In regards to a lot of talk about unfair pre-interview "projects", I highly recommend everyone ASK for an interview before working on the assignment, or if the assignment is short enough, work on-site, and request a code review in person.
I turned my interview task for Google into a startup
571–580 of 615 posts
Re: I turned my interview task for Google into a startup
#572Earlier 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.
Can you illustrate that in practice? You took out the time to go to some office. You just spent an hour talking about your hobbies and attitudes and the company's working culture etc. Then, a programmer asks you to balance a red/black tree. You do.. what? You angrily throw the marker on the ground, cry insult, and run out the building? No, right? So then what? I see this repeated a lot on HN and I'm not sure I'd have…
I did. I walked into the hiring manager's office and he barely looked up while asking me to decode the complex declaration on the white board that wrapped twice. My departing words were along the lines of: if you and your team write code like that, this is not a match. So I left.
Re: I turned my interview task for Google into a startup
#573Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
Studying for a programming interview is also transferrable, whereas maybe pieces of your weird homework assignment will be applicable in another requested project.
If I want to interview at 6 places that just use onsite interviewing it's easy to figure out how to prepare.
Re: I turned my interview task for Google into a startup
#574Earlier 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…
I've been in SV since 1997.
I am not a coder. I am a very experienced manager/director/PM OF development/DevOPs/IT teams.
However, prior I was in architecture.
And starting out as a draftsman, it was extremely common for architectural companies to tes out your drafting skills on AutoCAD with a timed test.
I recall the two I took:
In Redmond Washington in 1994, I was given a test to draw out a site plan for a chevron gas station, whom was their primary client.
I was given 15 minutes. I drew it in 12.
They said that not only was I the most accurate, but the only person ever in the history of their company to finish it. [became a core designer on what was then the 'revolutionary' designs of marriage of gas-stations and fast-food restaurants... [[Soul killing]]
I got hired... but then I became CAD manager - and then just decided I liked "computers" and not arch... so I then moved to SF. So I moved on to hospitals... gosh...
... (became IT manager of a small firm on the peninsula)
So then I worked for a design firm, and they also tested me upon interview... in CAD...
Isometric datacenter cabling plans....
I wasnt really familiar with plane changing in AutoCAD at that point so I did it all manually designed based on switching my orthos for each thing. Finished a complete cable tray design in the allotted 30 min window.....
Got the job - which resulted in me being on the core data-center design team for the Lucas Presidio project.
(and I have many other storis such as this)
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Challenges are good which are practical to the company's/teams goals and needs -- but bullshit if they want you to design their whole shit for them.
Now get off my lawn....
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Oh I forgot to mention - now I am director of tech for a cannabis org... GET THE FUCK IN CANNABIS TECH.
Re: I turned my interview task for Google into a startup
#575Re: I turned my interview task for Google into a startup
#576Earlier quoted context omitted.
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)
To save anyone else from reading all the irrelevant parts:
> Noddy being associated with small children's reading has led to "Noddy" being sometimes used as an adjective meaning "petty or trivial" (compare with "Mickey Mouse"), for example, in computer programming: "This simultaneous linear equation subroutine crashes out on the Noddy case when n = 1, but otherwise it works." or "Remember to check all the Noddy cases."
Re: I turned my interview task for Google into a startup
#577Hahaha. TLDR: Google asked a designer take home question. Candidate did a phenomenal job. Google still rejected candidate. Candidate turned the take home assignment into a real startup.
Just goes to say how much the industry sucks at evaluating candidates in general. This would have been a phenomenal candidate.
Re: I turned my interview task for Google into a startup
#578I recently completed an interview junket. One of the companies I really wanted to get into gave me a take home. I completed it in the time they said it would take, submitted it, and then got bounced out. My inside source said that the submissions are run through an acceptance test suite (not exposed to the interviewee, of course) that can automatically bounce people out of the process with no or little human intervention.
PROTIP: don’t do that.
Re: I turned my interview task for Google into a startup
#579Earlier 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?
Many people prefer this to an in-person whiteboard challenge. It's lower stress, and doesn't require taking additional time off from your current employer. A 2-4 hour challenge is less time than I've spent in interviews at some companies, and would gladly have done it prior to an in-person interview given the option. That way, the actual interview time could have been spent talking about things of value, rather than…
Every "take home" challenge I've ever been presented with happens before the onsite interview and doesn't replace it.
Re: I turned my interview task for Google into a startup
#580Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
This is a good point. Also many places don’t even allow open source contributions, even in your spare time.