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I turned my interview task for Google into a startup

uxdesign.cc

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

#491

Post by GuiA »

throwaway373674 wrote: post #488
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.

> “I interviewed at Uber before they launched”

> “I’ve been a software engineer at Uber since 2015”

Perhaps they need to test reading comprehension in their interviews!

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

#492

Post by JansjoFromIkea »

zymhan wrote: post #353
JansjoFromIkea wrote: post #310

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "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 :)

No courage in that! The true courage is in admitting I was stupid enough to take a stab at their challenge.

The interview itself was a whole other tale of awfulness but I'll limit my overview of it here to saying that they didn't bring up the coding challenge once despite being repeatedly asked for feedback before, during and after the interview. Maybe they felt awkward about saying how crap they thought it was? Be pretty weird to bring me in for an interview in that case though...

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

#493

Post by la_barba »

IshKebab wrote: post #481
la_barba wrote: post #474

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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".

Ah.. the old "some people" logical fallacy. Sorry, I don't wish to enter into an internet argument with you. Have a nice day..

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

#494

Post by dajohnson89 »

Alex3917 wrote: post #458
monocasa wrote: post #309

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, that certainly selects for engineers willing to do unreasonable amounts of work without questioning it.

If you've never had a job as a developer before and don't have any open source contributions, then that's actually a pretty good take home project. Yes it will take a week or two of unpaid work, but no one is going to hire you for your first job without having built at least one project of that size anyway.

Do you really think that's an appropriate question for an entry-level developer?

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

#495

Post by ravenstine »

sonnyblarney wrote: post #477
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…

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

Define "best". Not everyone wants to work for Google, Facebook, Microsoft, etc.

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

#496

Post by retiredcoder »

gregd wrote: post #336
retiredcoder wrote: post #319

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, 2 hrs barely touch anything new in my current job, where we have a lot of boilerplater and in-house infrastructure built by the devprod team. Some companies either take those for granted or just deliberately make the bar extra high for arbitrary reasons.

It takes me almost 2 hrs to recover (i.e.: reengage) after meetings...totally unrelated to coding or whatever project I'm working on.

I hope one day, well I actually hope to be alive to see, that one day humanity will have enough understand of the brain to teach us our cognitive limitations and how to effective work around/out them. Not long ago I quit one of my jobs because I simply couldn’t learn to be effective due to meetings and all the interruptions commonly seen in an open office/agile/start-up company. Seriously, I can’t be a better engineer in such environment.

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

#497

Post by max76 »

ummonk wrote: post #355
max76 wrote: post #285

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Also, it's very strange that you can imply The United States started a war with good intentions with a straight face.

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

#500

Post by conanbatt »

Zenbit_UX wrote: post #472
conanbatt wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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...

It also costs the company thousands of dollars in opportunity cost to interview 10 peolpe full days to hire 1.

But the company sees the value in doing it, and many people dont see the value in doing it for themselves.

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