I turned my interview task for Google into a startup • Hacker News Board

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

#351

Post by ummonk » Thu, May 16, 2019, 4:00 PM UTC

distances wrote: post #335

thoreauway wrote: post #305

I interviewed at Uber before they launched. Their "take home" was to create... Uber. Here's the exact challenge: UberCab Coder Challenge 1) Write a program that determines the wait time, trip time, rating, and fare for a black car trip in San Francisco, given that the customer's pickup location and destination is randomly placed anywhere in San Francisco proper, and given that there are X number of cars all placed ra…

Having never worked in SV, are these home assignments common there? I know several engineers who would refuse to do any homework at all as a matter of principle, so a task of this magnitude without compensation sounds laughable on the face of it.

It's not the norm but it's not uncommon at startups. Also, it seems to be standard practice for data science interviews.

I personally don't put up with it, but then there are always lots of commenters in HN who bemoan whiteboard interviews and prefer take-homes. To each their own.

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

#352

Post by devit » Thu, May 16, 2019, 4:02 PM UTC

josh2600 wrote: post #78

Someone on my team once asked an iOS engineer to add a button to a codebase during an onsite interview. That is actually a horrible test to complete in 45 minutes if the codebase is large (and particularly hard if it’s not super well maintained because even just familiarizing yourself with the codebase can take a great deal of time). It’s one of those things that sounds easy but really, really isn’t possible to do in…

It seems totally possible to do it in less than 10 minutes as long as:

1. The button doesn't have to do anything

2. You give them a fast computer with an IDE loaded with the project

3. The developer is familiar with the language, UI framework and IDE

4. You aren't doing anything crazy and uncommon like using a non-standard UI toolkit or using an ad-hoc source code preprocessor

5. The project can be built and run with a single command and can be built and start in less than a minute

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

#353

Post by zymhan » Thu, May 16, 2019, 4:02 PM UTC

JansjoFromIkea wrote: post #310

zymhan wrote: post #291

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Is there a reason there's no naming and shaming going on here? No, there is no rule, unless you signed a contract stating you will never disclose any interview information, and even then, they'd have to find your post, find out who you are, and then take you to court over an extremely shaky premise. Just name the damn company people! You're giving companies far more credit than they deserve in these situations. I'd…

> "Is there a rule I don't know about" > Goes on to not violate the rule that seems to exist Anyways, it was ThousandEyes

I appreciate you having the courage to call them out :)

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

#354

Post by ummonk » Thu, May 16, 2019, 4:05 PM UTC

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…

I mean the real answer should be "I'm not sure I want to join your company if it is in as bad a state as Libya in the wake of the Arab Spring".

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

#355

Post by ummonk » Thu, May 16, 2019, 4:06 PM UTC

max76 wrote: post #285

BurningFrog wrote: post #257

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your "proper answer" is what the US tried to do in Iraq, which is now considered the perhaps biggest mistake in US history.

Iraq is in the running for the biggest mistake in US history? I have a one word rebuttal to that sentence. Slavery.

I think mistake implies good intentions.

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

#356

Post by PerfectElement » Thu, May 16, 2019, 4:08 PM UTC

thoreauway wrote: post #305

I interviewed at Uber before they launched. Their "take home" was to create... Uber. Here's the exact challenge: UberCab Coder Challenge 1) Write a program that determines the wait time, trip time, rating, and fare for a black car trip in San Francisco, given that the customer's pickup location and destination is randomly placed anywhere in San Francisco proper, and given that there are X number of cars all placed ra…

That's a great way of getting an MVP done for free.

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

#357

Post by xrd » Thu, May 16, 2019, 4:08 PM UTC

Wouldn't it be interesting if everyone participating in these types of interview challenges refused to do them unless the work could be turned into a reference piece like this guy did?

I doubt many companies would like that, but if a majority of people refused to participate without that clause, who knows? Clearly several people in this thread felt like they were being asked to do work which would be put into production and this would prevent that (though I personally am REALLY skeptical of those stories).

It seems crazy that people are being asked to do work for even a few hours for "free" much less several days of work. If you are doing that, it seems totally fair to indicate that this work will be made public afterwards and made into a portfolio piece.

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

#358

Post by cookiecaper » Thu, May 16, 2019, 4:09 PM UTC

loktarogar wrote: post #340

aantix wrote: post #333

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The worst is when you do the task and then they just don’t respond. Not even a simple, “we’re not interested”. No feedback. Just. Left. Wondering. It’s cruel. It’s demeaning. Tanium was especially cruel. 6 hours of live coding interviews and the only reason I got any response from them was because I had to consistently hound them for a couple of weeks and ask a friend that worked there to internally ping someone.

Had one with Deliveroo. They responded, but they were declining me because I didn't do what they explicitly told me not to do in the instructions. They wanted people who "went above and beyond".

Everything about the interview process is a crapshoot. My last run on the interview circuit had a few like this too, where the "code challenge" is either intrinsically contradictory, or where the interviewers give candidates a "bad score" based on their own failure to understand/process the challenge they issued. Lots of amateurs out there with a "naive cleverness" about this stuff.

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

#359

Post by gvand » Thu, May 16, 2019, 4:09 PM UTC

thoreauway wrote: post #305

I interviewed at Uber before they launched. Their "take home" was to create... Uber. Here's the exact challenge: UberCab Coder Challenge 1) Write a program that determines the wait time, trip time, rating, and fare for a black car trip in San Francisco, given that the customer's pickup location and destination is randomly placed anywhere in San Francisco proper, and given that there are X number of cars all placed ra…

I wouldn't have expected anything less from them, go Uber! Always the worst!

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

#360

Post by stevenwoo » Thu, May 16, 2019, 4:10 PM UTC

One California company that used cheap labor in third world countries to interact with customers asked me to create a scheduler so that available workers would make the system have 24 hour up time, log all employee actions, and determine employee status (fire or not) based on employee action history, they were doing it mostly manually at that point so the completed task probably would probably have fit into their production system (got access to old production data for making system), also 24 hours for a first pass, and 48 hours for a fully functioning system, for zero pay - also, they wanted someone open to writing software to replace the third world labor after this task was complete.