The top two comments are currently the most complained-about strategies (whiteboarding and take-home assignments). I think the best conclusion here is that for all the issues with the process, it's not like there are a bunch of way better solutions just waiting in the wings.
Ask HN: What should an ideal developer interview process look like?
201–210 of 289 posts
Re: Ask HN: What should an ideal developer interview process look like?
#202Earlier quoted context omitted.
this comment misses the point and is why we don't give take-home work to senior developer candidates. they are in high demand and will not spend their free time on homework, when many other companies will gladly hire them without making them jump through hoops.
I only see two possibilities: 1. Require developers to code on demand during an interview (personally, I have a hard time with this; the pressure of an interview is not a normal working situation). 2. Allow someone to do it on their own time, under no time pressure. (I advocate paying them for their time at a fair market rate). Do you see another way of a senior developer demonstrating their abilities without hitting…
Ask the candidate to thoroughly review code during the interview and offer insight. See if they can spot undefined behavior, if they can improve an already-good solution, and ask what their approach would be to refactor it. If they are truly senior programmers, their actual job will be reviewing more than they write anyway, and you’re not hiring them for their ability to crank out a quicksort implementation.
For the junior folks, sure: have them burn through homework.
Re: Ask HN: What should an ideal developer interview process look like?
#203Earlier quoted context omitted.
If the project only takes an hour for a junior it shouldn't be a problem. I would be worried that their senior position problems might not be as quick to solve (which is similar to the real world), but then this interview technique might just be best for junior positions and they do something different for senior positions given the different in skill sets and what problems they are expected to solve.
this comment misses the point and is why we don't give take-home work to senior developer candidates. they are in high demand and will not spend their free time on homework, when many other companies will gladly hire them without making them jump through hoops.
I've seen companies hire truly awful senior developers who ended up costing the company quite a lot after they were fired and the entire search had to begin again 3 months later. If the position is in high demand, you still need to gate it to make sure you get a decent chance at a good hire.
Also, I highly suspect companies who are having trouble hiring senior devs are having issues stemming from not paying enough for their given situation.
Re: Ask HN: What should an ideal developer interview process look like?
#204Earlier quoted context omitted.
If the project only takes an hour for a junior it shouldn't be a problem. I would be worried that their senior position problems might not be as quick to solve (which is similar to the real world), but then this interview technique might just be best for junior positions and they do something different for senior positions given the different in skill sets and what problems they are expected to solve.
this comment misses the point and is why we don't give take-home work to senior developer candidates. they are in high demand and will not spend their free time on homework, when many other companies will gladly hire them without making them jump through hoops.
As a senior developer I have no problem with take-home work. Obviously I won't do it for just any job or project; I'm picky and I'm looking for something special. If I find something that seems to meet my criteria, I'm not going to dismiss it just because they give me take-home work. In fact, I like them because they give me insight into the sort of problems I may have to solve there, and it lets me show what I can do.
I'm not going to jump through stupid hoops, but I love jumping through interesting hoops.
Re: Ask HN: What should an ideal developer interview process look like?
#205Interviewing is an adversarial process, as such, there can be no ideal way to conduct it. It's like asking for the best way to have a divorce. Any imposed solution means at least one person is leaving something on the table, and so it won't be ideal.
Why is it adversarial? I figure it's about the candidate trying to find a position that is suitable for him or her, and the employer is trying to find the correct person to fullfill a specific role. If the role does not fit the candidate, certainly it's advantageous to both that the candidate does not get hired.
> Why is it adversarial? I figure it's about the candidate trying to find a position that is suitable for him or her, and the employer is trying to find the correct person to fulfill a specific role.
that's ideal, but in practice i think employers and candidates are conditioned (perhaps by prior less professional employment? or the market as a whole?) to think that it is the candidate's job to trick their way into the company, and the employer's job to guard against the unqualified sneaking in.
Re: Ask HN: What should an ideal developer interview process look like?
#206Respectful of my time. Think of dating - if after 3 dates, you still are not sure if you like somebody, maybe it is better to call it quits. I had companies call me in for more than 4 interviews, distributed over several days. Not respectful. Coding: I actually like coding tests in interviews. Then I know my potential future colleagues will also have had a coding test. The company cares at least a little that my coll…
> Just don't take the coding test too seriously. Don't expect me to write correct syntax on a whiteboard, for example. It should be more about having the right ideas, or even be able to discuss possible approaches if a solution isn't obvious immediately.
