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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

#471

Post by Zenbit_UX »

thomascgalvin wrote: post #162
Zenbit_UX wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

2-4 hours is anywhere from $100 to $800 worth of free labor depending on how the dev values their time. The GP was bragging about how generous they were in providing multiple days and weekends to finish it. How did this become acceptable practice for hiring people? Do any other industries besides tech do this?

So teams should just not vet candidates? An in person interview is also going to be 2-4 hours, plus travel time. Should we stop doing those, too? How exactly do you suggest teams screen candidates?

Designers are hired based on their portfolio, why are devs treated differently? I have a plethora of options on my github as I'm sure most here do. Why is it not acceptable to judge a candidate by their already written code?

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

#472

Post by Zenbit_UX »

conanbatt wrote: post #181
Zenbit_UX wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm interviewing with 6 companies simultaneously and like you they all think they're deserving of free labor. I'd wager your company must have the worst devs, those who have little self respect and zero other prospects. Do you not understand that you're requesting free labor from an applicant? Did you forget the purpose isn't to have the sickest challenge ever but to evaluate someone's code/ingenuity?

What surprises me the most is people making 6 figure salaries complaining about making 1k investments into themselves. Absolutely worth it if it gets you the right job. Hell, most people pay multiples of that through recruiters and referrals.

How many jobs do you apply to when you're searching? More than a few I'm sure.

Maybe 10% of them get back to you with an interview request and that leads to a code challenge. It's highly plausible for a senior Dev to be simultaneously interviewing with multiple companies and have 5-10 pending code challenges. That shit adds up...

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

#473

Post by sonnyblarney »

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 get what you are getting at, but this is a terrible question to ask.

Libya is also a very complicated place, and so it's difficult to answer without quite a lot of knowledge.

The question reeks of that ridiculous 'American can-do neo-colonialism can solve anything' kind of problem, and in that context is basically offensive.

Any answer, given by any candidate could only totally gloss over the most important in a ridiculous and igornat way.

"Bad answers had the exec consolidating power and crushing opposition." ?

This is exactly how pretty much all leaders in the the Middle East establish power. Do you think they are stupid? Or maybe that there is some kind of underlying systematic issue here?

Secondarily, is the ugly reality of the answers: you can't 'build infrastructure' while opponents are thwarting you at every turn. 'Killing your opponents' in such a situation may actually be a rational thing to do. Of course it sounds very outrageous to be talking about this in an interview, moreover, it's doubly shocking coming out of people without that kind of relevant (i.e. military) experience.

This question is just loaded with problems, I suggest you adapt it to some other more neutral context.

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

#474

Post by la_barba »

lawlessone wrote: post #416
la_barba wrote: post #374

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is devaluing the word abuse. A voluntary optional task which you can decline at any time, is not "abuse" no matter how you spin it.

There are lots of situations that are voluntary but abusive. You can look at any job and claim it can't be abuse because people can leave the job. You ignore that leaving the job means loss of income, status, or worse even.

I still don't see how applying for a job is abuse.

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

#475

Post by mcguire »

xiphias2 wrote: post #433
busterarm wrote: post #398

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I remember my Uber interview. My interviewer was sitting in a room full of people when they called me, asked me questions and then proceeded to have conversations with the other people in the room without listening to me and would ask me to repeat my answers. And do it again. 15 minutes of this and I hung up on them. This was about 4 years ago and the equity that I have in the company I joined instead is on an upward…

I'm sure they were acting against the policy of the company. It wasn't Uber, just an asshole guy. Every company has that.

Uber?

Wasn't "asshole" their company policy?

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

#476

Post by sonnyblarney »

ravenstine wrote: post #237

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…

This is ridiculous.

There's nothing wrong with on-site coding challenges, white boarding, and a good chunk of brain teasers.

Having people code a small problem might be by far the best way to understand how they can do the job.

"If having years of experience and a GitHub don't demonstrate to you that I can write code, "

Your Github code does not demonstrate what people are looking for.

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

#477

Post by sonnyblarney »

brianpgordon wrote: post #256
ravenstine wrote: post #237

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…

Refusing take-homes is a reasonable stance but refusing to whiteboard strikes me as overly critical. It's a pretty standard thing to do in an interview... while whiteboarding may be a little silly, walking out of an interview after someone's already blocked time for you because you think whiteboarding is silly is even more silly than whiteboarding is. If I were the interviewer I'd be concerned that you can't be even…

White-boarding is not silly and it's why the best companies in the world do it.

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

#479

Post by cygaril »

IggleSniggle wrote: post #457
swish_bob wrote: post #229

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This particular company was neither "big" nor one of the "top" companies to work for. I strongly suspect they were getting noddy developers and were happy with them. The reason I didn't want to work for them was categorically not because the test was too hard, it was a trivial spring-boot app. I didn't want to work for them because of what it, and the test process, said about them ...

I have never heard the term “noddy” but assume it is a cognate for “nodding off”? That would make sense in context but I wonder if you mean something else by it?

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Noddy_(character)

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

#480

Post by cameronbrown »

kelnos wrote: post #449
distances wrote: post #335

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Home assignments are probably not yet the norm, but are becoming more common. There's been a lot of backlash toward whiteboard coding, but most companies still want some sort of concrete work product. I would expect a reasonable home assignment would take no more than a couple hours to complete. If a company gave me something as time-consuming as Uber's, I'd say no thanks. Otherwise, I'd prefer a home assignment over…

As always, there are advantages and disadvantages to both. I've only experienced whiteboard coding (and in a limited fashion), but I'd prefer interacting with an interviewer and getting instant feedback compared to submitting a lump of code and potentially never hearing back. Communication is something key they fail to measure with this type of interview.
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