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

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

#361

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

monsieurbanana wrote: post #343

0xffff2 wrote: post #325

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I guess I have a fundamentally different view of software requirements. Even before dotnet core even existed I would have explicitly confirmed that the company wasn't using Mono if they didn't spell it out for me.

I don't know about that, but you do have a fundamentally different view of software requirements for interview tasks than me.

Can't help but agree. If someone completed a task in anything remotely sensible then I'd evaluate it to the best of my abilities in good faith.

Of course I'd be a little surprised if they chose to use a language not listed as part of the job requirements but if it looked reasonable it wouldn't stop proceedings.

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

#362

Post by mattbk1 » Thu, May 16, 2019, 4:10 PM UTC

falsedan wrote: post #299

swordsmith wrote: post #266

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Regarding the quote -- most of these skills are pretty general though.

how many of them did you exercise in the last 6 months/5 years I'm 5/7 out of 22, +2 if I go back a decade or two

Getting 100% on that list and then posting here would be a trick.

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

#363

Post by ohaideredevs » Thu, May 16, 2019, 4:12 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…

>Bad answers had the exec consolidating power and crushing opposition. The worst answers had the exec killing people to achieve their goals. Not joking, I had several answers that where "I would find my rivals and kill them".

You cannot placate a place like Libya without violence. Thinking otherwise is first-world delusion. It's worse - it's the same line of thinking that plunged the country into chaos under the guise of liberating it from a dictator. That's not a defense of Gadafi - it's a reality of things going from bad to worse.

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

#364

Post by semi-extrinsic » Thu, May 16, 2019, 4:13 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'm sure we can find a lot of things more horrible than Iraq. Like slavery as you say, or bombing Hiroshima and Nagasaki, or the war in Vietnam...

But what I think OP meant, is that the bad things which happened in Iraq were not the intended outcome of what the US did. Those other, more horrible things were intended consequences, not mistakes.

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

#365

Post by max76 » Thu, May 16, 2019, 4:13 PM UTC

0xffff2 wrote: post #325

max76 wrote: post #269

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Applying for a dotnet position and assuming dotnet framework instead of dotnet core would have been very responsible two years ago.

I guess I have a fundamentally different view of software requirements. Even before dotnet core even existed I would have explicitly confirmed that the company wasn't using Mono if they didn't spell it out for me.

Mono's use was very limited because it was an out of date and slower implementation of .NET. It's used in such niche contexts (Xamarin and Unity) that it was easy to determine if the team you are applying is using MONO or Framework.

.NET core changed the ability to make the Windows assumption. Almost everyone has received the memo by now, but there was a period of time between .NET core 1.0 (June 2016) and the release of .NET core 2.0 (August 2017) where the platform was changing so much and the performance wasn't as good as framework that anyone without a simultaneous interest in Linux rightly ignored it. After the release of .NET core 2.0 the entire community began accepting it as a faster platform that runs comfortably on cheaper servers. A larger and larger portion of new projects have been running .net core. Now, with the planned release for .NET 5 next year .NET Framework is dead. However, if you were interviewing with a .NET team before June 2016 even asking the question "What operating system will this run on?" would have been a sign of incompetence. Of course you'll be building .exe and .dll files. Of course the webserver is going to be IIS. Those were the only things .NET was good at building.

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

#366

Post by WrtCdEvrydy » Thu, May 16, 2019, 4:14 PM UTC

aantix wrote: post #333

gregd wrote: post #327

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why are people putting up with this?

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.

Give them a link to a Public Github repo on my account...

I always get a reply from those... surprisingly.

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

#367

Post by kbknapp » Thu, May 16, 2019, 4:14 PM UTC

> They presented three design challenge options to pick from, with a weeks notice and advised that we should spend no more that 3–5 hours on the task (wink, wink)

I know this self-selects for people willing to do extra work for no extra compensation.

However, let me play devil's advocate for a minute as a thought experiment. I would actually worry that this issue is also a self fulfilling prophesy. If I'm told to do X in Y hours, but it takes me 10 x Y hours perhaps the employer really does expect it to take only Y hours. Maybe the typical workload at that employer is for someone who really can do X in Y. As long as that is properly compensated, I see no problem with that. If the employer is asking for an extremely high caliber developer, and will also compensate as such then it's no issue. However, an average developer applies and thus has to lie about what they can achieve in that time-frame. Let's say they get the job and then when the workload is dumped on them it obviously takes longer than the 40 hour work week and they cry about "self selecting for people willing to work extra for no compensation." When in actuality, the employer expected, based on a false presentation, that it was within the average developer's abilities.

Of course, I'm being somewhat satirical and without knowing the exact position and compensation being offered (as compared to average) no one can say if this is the case.

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

#368

Post by JudgeWapner » Thu, May 16, 2019, 4:14 PM UTC

Loughla wrote: post #204

pxue wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because you're joining a team and should be a good fit beyond technical expertise. I would be very happy to have answered that question and would be a plus one in my books if I can have these types of heated talks with my coworkers.

Non-baited statement (and I'm aware it's discussed a lot here), but my experience with people saying the candidate wouldn't be a good 'fit' was just a way to enforce bias either unconsciously or consciously. And led to problems with group-think and an inability to think in different ways. Now granted my hiring sample is less than 100, but that has been my experience so far.

why should the candidate just apply for software engineering jobs? Isn't focusing on one field just enforcing their bias to a particular industry? Shouldn't we enforce basic rules that candidates apply to a diverse gamut of other jobs, such as truck driving, painting, and customer service? And shouldn't we shame them if they decline an offer for a labor job by calling out their biases? Shouldn't we require candidates to apply to more than one company? I mean, if they focused on one company at a time, that clearly enforces their bias (either unconsciously or consiously). How are we going to contain this blatant bias in job applicants?

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

#369

Post by tomlagier » Thu, May 16, 2019, 4:15 PM UTC

gregd wrote: post #327

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…

Why are people putting up with this?

Possibility of $250k+ total comp plus excellent benefits? It's worth it for many people.

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

#370

Post by nkohari » Thu, May 16, 2019, 4:15 PM UTC

legohead wrote: post #307

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…

> They presented three design challenge options to pick from, with a weeks notice and advised that we should spend no more that 3–5 hours on the task (wink, wink) I guess as a programmer I'm too logical. You tell me X hours, that's all I'm going to spend. For one of my past interviews I was given a task to make a multiplayer battleship game using whatever I wanted, and was told to spend 2 hours total and they didn't…

I think we interviewed for the same job. I did the same thing, and got the same response.

It was such a short timespan that I assumed it was a trick question, and they wanted to see if I could come up with a creative solution that technically met the requirements but was extremely simple. I implemented a board which you could put pins on, and a text-based chat system using websockets. The idea was that it would work like a table-top simulator.

Nope, turns out they wanted a real solution. I wonder how many companies who use these examples actually attempt them before using them to hire people. My guess is they might be more realistic if they did.