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I turned my interview task for Google into a startup

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Re: I turned my interview task for Google into a startup

#41

Post by wycy »

jordansmithnz wrote: post #39

This reminds me of a take home software engineering interview I was once given via email. Same deal, I was told about 5 hours. I’m an iOS developer, so I was expecting a pretty simple app. I opened the PDF to find not one, but three separate tasks. Completion of all three was expected, with an estimate of about two hours each. One of the tasks was to replicate Apple’s ‘Reminders’ app in its entirety, backend sync fun…

Apple's Reminders app is so glitchy that your interview task probably would've been vastly superior to the actual consumer product.

Re: I turned my interview task for Google into a startup

#42

Post by ivan_gammel »

aloisdg wrote: post #34
skrebbel wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you illustrate that in practice? You took out the time to go to some office. You just spent an hour talking about your hobbies and attitudes and the company's working culture etc. Then, a programmer asks you to balance a red/black tree. You do.. what? You angrily throw the marker on the ground, cry insult, and run out the building? No, right? So then what? I see this repeated a lot on HN and I'm not sure I'd have…

> You took out the time to go to some office. How about a phone call or a quick email to ask what is their hiring process, what is the work and how it is usually fulfill? In the current market you are not a seller, you are the buyer. Why should I consider working for you?

In the current market there’s abundance of junior or mid-level developers from body shops applying to senior level positions. If you cannot stand from this crowd and shine by balancing the tree right, why someone would care hiring you? I can tell you plenty of stories about people who had impressive background and great soft skills, but in the end barely can do their job.

Re: I turned my interview task for Google into a startup

#43

Post by AznHisoka »

threwawasy1228 wrote: post #21

When people are turning their interview questions into successful companies, maybe it is time to start asking some easier interview questions. This is a visceral demonstration of how absolutely ridiculous interviews have gotten.

Personally, I love interview questions with some real life practicality to it. Tell me a problem your company is facing now and I will be energized to give you a solution. Typical abstract questions like design a binary tree or solve an arbitrary puzzle don’t interest me.

And sometimes its easy to memorize such solutions. Translating a real life problem into a computer science one requires some skill.

Re: I turned my interview task for Google into a startup

#44

Post by wycy »

aloisdg wrote: post #34
skrebbel wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you illustrate that in practice? You took out the time to go to some office. You just spent an hour talking about your hobbies and attitudes and the company's working culture etc. Then, a programmer asks you to balance a red/black tree. You do.. what? You angrily throw the marker on the ground, cry insult, and run out the building? No, right? So then what? I see this repeated a lot on HN and I'm not sure I'd have…

> You took out the time to go to some office. How about a phone call or a quick email to ask what is their hiring process, what is the work and how it is usually fulfill? In the current market you are not a seller, you are the buyer. Why should I consider working for you?

Do you take this approach for jobs to which you actively applied in the first place, or only jobs for which they reached out to you first?

I'm with your comment's parent: I don't think I'd have the guts to walk out of an interview either, especially for a job I applied to first.

Re: I turned my interview task for Google into a startup

#45

Post by JacKTrocinskI »

ivan_gammel wrote: post #36
JacKTrocinskI wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would never spend 4 hours on a task after hours for a company I'm interviewing for, that is my time and I value my work life balance. It is my humble opinion that a serious interview should take max 1 hour.

If you don’t see any value in learning and trying something new, I can understand it. At the same time there are plenty of people who see it differently and accept such challenge, willing to commit much more time to this kind of task. Maybe it’s not the kind of the job you would be interested in, but then why your opinion on it would matter? One hour interview cannot be more than just screening, when split 50-50 to g…

It's not a marriage, it's a job, and if you can't screen someone in a hour interview then you're doing it wrong. Have two rounds of interviews, whatever, if a company wants me to learn some skill they need then they can offer training as one of the benefits of the job.

Re: I turned my interview task for Google into a startup

#46

Post by nprateem »

TomK32 wrote: post #37
dawnerd wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My policy, before finding a place I like and plan to stick around at, is no programming tasks. There's plenty of companies desperate to hire than you can be picky if you know your stuff. I also will walk out if they start up with those 'clever' programming questions that have nothing to do with the job.

I have a large-ish personal project to show and if 700+ commits of my code don't tell them enough, nothing will.

From my experience, you're in the minority.

Re: I turned my interview task for Google into a startup

#49

Post by avip »

hising wrote: post #12

Awesome to read about you turning this into your own startup. One thing I came to think about regarding the "4-5 hours" and throwing 5 working days on it, is that, maybe as an interviewer it is quite obvious that you put more than 4-5 hours into it and what they were "really" after were the trade-offs you would have made if you put 4-5 hours into it. Just a thought.

This makes no sense for "product design". Just thinking about it, looking at existing similar products, before you even grab your napkin, takes 4 hours.

Re: I turned my interview task for Google into a startup

#50

Post by iamben »

Phenix88be wrote: post #13
itronitron wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> advised that we should spend no more that 3–5 hours on the task I have to wonder if they didn't get the position because they spent more than the advised time for the task.

No one could do what they ask in 3-5 hours. At this point they are not testing your ability, they are testing your commitment.

Are they though? Playing Devil's Advocate, I have a pretty good idea of what I can do in 3-5 hours of solid work. If I was hiring for someone to replace me and asked the same question, I'm fairly sure I could tell whether it had been 3-5 hours or 3-5 days.

It'd be more useful to know they could execute roughly what I'd expect in 3-5 hours. As in they think quickly, come up with something, get the basics down and are ready to progress or not.

...Of course, if they're doing it at home they could spend 3-5 days on something I'd spend 3-5 hours on and I'd never know...

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