This is important. I'm nervous. I don't know you people. And modern IDEs/Editors fill in most of the boilerplate for functions/classes, etc as well as help me recall library function names.
Be respectful of my time and don't expect me to practice whiteboard coding for a month just to interview with you.
Re: Ask HN: What should an ideal developer interview process look like?
#207Earlier quoted context omitted.
Furthermore, just because you can bang out something in an hour or two doesn't mean that you will spend only an hour or two when you know you'll be competing against people who put a lot of effort into the task. In my case, I do a lot of writing these days and, if someone were to ask me to write a thousand word analysis on some topic I was familiar with, I certainly could knock that off in a few hours. But, assuming…
Given that job searching is often a numbers game, a one-hour homework assignment is a lot of work when multiplied over dozens (or 100+) applications.
Is it really normal for a developer to need to apply to that many positions to find a decent match? I've only ever done a dozen or so at once, and each one I spend a decent amount of time researching the company for tailoring a cover page (if they accept them) or for the interview. I find those making the hiring decisions are quite impressed by candidates who have done their homework (and more than once I've made the hiring manager a bit worried about how I found so much information just through google searches; they don't realize how much their employees let leak through Linked In resumes and such).
Re: Ask HN: What should an ideal developer interview process look like?
#208Earlier quoted context omitted.
Wow. I live in Sweden, and I have the same expectations: I would not really want to spend much time on an interview process, and I have never, ever heard of day-long interviews either! We have had a perpetual shortage of developers though, it sounds much harder to land a job in the US.
To clarify, full day means 4 sessions of an hour each bridged by lunch (1 hr). The hope is to give the candidate sufficient information about the team while the team gathers info about the candidate.
That sounds pretty typical. In practice, it's not unusual to do one or more of the interviews by video because of travel schedules but four "in person" interviews is probably the norm.
Re: Ask HN: What should an ideal developer interview process look like?
#209Many people here will disagree with what I'm about to say, but if you're going to give a coding challenge... I like hackerrank/codility style coding challenges. gasp They're timed. They're run against a standardized test suite. And they have support for many languages. It's really unfortunate the number of companies that give custom take home coding challenges that run the gamut. The problems with which are manifold:…
Yeah, those challenges are explicitly timeboxed, and I know there is a relatively objective grading criteria (which is often as simple as “passes enough of the hidden test cases”). I refuse to do other types of take home challenges, but am fine with these.
The hidden test cases can be super frustrating, especially when you're passing 7/10 and the timer keeps ticking down. It's impossible to debug besides just staring at the code and guessing what else they might be looking for. Then to ultimately have the company immediately go, "Sorry you didn't check enough green boxes. You've failed. Goodbye."
Re: Ask HN: What should an ideal developer interview process look like?
#210I like asking candidates to give me a code review on a pull request. Because of IP concerns, I normally do this with an OSS project I’m involved with. Sure, they don’t know the codebase, but they won’t know the codebase that they’ll be working on in a month if hired either. I want to see how they think about creating software and whether they notice potential defects or tricky areas.
How long do you expect them to spend on this?
Hello,
My apologies in advance that this may not be the response you were looking forward to on forum question.
But I discovered an older post online on the Hacker News site some time ago for a Remote Junior Programmer/Assistant at Luma. I noticed you were looking to make your first hire and find someone that has some knowledge in technologies such as Python and Linux.
Well, I had completely forgot about viewing it and so I was checking out Hacker News job board today and saw it was for a remote Part/Full-time opening available at the Luma in the NYC area.
Well I'm someone who enjoys coding and learning with Python as far as learning purposes/hobbies go. Plus, I'm someone who has been going the self taught route trying to break into the IT field/Python Development world. I also have interests in some of the things mentioned in the post such as finance/trading and business.
But, more than anything.. I'd looking to further learn and grow in my skills as far as Python development goes. I don't have much experience with Django Web development but feel I can learn and pick up on it as well as with any other technology requirements quickly.
After quickly reading your post on Hacker News I was encouraged and interested to reach out and contact you for more info.
So with that said, here I am..and I wanted to inquire to find out if this opening is available? Or has it been filled? Also would you allow for training of junior developers to get up to speed? I had to ask because but I wasn't sure if you meant junior or for more seasoned developers.
Also, you have a contact number to learn more about this position or information on the things you require in regards to the nature of the job to increase one's chances to be a part of your startup team? Any help in this matter will be greatly appreciated. Thank you
Feel free to contact me at: pydeveloper22@gmail.com
--K