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Why Developers Hate Coding Skills Tests and What Hiring Managers Can Do

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Re: Why Developers Hate Coding Skills Tests and What Hiring Managers Can Do

#61

Post by Youden »

ldoughty wrote: post #55
Youden wrote: post #42

Something that bothers me: Most of these tests are looking for the same things, so why do I have to take the test for each company I apply for? It strikes me that this is a similar problem to getting into university and for that there are standardized tests. Why can't we introduce a standardized coding skills exam where everyone is given the same problems and the same amount of time to solve them? The whole industry…

Because then people will cheat and have a friend do the test for you. I have people pretending to have certifications they don't have.. or actually having the certification but somehow can't answer non obscure facts... (How can you be AWS solution architect, verified certificate, but not know that the general purpose EC2 instances is... Or what AWS service provides script execution in languages like python or node? A…

> Because then people will cheat and have a friend do the test for you.

Isn't this problem shared by all exams? How often do people successfully cheat on their university/college entrance exams?

And hell, can't you potentially do this with a technical interview? Nobody who interviewed you is actually going to see you again and I don't recall an ID check at any of my interviews.

> Other than that, there is teaching to the test. You can easily argue that's what happens now, and most systems suffer for it.

Exactly, we already have "cracking the coding interview" and similar tools. I think this approach would be better because the questions can always be prepared for a particular year's interview from scratch, so there's no chance they've been seen before.

Re: Why Developers Hate Coding Skills Tests and What Hiring Managers Can Do

#62

Post by JansjoFromIkea »

I don't mind coding skill tests, I'm generally pretty clear about what I've cut corners on because I can't be arsed spending too much time on them and it's usually accepted (I don't think I've gotten an outright no following a coding test in my most recent wave of applications). That being said, I do point out that my github has other stuff they can look at.

What I DO dislike is ones which have failed to explain themselves clearly which will result in someone who probably wasn't a good fit for the role wasting far too much time on trying to get something to work that wasn't set up clearly enough in the spec. For this reason I think trick questions and crap like that are the absolute devil.

To me it seems like a big chunk of the reason for the tests is so there's something to ask in the interviews though. The technical parts of almost every interview I done in the last few weeks centered around the tests (in one case I had done them in such a rush I couldn't actually remember my code). I think a lot of interviewers begrudgingly support keeping the tests in their company so they don't have to become better interviewers.

Re: Why Developers Hate Coding Skills Tests and What Hiring Managers Can Do

#63

Post by nobodyandproud »

lhnz wrote: post #59
dmoy wrote: post #2

Sure, yes. I don't like coding interviews that focus on super complicated algorithms where you get a massive advantage from already knowing the subject area, or require a sort of "a ha" realization to solve properly. When I ask coding questions they tend to be fairly straightforward. Do some basic transformations on data, handle a couple of edge cases (bonus points if you can see the edges of your own code), that's a…

The problem with this approach is that interview nerves don't just stop you from writing complicated algorithms, they often cause people to forget or stutter over trivial/simplistic stuff like syntax or popular APIs. For example, recently I did a simple algorithmic coding test in JavaScript. The overall logic I wrote was completely correct, but there were two issues: (1) I accidentally missed a function call (which I…

Do more interviews. It’s the only way to get used to it.

Re: Why Developers Hate Coding Skills Tests and What Hiring Managers Can Do

#64

Post by hysan »

> The employer is almost always taking on more risk than the applicant—particularly in smaller companies.

I had my reservations with the “solutions” and reasoning proposed in the article up until this point. This is a “Sorry, you are wrong” moment for me.

Much of this article is based on the premise that this is solving for hiring Senior Engineers. If you are in need of one or one is interested in your company, then there is equally high risk for the engineer. They are potentially giving up a stable job, uprooting their family, putting a job hop on their resume, etc. That’s a lot of financial risk. There’s also the risk of your company not being as good as they hoped. Yes, that comes down to negotiations, but you are no where near that stage at this point in the evaluation process.

Again, I must reiterate that this is wrong because this article is geared towards Senior Engineers. Juniors and Mids, fine. I can accept that. However, for an article that started out trying to use data from interviews to understand both perspectives, it started skewing heavily towards the employer’s side by the end.

Re: Why Developers Hate Coding Skills Tests and What Hiring Managers Can Do

#65

Post by ChrisMarshallNY »

baron_harkonnen wrote: post #58
ChrisMarshallNY wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have over 100,000 LoC in the public domain, in over 30 repos (the ones I'm highlighting). I have architected, deployed and shepherded large-scale hybrid systems that are currently in use daily by thousands of people around the world. I have a decade of checkins and mineable Git data. I have solved every single problem that I've ever encountered; whether technical or human (I was a manager for a long time). I have c…

While I completely agree (and sympathize) with this frustration, there are two things I want to point out. 1. If you can do all these things, then it really won't take that long to freshen up your your white board skills so that you can solve a variety of algorithmic problems easily in code on a whiteboard. If you really want to work for at a FAANG-style place, then just divert your energy for a bit into practicing w…

1) Why would I bother spending time "freshening up" on HackerRank? I don't do DSA, so things like binary trees are a waste of time for me; but they are a favorite of schools. Every second I'm doing that is a second that I'm not devoting to the driver work I'm doing (ONVIF stuff). I have a VERY full dance card. Writing generic driver code for a sloppy spec like ONVIF is...challenging.

I was interviewed a while back for a marquée corporation. Great outfit. Would definitely be a place that I'd like to work. I'd even have moved for it, and would have been happy to put aside my ONVIF work to work with them.

They had an HR "triage" person reach out to me to make sure that I was good for the next stage.

