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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

#381

Post by la_barba »

corndoge wrote: post #240
agrippanux wrote: post #213

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

The OP mentioned that this interview questioned worked for them. So, at face value, seems to work?

The thing is all these weird interview strategies work at some level. Its very self-reinforcing. If a company kept hiring duds, they would change their interviewing style.. or simply go out of business after hiring enough dummies.

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

#382

Post by astura »

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…

>Write a "Hello World" app on the iPhone that for a certain driver logging in shows all of his trips taken in the last simulation, the average rating that he got, and the total fares he collected during those trips.

That's not "Hello World" app, a "Hello World" app prints "Hello World." The purpose of a "Hello World" app is to demonstrate you've setup the environment correctly, nothing more.

Words and terms have meaning.

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

#383

Post by pesfandiar »

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.

Sounds like this practice successfully filters out those engineers who value their own time.

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

#384

Post by atoav »

djsumdog wrote: post #198
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…

> you’re about to dedicate up to 5 working days on this task, with the potential for them to ghost you straight afterwards I often give companies a list of open current open source tasks I'm working on. Pick one and I'll complete it for your interview. Every singe company turned me down, except one, who just accepted one of the tools I had on Github and examined that.

This is a very good idea! I could even imagine something like this could be a socially acceptable way to test candidates, with thw benefit of helping open source

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

#385

Post by asveikau »

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".

If above and beyond is required, how can it be above or beyond?

Above and beyond can be nice, but the whole point is that it is exceptional, in every definition of the word. If all individuals went above and beyond all the time to fulfill expectation to do the same, that sounds like a recipe for a PR or legal disaster because rational limiting judgement is not applied, or intentionally suppressed, in a scenario where somebody is in over their head.

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

#386

Post by JudgeWapner »

richthegeek wrote: post #167
irrational wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We've joked about giving potential hires a challenge to fix a problem we are currently experiencing, but we wouldn't really do it. That takes some balls to ask interviewees to write or fix production code.

I've just completed an interview process (waiting for the decision) that was explicitly "this is a real problem we have", but also stating that I'll be paid for 8 hours work. I have no problem with that. It took about that long as well. So I suppose if you're honest about it, and you give a fair estimate of the time required, then what's the problem?

I still disagree with that. are you being paid 8 hours at a pro-rated salaried rate? Well you're going to have to report that as income and take a 30% haircut off it. There's a reason contractors get 30% or more above the hourly-equivalent of a salaried employee.

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

#387

Post by ryandrake »

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.

I’ve personally seen several of these. I’m tempted to reply back with my hourly consulting rate because it’s crazy that these companies would expect someone to do a project like that uncompensated.

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

#388

Post by komali2 »

rosege wrote: post #288
corndoge wrote: post #240

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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?

Its actually not such a stupid answer. Its completely inhumane etc but it worked well for Saddam Hussein (among others) who conducted a purge on taking office in 1979 and then never had his leadership questioned again.

Would you want to work for Saddam Hussein?

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

#389

Post by starpilot »

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…

In all fairness, there have been so many articles about the craziness of that hedge fund, you should have known what you were getting into. Better to find that out in the interview.

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

#390

Post by awwstn »

Some companies use a process where the candidate doesn't see the challenge until pressing "start", and then they have x hours to complete it.

This seems to be far superior for obvious reasons:

1) It normalizes the submissions, making the review process more accurate/fair 2) It removes any ambiguity or implication around the amount of time that should be spent 3) The amount of time a candidate has/is willing to devote to an unpaid homework assignment is likely not meaningfully correlated to their ultimate success in the role, but the process described by OP likely over-indexes for that.

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