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I don’t have time for coding challenges

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Re: I don’t have time for coding challenges

#131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 brillia…

Of course. That's the primary reason I'm personally against tasks on the interview itself or whiteboarding. That's usually a shitshow. We first do an interview where we talk a bit about our company and the interviewee, we get to know each other out a bit and try to find out if we're a good match for each other, based on the talk itself. If that's the case, we give a small (really small and basic, unless a senior position) assignment to take home and get back to us in five days. People have schedules, obligations, we understand. During the period we're always available for any questions, doubts, whatever you need. Assignment itself takes a couple of hours at most for someone that knows / has used the tech. At home, you can use google, stackoverflow, friends, books, I don't care. No one cares, as long as you show up with a consistently-looking code that works and that we can comment together on. You know, same as at work. Something to talk about for a bit, if at all. It's the basics. A damn good filter, it turns out.

Re: I don’t have time for coding challenges

#132
post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's why people do it, no doubt. Keep in mind, a lot of these questions are asked by vastly less desirable companies that ape the hiring practices of FAANG, even though they pay much less. And these companies complain bitterly about a shortage of good developers to hire. So... I'm all onboard with your statement, but I think you only said half of it. Nobody owes me a job, and if I don't like it, I'm free to not get…

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 my experience the talent shortage is a giant myth - there are two thing going on: companies that can't hire or won't pay, and companies that can, but wish it were cheaper.

Evey job I've applied or hired for either a) had lots of candidates with a very selective process, or b) telegraphed that you should avoid the company or didn't pay well enough (and often still got plenty of applicants who wanted their foot in the tech door despite not being capable).

My current company would claim there's a shortage, but they actually don't know how to hire and telegraph that you probably don't want to work there in a variety of ways.

Re: I don’t have time for coding challenges

#133

Work sample tests have been proven repeatedly to be the best predictor of future job success.[1] The next best predictor is general mental ability. It's not unreasonable to ask someone to demonstrate their capabilities. Just make it interesting, relevant to the job and most importantly: short. Whatever time work sample testing requires should replace interview time, not add on to it. 2 hours is a reasonable ask. Oh,…

How good a predictor is a GitHub account with open source contributions?

Re: I don’t have time for coding challenges

#135
post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In our case our its based on our actual interview experience with candidates. We've been actively evolving our process and calibrating expectation based on the candidates that have come in. We've actually simplified the interview question considerably (as I mentioned the solution doesn't even require you write new logic, you can refactor existing logic that's provided). But we still see candidates struggle with the b…

I don't see how this addresses geebee's point -- what makes you so sure struggling on programming puzzles implies incompetence on the job?

we're not asking programming puzzles. i described our process above. struggling to define a function and basic code comprehension (e.g. tracing a for loop that traverses a json object in candidate's preferred language) is a strong signal that candidate is not a good fit a mid to senior level for us. If it was a junior level position, sure you can learn on the job.

Re: I don’t have time for coding challenges

#136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't see how this addresses geebee's point -- what makes you so sure struggling on programming puzzles implies incompetence on the job?

we're not asking programming puzzles. i described our process above. struggling to define a function and basic code comprehension (e.g. tracing a for loop that traverses a json object in candidate's preferred language) is a strong signal that candidate is not a good fit a mid to senior level for us. If it was a junior level position, sure you can learn on the job.

How do you know that?

Re: I don’t have time for coding challenges

#137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes it does, you can open the leetcode and see for yourself. That also explains the "easy" difficulty rating. I guess you've been giving candidates a more hardcode version of the problem, not having that constraint? edit: nevermind, it's the other poster who was giving that problem, not you. No idea how they formulate it in their interviews.

I don't ask candidates these kinds of questions in my interviews. For a coding interview, I'd normally ask them to implement something like backend rate limiting logic for an authentication service, and continually ratchet up the complexity on each successful implementation until the end of the interview. I was asked the two sum problem in an interview once, but I forget if it had this constraint or not. This seems m…

Forgive me for my ignorance, but are you looking for anything more complex than a leaky bucket algorithm + gossip protocol solution?

Re: I don’t have time for coding challenges

#138

Work sample tests have been proven repeatedly to be the best predictor of future job success.[1] The next best predictor is general mental ability. It's not unreasonable to ask someone to demonstrate their capabilities. Just make it interesting, relevant to the job and most importantly: short. Whatever time work sample testing requires should replace interview time, not add on to it. 2 hours is a reasonable ask. Oh,…

Tech Sector Job Interviews Assess Anxiety, Not Software Skills https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23848039

Re: I don’t have time for coding challenges

#139

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?

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.

What do those devs do to make 60k/month?

Re: I don’t have time for coding challenges

#140

Work sample tests have been proven repeatedly to be the best predictor of future job success.[1] The next best predictor is general mental ability. It's not unreasonable to ask someone to demonstrate their capabilities. Just make it interesting, relevant to the job and most importantly: short. Whatever time work sample testing requires should replace interview time, not add on to it. 2 hours is a reasonable ask. Oh,…

How good a predictor is a GitHub account with open source contributions?

I would argue that a GitHub account with open source contributions qualifies as a work sample test. It's just work that was done in the past.
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