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Interview Street (YC S11) streamlines the search for great programmers

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Re: Interview Street (YC S11) streamlines the search for great programmers

#61

Post by bradly »

rickmb wrote: post #42

Maybe it's just me, but when I look for great programmers, their ability to solve coding challenges is really the least of my problems. In my experience, the ability to leverage those skills into delivering mature, stable, maintainable and generally high quality software is considerably rarer than the skill to solve puzzles. And don't even get me started on non-technical skills, like being able to organize and plan t…

I totally agree.

Last year I interviewed at two YC companies, AirBnB and Heroku. At AirBnB the interview went great, but then I was given a 3 hour programming challenge that including a written analysis of my code. The challenge was not at all related at all to building web apps, and even the use of a database was not allowed to be used to solve the problem.

At Heroku, we discussed a real issue they were having and halfway through the interview we were both up at the whiteboard bouncing things back and forth, drawing things up. At the end of the Heroku interview we both knew how the other worked and how we would work together.

Re: Interview Street (YC S11) streamlines the search for great programmers

#63

Post by justincormack »

yid wrote: post #52
gleb wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not every developer has a brand. This service appears to target companies hiring developers that don't. Fortunately that is 99.99% of the market.

I think OPs complaint is that the service purports to find "great" programmers where they really mean "adequately competent to perform most tasks and able to learn". Another case of marketing speak annoying the nerds.

I dont think so. He said it would provide puzzles to annoy people and be solved by the time rich. No "great" programmers involved...

Re: Interview Street (YC S11) streamlines the search for great programmers

#64

Post by almightygod »

I have so much open source to demonstrate my ability, I promise you I'll never use this site or complete any code exercise for an interview. If you don't want to look at my github profile, fine, I don't want to work at your company

I also happen to hire and if the candidate does not have an open source project I give them a meaningful challenge (add value to the community) and tell them to create a github acct and share a link to the repo. At least by the end of the process they have something to walk away with

Re: Interview Street (YC S11) streamlines the search for great programmers

#65

Post by hugh3 »

yid wrote: post #52
gleb wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not every developer has a brand. This service appears to target companies hiring developers that don't. Fortunately that is 99.99% of the market.

I think OPs complaint is that the service purports to find "great" programmers where they really mean "adequately competent to perform most tasks and able to learn". Another case of marketing speak annoying the nerds.

Programmers in the category "adequately competent" tend to self-identify as "great", so it is at least a consistent use of language.

And is it any wonder? Threads like this are filled with comments saying things like "80% of programmers can't code their way out of a paper bag", so is it any wonder that the folks who can program adequately get big heads about it?

Re: Interview Street (YC S11) streamlines the search for great programmers

#69

Post by mtogo »

anonymoushn wrote: post #47
niels wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I had great fun doing the codility tests. Their site is great, allowing you to do the tests in the language of your choice.

Neither of these sites allows you to do the tests in the language of your choice =/

From their demo test:

Your test consists of 1 programming problem to be solved in Java, C++, C#, C, Javascript, Pascal, Perl, PHP, Python, Ruby or VB.NET,

Re: Interview Street (YC S11) streamlines the search for great programmers

#70

Post by veyron »

reinhardt wrote: post #57
bugsy wrote: post #43

A computer program automatically torturing applicants with endless puzzle tests is not a way to find talented qualified people with experience delivering working results that delight the user. It's a good way to find people that have a lot of free time to play games because they are unemployed. In the years following my first job out of school (decades ago) I can't recall any work that I have gotten by going to these…

If you haven't already seen examples of someone's work before you contact them, maybe you shouldn't be hiring them. Because obviously all great programmers are expected to have built their online cred before applying for a job, right? I'm sure candidates with background in, say, HFT love sharing their work on their blog, or enjoy hacking on their pet projects after toiling away at their 60+ hour work weeks.

Generally there are contractual obligations precluding sharing work. No need to risk a lawsuit
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