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Tell HN: Unpaid home assignments are not ok

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Re: Tell HN: Unpaid home assignments are not ok

#331

Post by lr4444lr »

Matticus_Rex wrote: post #329
lr4444lr wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In other white collar professional jobs (not admin), esp. STEM fields, he's not wrong.

He is wrong, actually. STEM fields are the exception. Most white-collar jobs require an undergrad degree, but the industry itself doesn't require a particular job-related credential, and the degree itself isn't enough to get a job.

Uh... Law? Medicine? Accounting? Eng.? Teaching? What other job where you actually need hard technical skills equivalent to software dev is there no widely used non-commercial credentialing system?

Re: Tell HN: Unpaid home assignments are not ok

#332

Post by bko »

koonsolo wrote: post #322
bko wrote: post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I don’t know of any other industry who hires senior people the way we do outside of performing arts. I think it has to do with people the weird phenomenon of people that are working as "programmers" that don't know how to program. I've seen a few. I've seen people write C on their resume and I gave them an hour for an easy assignment with the language of their choice, and they couldn't even get anything to compile.…

Real life example: - how much would you rate your knowledge of C++ on a scale to 10? - 9/10 - Can you explain "pointers"? - blank stare

The 1 to 10 scales are tricky. My rating would be 5 is use professionally or equivalent, 7 build non-trivial app and maintain legacy code, must know best practices and style guidelines, basically able to work in a large code base with other users. 9 would be contribute to the language or at least be involved in the community. But I don't know if everyone has the same interpretation of the scale, so you could be relatively competent but only rate yourself a 5 or 6.

Serious question, if the person actually had a 9 out of 10 knowledge of C++, how would he answer? Or is this just a teaser question?

I don't know C++ but I would answer pointers are addresses in physical (?) memory. They let you pass around variables by reference where the receiving function has full access and permission to edit its content. Pointers have to be dereferenced with the appropriate type before being able to read it

Re: Tell HN: Unpaid home assignments are not ok

#333

Post by evilduck »

hotpotamus wrote: post #325
evilduck wrote: post #259

Earlier quoted context omitted.

PE is a long-standing title for a professional engineer which requires time on the job and another rigorous test and is common vernacular if you ever intersected with an engineering school or department in college or worked with an engineer in a professional capacity. And software “engineering” doesn’t count. Would you expect MD or CPA to be spelled out every time?

Perhaps, but would you expect the general public to know what the initialism CCIE is, for instance? And when you say Professional Engineer, I assume it's not the kind of engineer who drives trains correct? Though I believe that is the original meaning of the word. But probably also not the kind of engineer who writes software?

I mean, using a search engine to figure out what a CCIE was took about 10 seconds. Searching "engineer pe" and finding a contextually relevant answer wasn't any harder. Not every comment, article or book must devolve to serve the greatest common denominator.

Re: Tell HN: Unpaid home assignments are not ok

#334

Post by ProjectArcturis »

VoodooJuJu wrote: post #291
lbreakjai wrote: post #135

We let the candidates decide: Take-home assignment, pair-programming, or we go through an existing project of theirs, discuss it, and extend it together. The take-home assignment is short. It shouldn't take more than an hour if you really really want it to be polished, which we heavily insist we do not care about. The overall process is a bit longer, because we then discuss it together. For the pair programming sessi…

>Take-home assignment That's fine, pay me. >pair-programming Again, that's fine, pay me. >go through an existing project of theirs, discuss it, and extend it together The SaaS's I own and operate are closed-source and I'm not looking to take on any contractors at this time, but I'll let you know if anything opens up.

Think about the systemic problems that would arise if it were customary to pay applicants for the interview. You'd immediately have application farms spamming out fake resumes. They'd bomb the actual interview but collect $100+ each time.

Re: Tell HN: Unpaid home assignments are not ok

#335

Post by hotpotamus »

evilduck wrote: post #333
hotpotamus wrote: post #325

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Perhaps, but would you expect the general public to know what the initialism CCIE is, for instance? And when you say Professional Engineer, I assume it's not the kind of engineer who drives trains correct? Though I believe that is the original meaning of the word. But probably also not the kind of engineer who writes software?

I mean, using a search engine to figure out what a CCIE was took about 10 seconds. Searching "engineer pe" and finding a contextually relevant answer wasn't any harder. Not every comment, article or book must devolve to serve the greatest common denominator.

Well, when you know one of the words in a two word initialism, I suspect it helps the search engine quite a bit.

Re: Tell HN: Unpaid home assignments are not ok

#336

Post by cyber_kinetist »

ryanmercer wrote: post #263
cyber_kinetist wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The real issue here that nobody talks about: there are just too many people wanting to become programmers. And I mean this in the most sincere way: we need to understand most developers aren't seeking to do programming for intrinsic fun or to create something that helps other people, they do them to earn a livable wage. Programming jobs are the only type of technical job left that actually pays shit (well enough to b…

>Programming jobs are the only type of technical job left that actually pays shit (well enough to buy a house and start a family), Meh, in the Midwest plenty of jobs pay enough for that, 6-figure tech jobs put you at 3-4x the median income (31k here in Indiana), but plenty of other jobs absolutely pay enough to buy a house (teaching - my wife makes just shy of double median income as a high school teacher, nursing, l…

How's the housing market in Indiana? Do you think it's affordable to live there while earning somewhere around 40k ~ 50k? (which is what high school teachers in the area seem to earn, at least from my initial research).

