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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

#391

Post by drewcoo »

ChrisMarshallNY wrote: post #367
rkangel wrote: post #363

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The software engineering profession is moving at light speed compared to any of those other careers. It is specific to us and not engineering as a whole too - as you point out, structural engineering does have qualifications required (chartered status). Medicine does move on, but a lot of what a doctor needs to do doesn't. And the bits that do are actually a problem with there not being a good way of ensuring that do…

But I think anyone that handles PID should be held to account, as to what happens to that data. We have been doing a terrible job of that. Many apps that I encounter, are pretty much bald-faced, unapologetic, data harvesters. That’s clearly their main purpose, and their stated purpose is really just the lure on an anglerfish. “Move fast and break things” sounds good, until you realize that said “things” may be people…

Our profession has no code of ethics.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Engineering_ethics

Re: Tell HN: Unpaid home assignments are not ok

#392

Post by ghaff »

fsloth wrote: post #300
jerf wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"You’re setting up a gigantic straw man." And called it the HN gestalt. Pretty sure I labelled it with what it is right up front. Nevertheless, I do think there are quite a few individuals who have an unexamined (in the philosophical sense) assumption that they just shouldn't have to do anything to get hired. I bet most of them, if they examined it, would realize that it's not a sensible assumption. I think it sneaks…

Generally companies succeed in hiring by filtering resumes and interviewing candidates. That's it. It's weird if a company feels it needs to do more than that. Companies either have trial periods or can let go of non-performing personnel. Hiring is critical but I've not seen any study that would correlate "high scores" in any type of hiring test to actual work performance. This implies no matter how elaborate intervi…

>there is a problem in your hiring process

Or in your onboarding process.

Re: Tell HN: Unpaid home assignments are not ok

#393

Post by criddell »

CodeyWhizzBang wrote: post #384
criddell wrote: post #238

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you get to the point where you are going to give an assignment, you have somebody that you believe could do a job that probably pays very well. Go ahead and give the assignment, but also be respectful and pay them for their time.

The assignment is an assessment though, it isn't actual business work. I've seen before this suggestion that companies are trying to get free work out of candidates, but I find that really hard to believe. I don't know if you're suggesting that interviews should assign actual tickets in an interview, but that seems nearly impossible to do in practice. I've never got back work from an interview or assessment that was…

It's not actual business work but you are asking for actual time from the person's life. When it's an non-trivial amount of time, you should compensate them fairly.

Re: Tell HN: Unpaid home assignments are not ok

#394

Post by drewcoo »

djellybeans wrote: post #376
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…

The crux of the matter really is, repetition. Formal credentialing generally means you demonstrate "I can do this", in a very drawn-out, thorough manner. It's gatekeeping more, but there's a much larger guarantee for your creds to be transferrable from place to place. In software engineering, you demonstrate "I can do this", in a several-round bout of interviews. And then have to demonstrate it all over again and aga…

> . . . all over again and again, for every single company. Your interview performance is non-transferrable.

> . . . wasteful as it involves repeating yourself a whole lot.

It's also incredibly wasteful for the companies doing the hiring. Which is why they often try to offload that waste to the candidate.

But those companies would probably have to pay more for programmers who were already vetted as part of their membership in a professional organization; people who were actual engineers. So it's not in the companies' best interests to change anything.

Re: Tell HN: Unpaid home assignments are not ok

#395

Post by ghaff »

drewcoo wrote: post #391
ChrisMarshallNY wrote: post #367

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But I think anyone that handles PID should be held to account, as to what happens to that data. We have been doing a terrible job of that. Many apps that I encounter, are pretty much bald-faced, unapologetic, data harvesters. That’s clearly their main purpose, and their stated purpose is really just the lure on an anglerfish. “Move fast and break things” sounds good, until you realize that said “things” may be people…

Our profession has no code of ethics. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Engineering_ethics

I don't know why it's not in that article but, e.g. from the Association of Computing Machinery (ACM). https://www.acm.org/code-of-ethics

Re: Tell HN: Unpaid home assignments are not ok

#396

Post by mathverse »

datalopers wrote: post #388
mathverse wrote: post #366

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's odd to me that you have completely misunderstood what is the problem here. It's not the take home assignment that is the problem but the asymmetric relationship and toxic practices. I invest 6h of my time as a highly paid engineer to do a home assignment and at best I receive a reply "sorry we found a candidate that's a better fit?". That's what's unacceptable.

Have you considered that it took you 6hr and 2k loc is maybe precisely why they didn’t hire you and it, in fact, was a very successful candidate screening tool?

It has nothing to do with that. The numbers here are to illustrate the effort needed to solve the home assignment.

Re: Tell HN: Unpaid home assignments are not ok

#397

Post by morelisp »

Balgair wrote: post #368
morelisp wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We put a shibboleth in our test for this reason, there's ~20 solutions up on GitHub and 80% of them are wrong. Feel free to copy them, it makes it so much easier for me to grade.

How many interviews are you doing?

About two a week lately, maybe 50% get offered the test after a short first-contact interview. We are sub-10 person team so this is a relatively large burden for us.

Re: Tell HN: Unpaid home assignments are not ok

#398

Post by morelisp »

Tolexx wrote: post #239
morelisp wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know any other trade that so thoroughly rejects apprenticeships, licensure, and formal certifications.

How can there be apprenticeships when most companies are only looking for senior engineers? They are scared of training junior engineers because they feel that they will leave the company after a few years or even months. This is not always the case.

There's the old joke, the CFO asks the EM, "what happens if I pay for all this training, and the junior engineers just leave afterwards?" The EM replies "OK, but what happens if we don't train them at all, and they stay?"

To the larger point: I'm very much in favor of hiring junior developers, but there's a limit - I find you need at least 2-3 mid+ developers for each junior, ideally at least one senior/staff per if you want to do a good job of mentoring and development at the same time. Since the industry has grown exponentially, it's impossible to hire proportionally to applicants and maintain this ratio.

I am counting down the days until our recent senior hire is fully onboarded and comfortable and we can open a junior position again.

Re: Tell HN: Unpaid home assignments are not ok

#399

Post by ghaff »

ChrisMarshallNY wrote: post #358
scott_s wrote: post #355

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Doctors, lawyers and CPAs are instructive examples, as they have far stricter credentialing than software engineers. Doctors probably being the most strict, lawyers next, then CPAs. Particularly with doctors, the total amount is tightly controlled by the number of seats in medical schools. My fiancee is a high school guidance counselor, and she essentially did a demo session with some current students during her inte…

Teachers often need to present sample lesson plans, or do sample class presentations, but these are not really analogous to the "Draw the Pirate" tests that programmers are given. They are usually real-world demonstrations. Teachers also have fairly strict licensing and educational requirements (and get paid squat). I know a lot of finance people. These are not the most stable or reliable people on Earth, but they ha…

>They are usually real-world demonstrations.

To the degree that it's a reasonable thing to ask in terms of time, it's hard to argue against asking someone to demonstrate something that they'll actually be doing on the job. Certainly I don't think, in all but the most extreme cases, that anyone would argue that there don't need to be auditions for actors or musicians.

When I was an IT industry analyst, we did ask for writing samples. At least one of the big firms did require at least some candidates to prepare a presentation on a topic and deliver it. (This is an example of a sub-industry that has very few formal requirements and people come from all manner of different backgrounds.)

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