Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

I turned my interview task for Google into a startup

uxdesign.cc

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

231–240 of 615 posts

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

#231

Post by briandear »

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…

Recreate Reminders? Wow. That app has an entire team of engineers to build that. It isn’t trivial, despite being “simple.” And to do it in two hours? That’s just insulting.

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

#232

Post by ivan_gammel »

matwood wrote: post #58
ivan_gammel wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> If you cannot stand from this crowd and shine by balancing the tree right I don't think memorization of an algorithm is what should make a senior level candidate stand out. Senior people need to be able to lead, mentor, self manage (this is a huge one IMO), and understand the bigger picture. "How do we avoid having to balance this tree at all?"

It’s one of the ways, for sure. But it is really interesting to me how a person without deep knowledge of fundamentals can lead or mentor anyone while being on a non-management position? They are supposed to gain authority from their professionalism, but without theoretical knowledge they won’t be able to justify their decisions, and then what? What exactly they can teach anyone?

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

#233

Post by duxup »

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…

A while back I made a career change and I was looking to break into the land of programming, where there are a lot of bootcamp noobs like me trying to do the same.

I did an interview and one guy just didn't want to be doing interviews it seemed. Later when I was asking questions it became clear that he was a "senior dev" who just didn't want to talk / work with anyone he deemed less knowledgeable or just not capable or something. I also find out he's the lead for the spot they're hiring... bad feelings started for me.

Later I got some positive feedback that the take home assignment I completed was one of the only fully completed and "thoughtfully done" assignments they received (one of the only times I received useful feedback during a recruiting experience).

Bad vibes aside, I was a noob and beggars can't be choosers so I was surprised when they asked for a second interview and felt I had to go to the interview (need a job!). Second interview and it was the same thing, and when I asked questions he didn't even answer them really / his random technical statements seemed like sort of ultra truisms / not related to the actual problem we were working. It also seemed this dude's team kinda worked on their own island (kinda appealing) and he was the guy running the island evaluating people (very much not appealing). More bad vibes....

It was a big corporate place (good pay, benefits I had heard) so that meant, MORE interviews if we were going to move forward..

But by that time I had a good interview at a small place (less benefits, probabbly less pay, fewer people to learn from / with, long commute, but it seemed friendlier and the lay of the land was way more clear)... I decided that I just had too bad a vibe from the guy who would be my boss so I declined the interview.

I was pretty honest with the HR person that just from the interview this guy really seemed like he didn't want to hire me / didn't really want to work with anyone like me and if they were going to hire someone they might want to work on that. The HR person said "yeah we know".

I still wonder what that job would have been like, would have been really nice to work at that place...but that guy... you just get that sense in an interview sometimes.

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

#234

Post by onychomys »

hguant wrote: post #218
rdez6173 wrote: post #104

I am a software engineer and I was once asked during an interview at a large hedge fund to pick a side and debate why war is justified. When I pressed them about the relevance, they indicated that they often have heated debates on all manner of topics, so they wanted to see my thought process. I enjoy solving complex problems, but socio-ethical problems are way outside of my wheelhouse. I politely indicated that I di…

Sounds like they've bought into the Heinlein/Rand general specialist myth (quote below) and were looking for that. Problem is, it's very easy to mistake lunatic confidence for competence, especially in an interview, and especially given the personality traits that work well in hedge funds/general finance. >“A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a buildin…

Well, for insects and also for naked mole rats.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naked_mole-rat#Roles

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

#235

Post by minimaxir »

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…

In a data science interview at a respected company I received a take-home with the framing “A Product Manager wants a dashboard with a massive amount of features (including interactivity, model prediction and GIS)” and received only 48 hours to do it. I thought there was some weird trick because that assignment had an unreasonable amount of scope in that timeframe. I found out the company uses a BI tool to streamline such tasks that is only available to enterprises and not consumers.

I eventually made the dashboard but it took 16 man hours; on the on-site, the interviewers implied they didn’t like it as it was not feature complete. (I called them out about the BI tool; they weren’t happy about it but admitted I was correct that it would be more efficient)

Now that I have had more experience as a data scientist, the real-world response to such a framing is to push back against the PM and write an implementation spec with a defined scope.

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

#236

Post by LandR »

mrisoli wrote: post #74
amelius wrote: post #3

> You have ‘4–6 hours’ to design a slick product, with a memorable brand and cohesive working method. No one acknowledges the fact that in reality, you’re about to dedicate up to 5 working days on this task, with the potential for them to ghost you straight afterwards. To make this more fair, why not let the designer work at the company's office, so the interviewer can actually see how much time it took, and the inte…

I've done that a few time actually. My last company they flew me from another continent to do a 3-days assessment, I worked with the team on a legitimate feature(that would be trashed after as they couldn't use the code because I was unpaid). I liked it, I met the team, I interacted with them, I did the task and got a job offer in the end. All engineers at the company highly valued the 3 days assessment because we go…

There's no way in hell I give up three days for any company!

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

#237

Post by ravenstine »

None of the places I've worked at had me do a coding challenge. Either they already knew who I was through networking or they asked me to show them a personal project and explain how it worked. Each job was a great opportunity.

