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

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

#521

Post by fhbdukfrh » Thu, May 16, 2019, 7:16 PM UTC

ldoughty wrote: post #440

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.

I'm on the other coast, not even in a major tech hub, and we do a take home assignment now to screen applicants. They choose from 2 languages,and an experienced coder is done in 5-15 minutes. A fresh grad maybe 45 minutes. The tasks have no practical work application, and are just code samples. If they pass this and a phone screening, there is a live challenge as well -- the take home version we give people 48 hours…

How many steps total? How long to get through the process? This may work for lower demand markets but sounds excessive in competitive regions.

We've been super successful in mining the late round rejections from companies like Google. Getting to an on-sight is a huge signaling factor, they do the early filtering and we can move fast to an offer

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

#522

Post by cosmie » Thu, May 16, 2019, 7:17 PM UTC

monsieurbanana wrote: post #331

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 that's how you want to test potential engineers, I don't necessarily see a problem with the task itself. Just pay them! I'm sure Uber can find the budget for that.

>I'm sure Uber can find the budget for that.

I doubt they had the budget for that or they likely wouldn't have been essentially trying to get someone to making their MVP under the guise of a new hire interview.

Keep in mind the OP mentioned that this was pre-launch, when they were still UberCab and only had aspirations to be a peer-to-peer cab app. Long before they started marketing themselves as a logistics juggernaut or world changing self driving car creators for valuation justification purposes.

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

#523

Post by quickthrower2 » Thu, May 16, 2019, 7:18 PM UTC

anarazel wrote: post #413

rosege wrote: post #288

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Because that's what you want in your organisation. The person best at being an unchallanged dictator.

That’s what makes the question hard. It’s what would you do in this politically dire situation to lead a country while at the same time impressing an interviewer so you can get a job.

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

#524

Post by fhbdukfrh » Thu, May 16, 2019, 7:19 PM UTC

ryandrake wrote: post #387

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.

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.

If it makes you feel better go ahead. At best you're being kind of a dick to NO-REPLY@... At worst you're labeled a prima donna.

Politely decline and move on with your life.

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

#525

Post by jerf » Thu, May 16, 2019, 7:22 PM UTC

silversconfused wrote: post #401

jerf wrote: post #342

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have to admit I'd give a pretty Machievellian answer as well, on the assumption the question includes having to keep the position. In harsher political climes, you can't afford to put "building a strong society" on the top of your priority list. One of the ways strong societies become strong societies and stay strong societies is to make it possible to play a lot of politics as much less of a bloodsport, so things…

Why not? It worked for George Washington.

"In the wake of Arab spring in Libya, the people decide that [George Washington is] their next leader." is not what happened. Libya is not the 18th century British colonies.

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

#526

Post by antt » Thu, May 16, 2019, 7:26 PM UTC

Alex3917 wrote: post #519

dajohnson89 wrote: post #494

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

For an entry-level fullstack iOS developer it's not that bad. For context, for my first job as a developer the take home assignment I got was creating a web app that logged realtime CPU usage and created a graph of that CPU usage that was updated in real time. And this all had to be done using a specific language, web framework, and database that I had never used before.

>For context, for my first job as a developer the take home assignment I got was creating a web app that logged realtime CPU usage and created a graph of that CPU usage that was updated in real time.

That's at worst a 4 hour job to do with a beer over the weekend. You sound incredibly incompetent if you can't tell the difference in difficulty between that and that they asked OP to do.

That assignment is 1/128th the work of point 1) from OP.

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

#527

Post by ghaff » Thu, May 16, 2019, 7:37 PM UTC

gregd wrote: post #345

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.

I can't tell you how many times I've never even gotten the courtesy of a response after interviews...even though I've checked in with them to find out where they were in their process. The other thing that gets me, is not listing what the expected pay is upfront (and whether or not it's remote) on the job posting. We all work for pay and we all have a pretty good idea of what income it takes to live in your current (…

>it said (limited remote with approval), making it sound like you had to negotiate for remote work

In all fairness, that's pretty common. For a lot of positions, companies are fine with proven employees working from home part of or most of the time. But that's not the same as signing off on 100% remote from Day 1. If that was the case here, I'm not surprised that they took your response as a polite "not interested" and moved on. In my somewhat limited experience, recruiters usually aren't that inclined to chase after people who have pretty much indicated they're not interested.

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

#528

Post by rifung » Thu, May 16, 2019, 7:43 PM UTC

fhbdukfrh wrote: post #516

rifung wrote: post #486

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

This implies some sort of standardized assessment, which is seldom true. All sorts of bias is at play under the guise of culture, personality and team fit.

> This implies some sort of standardized assessment, which is seldom true. All sorts of bias is at play under the guise of culture, personality and team fit.

I'm not sure I understand how it does?

I just said that as an interviewer you have no idea how well you did because you can't compare yourself to other interviewers. Or, in other words, even if you somehow knew your "score" (for some made up score) that wouldn't give any indication on its own whether you passed or failed because you'd have to know what scores other people have gotten.

I agree with what you're saying about biases, but that merely affects what or how scores are given, and not whether you can make judgments about your outcomes based on score.

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

#529

Post by distances » Thu, May 16, 2019, 7:47 PM UTC

Zenbit_UX wrote: post #471

thomascgalvin wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Lots of people would see this as unfair, as they don't have anything GitHub. Either for preferring to do something else with their precious free time, or perhaps slaving full days in their closed-source jobs.

I think the only fair option is an in-person interview without homework assignments. Treats everyone the same and doesn't require inordinate time commitment.

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

#530

Post by crimsonalucard » Thu, May 16, 2019, 7:49 PM UTC

pembrook wrote: post #280

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?

This is why we need less humans and more AI/ML in the candidate selection process. The guy posing Arab Spring interview questions sounds just like those 65 year old talent scouts in MoneyBall skipping over a talented 3rd baseman because the kid “doesn’t have good legs.” Humans are immensely stupid and irrational when it comes to judging other humans.

The overall goal of AI/ML is not to replace the candidate selection process but to replace the candidate.