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Interview Zen, tool for asynchronous coding interviews

interviewzen.com

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Re: Interview Zen, tool for asynchronous coding interviews

#2

Post by chrismorgan »

Looks like a good tool. You don't show all the functionality from the homepage; would I be correct in imagining that you'll have a way of exporting results for execution, or executing them, so that the correctness of a solution can be verified?

The only problem that I have with things like this is the way they throw me off by whatever rules they have for indentation - the auto-indentation rules may well not match those that I'm used to, and it increases the cognitive burden. And not having access to the full power of Vim! How can you analyse an applicant's capabilities if you tear him away from Vim? ;-)

That issue is one that I guess you can't really get around.

Oh yes - one other gripe. The hunt-and-peck style is apparent in your leading demo submission. Shudder. If you hit ones like that, 5x just doesn't seem fast enough.

Good job.

Re: Interview Zen, tool for asynchronous coding interviews

#8

Post by monatron »

I've used this in an interview and was very frustrated.

Perhaps it was the fault of the interviewer and the way he framed his questions (they were slightly involved questions -- "write a command line utility that converts an image file, include unit tests, etc.)? I would often have to write my code in the online editor... (so the interviewer could observe my "style") and then bounce out of the browser, throw it into iPython or sublimetext, run the code, debug in my editor... go back to the browser... write my updated code out... rinse repeat.

Code interviews are a bit nerve racking to begin with -- and interrupting my workflow so jarringly doesn't really help. I prefer when hiring managers have me branch a git repo on git hub, encourage me to commit my changes to a project frequently and discuss my thought process on the commits. I think that process works better for both sides.

Re: Interview Zen, tool for asynchronous coding interviews

#9

Post by jarito »

Okay. Tried it out. This has some promise, but I think there might be some issues in actual use. One of the major bonuses of this for me as an interviewer is to see how the candidate solves the problem over time (as opposed to just seeing the finished product).

However, as a candidate, the coding process is pretty painful. I tried it out for C# and there is no intellisense, no compilation, no type checking, etc. This means that I'm more likely to just write it in VS, then cut and paste the solution into the webform, which reduces the value for me as an interviewer because I can't see the process. Even for languages like Python and Ruby, I would see most devs using the editor they are used to and cut and pasting since it would be faster / easier. This makes it hard for me as an interviewer to distinguish between someone that's just good and someone that cut and pasted a solution off the web.

Not sure the best way to fix it. A plugin to popular IDEs for the languages that use them. Improved coding experience on the webpage itself. Some plugins for something like vim, emacs, textmate, sublime or something that can be used for most languages. All those options are tough. Good luck :)

Also a small note. I would decrease the default tab size. When coding in the web window, it is quite large by default.

Another small note. I would remove the dead space from the video. You could note you are doing it, but if someone is thinking / using another editor, you're just going to have a 1/2 hour of nothing, then one block of text.

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