When I start looking for a new opportunity in a year or two, I may consider coding challenges to be a soft red flag in that I don't think they're worth wasting time over. I spent so many hours in the last 6 months doing various code challenges, some of which were borderline unreasonable, none of which landed me a position. I ended up getting hired by one of the top 3 places I wanted to work, and it was mainly because I had already networked with my interviewers. Maybe they looked at my GitHub, but I never asked. Regardless, coding challenges of any kind have consistently been a waste of time for me.

Unless I really really want to work for a particular company, from now on I will immediately end my interview process if they ask me to do the following:

- On-site coding challenges

- Take home coding challenges

- Whiteboarding

- Brain teasers

I don't have time to waste on that shit anymore. If having years of experience and a GitHub don't demonstrate to you that I can write code, then I really can't help you with whatever it is you're looking to achieve. Developers have to shotgun apply to many places in order to play the numbers game of getting hired, and life is too short to work an extra hour or more every night to code something no one will ever use that won't get me hired anyway. People are generally biased towards feelings rather than facts, and any of the above bullet points mostly serve as a Rorschach test for interviewers who have already decided whether they like me or not. Someone just breaking into the industry might want to go through the hazing process of hammering out coding challenges, but I refuse to have my personal time wasted.

To anyone reading this, networking is a biggie. My dad used to tell me that and I never took him seriously because I hated the idea that schmoozing outperforms merit, but it's absolutely true. In reality, networking should be better because, at the end of the day, most people can tell whether you're competent and if they want to work with you based on how you naturally interact with them. Formal interviews barely work because everyone rehearses for them and they only prove that you were able to tackle one problem(which recruiters often alert candidates to anyway).

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

#238

Post by TallGuyShort »

rickyc091 wrote: post #206
TallGuyShort wrote: post #201

My last company did interviews like this - I was always disgusted at the way most of the team would sit around and just find things to pick on in the person's code. Dumb stuff too. It became an excuse for a lot of the engineers to just make fun of someone who had successfully completed the program, but didn't take the time to JavaDoc everything and follow the same code style best practices we did. Things you can easi…

Not saying this approach was correct, but given a choice, what type of interview would you prefer? Hackerrank? In person, programming challenges, smaller take-home assignment, other?

As both an interviewer and interviewee I prefer in-person. Where you simply meet 1:1 with a few people - some talk to you about fit / experiences and some sit and work with you on a problem. Ideally, you would do the second in a work environment you're used to on a real computer instead of a whiteboard, and I haven't had a chance to do that before. I've seen a few poor performers slip through this before, but I do feel it gives a lot more room for people who just misinterpret what you're going for initially because there's more room for immediate feedback [1]. I've also had some disastrous experiences working with people who were amazing coders but were terrible and sitting down and talking through a problem with someone - I'd rather have a mediocre coder I can talk to. It gives the interviewee a finite time bound, and the company is spending equal manpower resources of their own (instead of giving you a 5-hour problem that you might secretly spend more on, when maybe they already are leaning towards a no but wanted to give you a final chance before ghosting). The downside here is it depends a lot on the consistency and skill of the interviewers, but I believe with good culture and training you can make most people good at this.

[1] edit: Also, I think you can tell a lot about how qualified someone is by how they clarify the problem and how they communicate their thinking - not just the code they arrive at.

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

#239

Post by HillRat »

Loughla wrote: post #129
rdez6173 wrote: post #104

I am a software engineer and I was once asked during an interview at a large hedge fund to pick a side and debate why war is justified. When I pressed them about the relevance, they indicated that they often have heated debates on all manner of topics, so they wanted to see my thought process. I enjoy solving complex problems, but socio-ethical problems are way outside of my wheelhouse. I politely indicated that I di…

How is that even remotely related to the job at hand? Why would you sabotage possible good candidates just so you can get your needless debate rocks off?

It would actually be a pretty good way to see if a candidate can be persuasive, logical, able to acknowledge opposing points of view, and capable of divorcing argument from emotion on heated topics. Pretty crucial skills in the workplace!

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

#240

Post by corndoge »

agrippanux wrote: post #213
rdez6173 wrote: post #104

I am a software engineer and I was once asked during an interview at a large hedge fund to pick a side and debate why war is justified. When I pressed them about the relevance, they indicated that they often have heated debates on all manner of topics, so they wanted to see my thought process. I enjoy solving complex problems, but socio-ethical problems are way outside of my wheelhouse. I politely indicated that I di…

When interviewing execs who would be building new departments a few years ago, I would pose the question of "In the wake of Arab spring in Libya, the people decide that you are their next leader. What happens in your first 100 days?". The answers ran the gamut from lazy to fantastic to terrifying. A lot of answers where generic "coalition building" variety. The better answers identified key areas to focus on like inf…

>Bad answers had...

Asking a politically charged question on statecraft and judging the answer based on your own personal ideas about how to run a state strikes me as a bizarre way to conduct an interview, even for an exec.

>The worst answers had the exec killing people

Play stupid games, win stupid prizes?

Post reply on HN