[deleted]
I turned my interview task for Google into a startup
581–590 of 615 posts
Re: I turned my interview task for Google into a startup
#582I 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 interven…
Why not do that? Coming from the other side of table, an immense amount of engineer-hours are devoted to the interviewing process, including code review on take-home assignments. Thus we try to make the process efficient. Typically there's a set of unit tests provided in the assignment to help the interviewee, and a hold-out set of unit tests that gives us a score for basic correctness. The score, albeit a low bar, is a useful threshold for eliminating candidates unlikely to succeed in the process. Those above the threshold have their code passed on to an engineer to review beyond basic correctness, and move on in the interview process.
Re: I turned my interview task for Google into a startup
#583Earlier 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 remember an interview at Coinbase I should have walked out of. The first question was "what is the angle between the hour and minute hands of an analog clock at 3:15?" It went downhill from there.
Re: I turned my interview task for Google into a startup
#584I love take-home assignments. Especially reasonably scoped ones. They allow me to show off my skills. However, my opinion is that it should be paid labor. Give me a day of work and pay me to do it. This values my time, it actually doesn't add all the much more to the hiring expense (all that engineer interview time, resume review time, etc is expensive!), and it makes sure you are screening out early and often and no…
I don't like takehome assignments because my current employer's moonlighting policies mean I can't do them.
Ideally that wouldn't be a legal policy for my company to enforce, but that's the reality for me right now.
Re: I turned my interview task for Google into a startup
#585I 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 interven…
That doesn't sound fair unless the acceptance test suite is available to the candidate before final submission. In which case, depending on how the infrastructure is set up, could be expensive or slow. Seems to be a lose-lose situation.
Re: I turned my interview task for Google into a startup
#586Looks like the visual style of the most brand materials were heavily inspired by https://css-tricks.com/
Re: I turned my interview task for Google into a startup
#587Earlier quoted context omitted.
I've just completed an interview process (waiting for the decision) that was explicitly "this is a real problem we have", but also stating that I'll be paid for 8 hours work. I have no problem with that. It took about that long as well. So I suppose if you're honest about it, and you give a fair estimate of the time required, then what's the problem?
I still disagree with that. are you being paid 8 hours at a pro-rated salaried rate? Well you're going to have to report that as income and take a 30% haircut off it. There's a reason contractors get 30% or more above the hourly-equivalent of a salaried employee.
A bit more than just 30% - for a short contract id want 3x my FTE rate.
Re: I turned my interview task for Google into a startup
#588Earlier 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.
Execpt the question isn't about an organization or company its about running a country and there are a lot of countries where democracy just does not seem to be suited/desired, unfortunately.
Re: I turned my interview task for Google into a startup
#589Earlier 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.
Would you want to work for Saddam Hussein?
Of course not - but plenty did.
Re: I turned my interview task for Google into a startup
#590Earlier quoted context omitted.
I got a take home assignment from a large company a few months ago, it was the whole shebang as well. Build an iOS application with full test suite, several screens, should work with their test-api, should be polished, offline/online work etc. I estimated it to take at least 2 weeks. Sent it to a colleague and he estimated it the same. In reality you had 48 hours to turn it back in. I gave up halfway into the project…
Sometimes that's intentional. As a hiring manager I find value in seeing what someone chooses to prioritize when given an impossible task. If you have 48 hours to complete a 2 week project, what portions do you choose to complete? Can you explain why you chose that? I also don't think it's cool to do what I just said without letting the candidate know that's what is happening. Otherwise they might just get frustrated…
Any sensible candidate will prioritise your job and company to the round filing cabinet.