Re: Tell HN: Unpaid home assignments are not ok

#337

Post by ChrisMarshallNY »

rkangel wrote: post #311
ChrisMarshallNY wrote: post #267

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I don’t know of any other industry who hires senior people the way we do outside of performing arts. Shirley, you jest. Doctors are asked to perform "demo surgeries," all the time. Lawyers are asked to argue "demo cases" in court all the time. Social workers are expected to help patients through trauma, in "demo therapy sessions," all the time. CEOs are asked to do "demo IPOs," all the time. CPAs are asked to do "d…

My view actually is that most of the world is actually really bad at hiring, and we spend lots of time complaining about the tech world doing it but that's because the tech world tries a lot harder. This is anecdata, but based on talking to my wife and friends who work in other industries most recruitment is pot luck. They interview the candidate for 1 hour, maybe 2, don't have any consistency in what they're asking…

Lots of industries have licensing requirements. My friends that are all of the above (except CEOs), need to have licenses (and often, specific schooling). They work hard for these licenses, and generally have to pass lots of difficult tests. They usually also have to keep working to stay current.

The mere thought of doing that, in the tech world, though, brings about collective apoplexy. I'm not especially a fan of how licenses can be used to protect incumbents, and bar entry to otherwise highly capable people. They do, however, go a long ways towards ensuring that a building doesn't fall down, the first time a hot rod drives by.

But hiring always has been "pot luck." Been that way, for -literally- thousands of years. That's why hiring good managers has always been important, and there's really no way to test for that. For whatever reason, we seem to think we get to play by different rules.

Re: Tell HN: Unpaid home assignments are not ok

#338

Post by shagie »

ghaff wrote: post #296
Victerius wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This. The popularity of coding bootcamps is another factor. Software engineers don't like the concept of formal credentials. Fine. But you'll have to demonstrate your skills at one of the interview stages. Or we could create something like the American Academy of Software Engineers, or the Society of Software Engineers, or the Software Engineering Institute, which would be tasked with accrediting schools and programs…

There used to be a PE for software engineering in the US. It got eliminated because basically no one got it. Though, to be fair, PEs are relatively uncommon outside of civil engineering and people who do a lot of expert witness work/signoff for regulatory authorities and so forth. Typically PEs require an undergrad degree and some number of years in industry working under a licensed engineer.

I looked at it when it came out... and decided not to. I believe that this was a complete miss of what Software Engineers do. The issue being that I'd have to pass a FE exam first and that implies a traditional Engineering degree with all the heavy physics and such. I took computer science classes - not fluid dynamics and electrical systems.

It appears to have been for Engineers who want to be credentialed in software rather than a credential for a software developer to be able to attest to PE level standards of competency.

Re: Tell HN: Unpaid home assignments are not ok

#339

Post by ThePadawan »

bambax wrote: post #152
jerf wrote: post #76

According to the HN gestalt, you shouldn't do a whiteboard interview because that's too unrealistic because nobody programs on a whiteboard, you shouldn't expect programmers to code with their laptop in an interview because that's too much pressure and also unrealistic, you shouldn't expect programmers to be willing to do a take home exam because that's too much work without money (and if people did pay, the complain…

The problem with tech recruiting is that each company does its own, and so job seekers repeat the process many times with different employers. There should be some kind of test that would be recognized by the industry, that you could attempt once every six months for example, and that would positively assess your ability to code. You would get a score that you could show to recruiters (if you wished to). Some recruit…

This could never work without on-site invigilated exams. Otherwise you will never be able to prove that when Jack applies for a job, Jack took the test. You'll just get an industry of Johns taking the tests for people.

This is how language certification works (think TOEFL, IELTS), and that industry still suffers from a massive amount of fraud. If you make a certificate like this too expensive, it serves as a barrier for entry for candidates. If you make it too cheap, the people administering the test will start pushing through candidates as quickly as possible without any regard for academic honesty.

Re: Tell HN: Unpaid home assignments are not ok

#340

Post by lapcat »

naniwaduni wrote: post #320
lapcat wrote: post #231

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Filter your resumes however you like before you throw the dart. In any case, the dart throwing method can't be criticized simply because it produces lemons, because no hiring process is perfect. Every company from top to bottom makes bad hires. So you've got to compare the overall results, which will contain both good and bad. One big advantage of the dart throwing method is that it will randomly select good people w…

> Filter your resumes however you like before you throw the dart. Yes, now your process is indistinguishable from existing hiring pipelines. The darts happen to be weighted in all sorts of ways you don't have full insight into, but hey, so are literal dart throws. > In any case, the dart throwing method can't be criticized simply because it produces lemons, because no hiring process is perfect. Every company from top…

> Yes, now your process is indistinguishable from existing hiring pipelines.

How so, when there are no interviews? Everyone seems to take interviews to be the most important part of existing hiring pipelines. Interviews are certainly the most time-consuming and expensive part of existing hiring pipelines.

> once you bring a few of them on and word gets out you will be making net >100% bad hires by this process

To be clear, I was only entertaining the dartboard selection part of the proposal and not "for at least two years without no possibility of having to fire them". You should definitely fire people who can't do the job.

I think you're also assuming that if "word gets out" then you will only attract more bad candidates, but it will also attract more good candidates who hate the existing hiring pipelines, some to the extent that they even refuse to apply for many jobs.

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