Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

I don’t have time for coding challenges

css-irl.info

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

101–110 of 243 posts

Re: I don’t have time for coding challenges

#101

Post by shajznnckfke »

geebee wrote: post #27
luckylion wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do only those companies complain about a shortage of candidates? Because in the tech centers I know, the market is just empty. Lots of large companies are competing for talent, and if you can't pay bank salaries, you're going to have a hard time. You make it sound like there's plenty of talent around but companies are being snobbish. That's not my experience at all in Germany.

In San Francisco, there's plenty of tech talent available at 500k a year. There's remarkably little available at minimum wage, though. Complaining to congress that there is a shortage of IT talent is so common in American politics that it has become its own unique form of performance art. For instance, during the magic section of the act, companies make a labor shortage magically appear without any mention of wages,…

“Shortage” is an economic term of art, so I won’t use it here. But it’s likely true that there is lot of valuable, economic-growth-producing work that could be profitable if a software engineer costs $100k/year instead of $500k/year. Businesses that lie on the margin of profitability are likely to feel that it’s hard to find good talent. Of course, it’s bad for us existing software engineers if the supply increases and the price goes down. It’s likely good for society overall though, if it enables a bunch of other businesses to exist. This is true in the same way that more trucks, more warehouses, and more conveyor belts would increase economic output, even if they were already available for the right price.

Re: I don’t have time for coding challenges

#102

Post by duutfhhh »

frequentnapper wrote: post #41
ergocoder wrote: post #5

Then, don't. I want to move from my 2000 USD a month (this is a good salary already) in a 3rd world country to a FAANG that pays 20k USD per month. I'm willing to go through any challenge because the reward is superb for me. Not to mention, without objective interview questions, an introverted non-native English speaker (who doesn't speak latin-germanic-based language) like me would fail most of these subjective ques…

I don't know of any software company that would hire an introverted person who can't articulate themselves for 20k a month. This is how micro-service architected fully optimized solutions that solve the wrong problem happen. Do you really think the high value of a developer just comes from being able to pass coding challenges when there's millions of them out there?

I've seen messy devs who absolutely can't articulate themselves, to the extent that when they tried, everybody else would keep awkward silence, and yet they made 60k/month.

Re: I don’t have time for coding challenges

#103

Post by duutfhhh »

tick_tock_tick wrote: post #63
frequentnapper wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know of any software company that would hire an introverted person who can't articulate themselves for 20k a month. This is how micro-service architected fully optimized solutions that solve the wrong problem happen. Do you really think the high value of a developer just comes from being able to pass coding challenges when there's millions of them out there?

That's only 240k probably not for a base salary but total comp sure.

Well, I have a bridge to sell you if you believe it's total comp.

Re: I don’t have time for coding challenges

#105

Post by dr_orpheus »

I think that the coding challenges can be helpful if done correctly. If the challenge is clearly communicated on how complete they are expecting it to be and how it might be judged. But I did have an experience with a "homework assignment" that hit on most of the bad points outlined in the author's article.

This was not specifically a coding challenge as I was applying for a Systems Engineering role at a software company. The homework assignment was basically here is a fake product, please provide a requirements spec, user manual, and test procedure associated with the product.

My first problem was with the notion of doing the systems engineering backwards and creating requirements specs from a product.

The second was with the conflicting communication about how much time and effort should be put in. The actual homework assignment itself said "We anticipate that this exercise should take no more than a few hours". Whereas the email I got from the recruiter said "They are looking for extreme detail here, and the ‘it should only take a few hours’ instruction is kind of BS. It’s OK if you don’t get it back for a week or so. Winning submissions from my candidates have been 7 and 11 pages long, I believe. They really want someone to go overboard with the exercise".

So after putting a lot of work in (because I could, and did not have a family at the time), the only response I got was basically "Nope, you didn't get the job". And I know that employers have a lot of candidates and there is a disproportionate time spent by the employee versus the employer, but it would have been nice to at least receive 1 or 2 sentences of feedback that may have helped me in the future.

