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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

#481

Post by IshKebab »

la_barba wrote: post #474
lawlessone wrote: post #416

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

It's not that complicated. Some people are desperate for a job. They will do anything for it. You can abuse that need.

Like, imagine if the TSA strip-searched everyone. Pretty abusive right? You wouldn't say "I don't see how letting people fly is abusive".

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

#482

Post by desireco42 »

zoomablemind wrote: post #430
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…

Was it an interview for lead position or just coder? How did this end? It looks like a good chance to outline the resource requirements for accomplishing this. No way should this be a work of team-of-one. State the expected stages and some ideas for possible architecture and frameworks. Then ask for resources needed to implement this with some rough-optimistic estimates, including the budget. That should be enough fo…

That is excellent point, I really like where you are going with this. It shows maturity of the applicant as well.

Sometimes I would like to say, you know, I like to work with good devs, so if you don't mind, I would like to ask you some coding questions. It freaked out some people with that, but it is in the same range as the questions they are asking.

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

#483

Post by dawnerd »

wycy wrote: post #44
aloisdg wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You took out the time to go to some office. How about a phone call or a quick email to ask what is their hiring process, what is the work and how it is usually fulfill? In the current market you are not a seller, you are the buyer. Why should I consider working for you?

Do you take this approach for jobs to which you actively applied in the first place, or only jobs for which they reached out to you first? I'm with your comment's parent: I don't think I'd have the guts to walk out of an interview either, especially for a job I applied to first.

I just use recruiters to do all the leg work and tell them my requirements. Always had made sure to still bring it up during the phone screening. Only once had they brought me in and started with the quiz nonsense.

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

#484

Post by codexon »

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.

I had an interview with a company that's mentioned from time to time here. When it was the founder's turn to grill me, he spent 90% of the time staring at his iphone while barely glancing at me.

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

#485

Post by zdragnar »

kbknapp wrote: post #391
zdragnar wrote: post #338

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> To be useful for discriminating between competent candidates, I helped redesign the code challenge at one of the companies I worked for. We (the people across the different technical disciplines we hired for) put a lot of effort into ensuring that: * the challenge could be completed in 4 hours * the challenge resembled the sort of work people would do on the job * the goal of the challenge was to inform a follow up…

I think you're missing the point from the previous poster about (perceived) competition. Unless your challenge literally stops at, "make X appear onscreen" with no regard for quality, testing, etc. Giving unchecked/unverified time restraints isn't fair. It doesn't matter you're giving more time than it should take to complete. If the task can be done in 2 hours, but you give "6" and Candidate A does it in 3, but Cand…

Again, in our case, we didn't use it as a screen unless the code was an unmitigated disaster or didn't complete the basic requirements.

So, if someone submitted something that could have been done better, see might ask what could be done to improve it in the follow up interview. A good answer would include the technical bits, and a better answer would describe the time recommendation and why a more polished version would take longer or be considered over-architecting.

This purpose- to inform a conversation with a concrete, familiar code base- is better than both take-home screen assignments as well as the in-person whiteboard exercises, which encourage route memorization and don't reflect the nature of the job we were hiring for.

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

#486

Post by rifung »

gcheong wrote: post #443
lhorie wrote: post #419

Earlier quoted context omitted.

FWIW, this is not how Uber does interviews anymore. Now the process involves a technical phone screen and an onsite, with coding exercises that are meant to be completed in 30-45 minutes. I believe it's pretty on par with other tech companies in the Bay area.

It's on par but still bullshit. I interviewed with Uber, got said phone screen, managed to solve the problem then was told Uber decided to "go in another direction" and would not be moving forward with my application. When I asked for clarification as to what that meant considering I solved the problem the recruiter called me and said some hand wavy stuff about how I didn't solve it "quickly" enough (I had plenty of…

> I interviewed with Uber, got said phone screen, managed to solve the problem then was told Uber decided to "go in another direction" and would not be moving forward with my application. When I asked for clarification as to what that meant considering I solved the problem

I understand the frustration with interviews but your comment seems to show a lack of understanding in how interviews work.

Interviews are a competition, not a pass/fail exam. Or if we're going with the exam analogy you're being graded on a curve, so you could get a 90% but if everyone else scores 95+% you didn't do well.

What matters isn't whether you solve the question but how well you do compared to everyone else.

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

#487

Post by dawnerd »

wpietri wrote: post #118
dawnerd wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My policy, before finding a place I like and plan to stick around at, is no programming tasks. There's plenty of companies desperate to hire than you can be picky if you know your stuff. I also will walk out if they start up with those 'clever' programming questions that have nothing to do with the job.

I think you're totally right to walk out on puzzle questions. But if you avoid companies that make sure you can program, aren't you worried about the skills of your colleagues?

There's other ways to evaluate if someone can program. A "4 hour" take home test for example isn't a good one as they could easily cheat or spend more time on it. In person tests are often setup to test your memorization which let's be real, how many of us don't google stuff on the daily?

What I feel is more important is a persons thought process on how they approach a problem and come to a solution.

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

#488

Post by throwaway373674 »

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've been a software engineer at Uber since 2015 and have lead over a hundred onsite interviews and countless phone screens. In four years I have never seen a take-home exercise be used. Every other interviewer also holds a strong negative opinion of them.

It's possible we were doing this many years ago, but that certainly isn't the case now.

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

#489

Post by binarytox1n »

ravenstine wrote: post #287
brianpgordon wrote: post #256

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> It's a pretty standard thing to do in an interview... I'm not interested at working for standard companies. :) But everyone is different. If whiteboarding is someone's thing, the more power to them. > 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 there was a misunderstanding where they blocked out time in…

As a hiring manager I would take a refusal to whiteboard or participate in an in-person coding problem as a sign that the candidate knew they were not qualified to write code and therefore declined so as not to waste anyone's time.

I'm sure that doesn't matter to you as you don't want to work at standard companies anyway, but I have seen plenty of people fail to solve fizz buzz who had the nerve to show up for a Senior Dev role and therefore I will always ask my candidates to write code in front of me. Anyone can copy and paste their way into an active looking github profile, much fewer can talk me through their thought process as they solve a real problem that I have given them to solve.

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

#490

Post by gcheong »

rifung wrote: post #486
gcheong wrote: post #443

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's on par but still bullshit. I interviewed with Uber, got said phone screen, managed to solve the problem then was told Uber decided to "go in another direction" and would not be moving forward with my application. When I asked for clarification as to what that meant considering I solved the problem the recruiter called me and said some hand wavy stuff about how I didn't solve it "quickly" enough (I had plenty of…

> I interviewed with Uber, got said phone screen, managed to solve the problem then was told Uber decided to "go in another direction" and would not be moving forward with my application. When I asked for clarification as to what that meant considering I solved the problem I understand the frustration with interviews but your comment seems to show a lack of understanding in how interviews work. Interviews are a compe…

Sure, but without knowing what the grading criteria are (coding speed?, optimality of solution?, etc.) I can only go by what appears to be the criteria according to the signals I get during the interview ("Is there a more optimal solution?", "This looks good to me.", ...). And yes it is pass/fail often times.
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