I sent them a link to my SO Story, along with links to specific repos that addressed the needs of the position (I have repos for multiple shipping apps on the App Store, and source for LOTS of stuff that is currently in use as industrial-strength infrastructure).

The triage guy didn't bother forwarding it, and the secondary interview was...you guessed it...a fifty-line binary tree test.

To add insult to injury, it was given in Swift, when the position was for ObjC, and the tester dinged me for not writing inscrutable, obfuscated garbage code using the nil-coalescing operator (think ternary, but worse). I deliberately try to avoid using it in a "chained" fashion, as it leaves unreadable code.

Basically, I was rejected for an ObjC job, because I didn't write ugly Swift.

All my work in open source has taught me to write extremely readable, well-documented code that can be taken over by folks; often with fewer chops than mine. I know that the outfit I was applying for takes that stuff seriously. They are a model that I like to follow.

2) You're right. I have figured out that "used to be a manager" is poison. I've had a number of times where I've made it to the techs I'd work with, and the process has stopped there. I assume that they are afraid I'd be hard to work with.

You don't last long at a Japanese company unless you are REAL GOOD at being a cog. I was excellent at it. I lasted for a long time.

I was actually looking at startups. I'd be almost ideal for a startup. I was willing to work cheap, and take risks, as my retirement was set, and I live extremely humbly. I have a huge array of skills and experience. I have management experience. I clean up real good and can get Japanese managers to commit (they make American VCs look like Santa Claus).

Ah...well...water under the bridge. More will be revealed...

Re: Why Developers Hate Coding Skills Tests and What Hiring Managers Can Do

#66

Post by hobs »

nobodyandproud wrote: post #63
lhnz wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem with this approach is that interview nerves don't just stop you from writing complicated algorithms, they often cause people to forget or stutter over trivial/simplistic stuff like syntax or popular APIs. For example, recently I did a simple algorithmic coding test in JavaScript. The overall logic I wrote was completely correct, but there were two issues: (1) I accidentally missed a function call (which I…

Do more interviews. It’s the only way to get used to it.

This "might" work - but there's plenty of people that no matter the number of interviews they flop sweat, forget, and generally feel fight or flight reactions, though medication might help.

I have trained a lot of people and you see similar stuff with test anxiety - even if it is the easiest, open book, no pressure situation, I have had people openly weep and quit their job - the internal pressure is just too great.

Re: Why Developers Hate Coding Skills Tests and What Hiring Managers Can Do

#67

Post by inimino »

kls wrote: post #60
ChrisMarshallNY wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have over 100,000 LoC in the public domain, in over 30 repos (the ones I'm highlighting). I have architected, deployed and shepherded large-scale hybrid systems that are currently in use daily by thousands of people around the world. I have a decade of checkins and mineable Git data. I have solved every single problem that I've ever encountered; whether technical or human (I was a manager for a long time). I have c…

The exact problem is most people that have been in the industry for a while know these type of tests do not reflect the diversity of skills people have in the industry and the chances that the test questions are going to reflect stuff you do every day is marginal at best. In the end we know up front they are a waste of time. Further they never, build these "test" platforms to reflect how we actually do development. I…

Incidentally, there is no one true way we do development. For example, I never use a debugger, and if someone asked me to work in the way you do I would be at a loss. This is why any "one size fits all" process is always going to fail for someone. Do you want to work on a team where everyone has exactly the same strengths and weaknesses, or would you rather have coworkers with skillsets that differ from your own?

Re: Why Developers Hate Coding Skills Tests and What Hiring Managers Can Do

#68

Post by monster_group »

codingslave wrote: post #12
amriksohata wrote: post #10

What if I told you coding tests were to get the developer to talk through a problem and see how they go about it, rather than actually see them finish it?

I would tell you all the tough to get into companies only hire candidates that answer correctly.

I agree. "We see the candidate's thought process / approach" is all bullshit. If you didn't solve the problem, you are not getting in. It also doesn't matter how you perform in the non-coding (system-design and leadership / behavioral) interviews if you didn't solve the coding problems correctly.

Re: Why Developers Hate Coding Skills Tests and What Hiring Managers Can Do

#69

Post by inimino »

baron_harkonnen wrote: post #58
ChrisMarshallNY wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have over 100,000 LoC in the public domain, in over 30 repos (the ones I'm highlighting). I have architected, deployed and shepherded large-scale hybrid systems that are currently in use daily by thousands of people around the world. I have a decade of checkins and mineable Git data. I have solved every single problem that I've ever encountered; whether technical or human (I was a manager for a long time). I have c…

While I completely agree (and sympathize) with this frustration, there are two things I want to point out. 1. If you can do all these things, then it really won't take that long to freshen up your your white board skills so that you can solve a variety of algorithmic problems easily in code on a whiteboard. If you really want to work for at a FAANG-style place, then just divert your energy for a bit into practicing w…

The takeaway here isn't for people looking for these jobs (yes you can bite the bullet and conform to any stupid process) but rather for hiring managers that if you actually want what you say you want (diversity, hiring for ability to do the work, etc) then you should not be hiring in this stupid broken way that we all know doesn't work and doesn't give you those things.

Re: Why Developers Hate Coding Skills Tests and What Hiring Managers Can Do

#70

Post by JoeAltmaier »

The argument that you wouldn't hire a magician without asking them to do tricks is laughable. Magicians are hired on their reputation. Like all professionals - doctor, lawyer, even plumber. You don't say "Doc, treat my bunion first, then I'll see if I want you to work on my cancer". Its preposterous.

Except coders get asked. One fool writes this idea down in a blog somewhere, and we're all saddled with it for a generation.

I've never given in to it. You want to hire me (and I'm always busy), you talk to a reference and make your decision.

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