To a point made by someone further down in the comments, the exercise may be a good way to judge if you would be a good fit at the company. So based on my experience I am probably glad I didn't get that job.

Re: I don’t have time for coding challenges

#106

Post by ijidak »

What I love (sarcasm) is companies that just need basic line of business apps, but want you to complete a coding challenge navigating graphs and trees in constant, nlogn time, etc.

I find it hilarious and often ask, "Can you explain to me how solving this challenge applies to what you do day to day?"

They say.... "That's a really good question..."

Then I watch them squirm as they have no idea how to explain a real world application beyond a generic, sometimes hard problems come up...

Sure... Then give me an example.

I don't mind taking your test, but if your team doesn't need those skills you're wasting your time and mine by cargo-culting this time-consuming style of recruitment.

Re: I don’t have time for coding challenges

#107

Post by microtherion »

Keyframe wrote: post #58
wry_discontent wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I interview a lot of people for frontend positions. I ask one two-sum question to see if they have some knowledge about data structures and simple algorithms. Then I ask them to build something trivial in React, which is what we use. If you can do those things, you're probably fine. The number of people who can't is truly shocking.

Same here. Absolutely shocking how many people fail at basics, yet they pose as mids or seniors even. I'm not even talking about CS, I'm taking about simple React-based assignments designed to show you know (at least) the basics and takes as little as time as possible to be fair from our side not taking too much of interviewee's time. Take what you want from it, but I've seen it mainly in web dev related positions.

Yes, I see people fail at basics in interviews all the time. But I keep wondering how much of that is people being poorly qualified, and how much of it is interviews being poor indicators of true skill.

I've seen people barely sneak through technical interviews, whose subsequent performance justified the concerns I had at the time. I've seen others hired against my personal recommendation who turned out to be brilliant at their jobs.

Re: I don’t have time for coding challenges

#108

Post by justaguy88 »

ma2rten wrote: post #84
ithkuil wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Then pay the candidate! It might seem ridiculous but consider how much time is spent by interviewers, hiring committees etc, giving some fraction of that out even to utterly worthless candidates might not be the worst idea in the world. A side effect of this is that suddenly the cost of a bad screening becomes more intuitive

That would create the wrong incentives.

"What do you do for work?" "Oh I just interview a lot, the pay isn't amazing but it is what it is"

Re: I don’t have time for coding challenges

#109

Post by cheonic729 »

spamizbad wrote: post #59
ergocoder wrote: post #5

Then, don't. I want to move from my 2000 USD a month (this is a good salary already) in a 3rd world country to a FAANG that pays 20k USD per month. I'm willing to go through any challenge because the reward is superb for me. Not to mention, without objective interview questions, an introverted non-native English speaker (who doesn't speak latin-germanic-based language) like me would fail most of these subjective ques…

As someone who had administered dozens of "objective" coding challenges to non-native english speakers... I can guarantee you your language skills will negatively impact your performance. So those tests aren't as objective as you think. It comes up with questions that are as simple as "Create a function that deduplicates an array of integers"

> I can guarantee you your language skills will negatively impact your performance.

As it should.

If someone is a poor English speaker, at an English-speaking company, they absolutely should be penalized.

Not everyone is equal, was equal, nor will be. Some people are born blind too. Shouldn't we adjust our hiring practices for them too?

Re: I don’t have time for coding challenges

#110

Post by decafninja »

geebee wrote: post #27
luckylion wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do only those companies complain about a shortage of candidates? Because in the tech centers I know, the market is just empty. Lots of large companies are competing for talent, and if you can't pay bank salaries, you're going to have a hard time. You make it sound like there's plenty of talent around but companies are being snobbish. That's not my experience at all in Germany.

In San Francisco, there's plenty of tech talent available at 500k a year. There's remarkably little available at minimum wage, though. Complaining to congress that there is a shortage of IT talent is so common in American politics that it has become its own unique form of performance art. For instance, during the magic section of the act, companies make a labor shortage magically appear without any mention of wages,…

Currently in NY making 150k with 10yoe at a non-tech company. Would jump ship in a heartbeat to SF for 300k, or 250k, or even 200k.
Post reply on HN