simple or basic coding tasks.

No fancy algorithms. No obscure data structures. Just simple loops and conditionals in any language.

It has been the most effective (and most depressing tool) I’ve seen in eliminating the myriad of fakers and unqualified people.

Re: Ask HN: What should an ideal developer interview process look like?

#138

Post by hvidgaard »

jgforbes wrote: post #127
maccard wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Version control. Given a terminal (or Explorer with TortoiseSomething) and an existing project, make some simple changes and commit. Does this really tell you anything about a candidate? If you sat me down in front of a terminal and said "here's a git shell, make a change and commit it" I'd fail the test immediately. I've used perforce for the last 9 years, and the terms are not the same, and the commands are _not_…

I also balked at it, but for the opposite reason. Everyone should be able to sit down to a terminal, make a change to a repository, and commit it. I mean even if you don't know the command (or they are using a different version control system then you are used to) you can always check the help or man page. It's still a trivial task.

The intricate of GIT commands are not obvious in the man page. I'd be more interested in a talk about how often to commit, branch, merge, review, ect. If you got that right, the VSC is just a tool you learn if you don't know it.

Re: Ask HN: What should an ideal developer interview process look like?

#139

Post by kod »

kwang88 wrote: post #61

A process that I've seen have some success (years ago): Start with a very, very simple initial phone screen or take-home test, intended to basically verify whether the candidate can write any code, at all. Max 1 hour, weeds out more people than you'd think. For the first in-house interview, ask the candidate to code up a problem that is representative of your company's work and requires coding a significant amount, i…

Are you saying max 1hr to understand a problem and write 100 loc? Seems unreasonable unless you are working in languages with a bad signal to noise ratio.

Re: Ask HN: What should an ideal developer interview process look like?

#140

Post by swish_bob »

ldite wrote: post #116
rglullis wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wait, what is the difference between taking the time for an interview (no matter if via phone or in-person) and one for a gate-filter task?

An interview is a two-way process. I typically find out a lot about the company and the people I'll be working with. Even a 30 minutes phone call is as much for me to be able to filter them out.

I get where you're coming from, and am in a similar position. On the other hand, I've used a coding test to drop a company before (completed the test and refused to submit it, told them the test gave me enough information to know I didn't want to work there). It gives you a hint as to what they think is important technically.
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