Live data from Hacker News

a16z Programming Test

hackerrank.com

61–70 of 121 posts

Re: a16z Programming Test

#61
post #9
post #3

I seriously hope this doesn't become a norm. I hate timed tests.

Seems like the obvious (if dishonest) thing would be to use a throwaway phone # to get the test, then spend a day or so solving it, then type it in (with plausible delays) using your real number a day later. Assuming the test is roughly the same each time (even if details are different, it's probably of the same general class). In grading, the results of 6-8h of work entered in 2h would look more impressive than 3h o…

Why would you want to appear better then you are at the interview? You'll get found out eventually later, and this will end up just spending your time.

Re: a16z Programming Test

#62

An entire page detailing what you want from me, coupled with a 180 minute test. Yet in all of this there are only 4 bullet point sentences describing what you're offering me. That deal is not for me.

They are establishing the tone of the relationship .. [& edit: it is a great filter for the personality type they want.]

Re: a16z Programming Test

#63
post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You'd still be stuck evaluating potentially hundreds of correct submissions. I'm guessing the MVP of hackerrank was the web code editor + lint/findbugs/whatever for filtering. A lot of people have spent a lot of time writing open source projects that convert code to metrics, so making a reasonably prioritized list is probably fairly easy. > There are lot of really smart developers out there with advanced degrees wh…

To be honest I think it's the other way round - if you can do programming tests all day long you will succeed at most coding jobs. However there are a lot of developers who can't tackle an interview that with a nights sleep and no pressure can easily code a intuitive and effective architecture. Sorry - programming tests raise far more false negatives than false positives (and this from a person who considers himself…

I'm not sure what kind of coding work you do, but I assure you the vast majority of web development work has little resemblance to coding questions. You are almost never designing an algorithm: that was already done for you by whoever designed the library you are using.

Majority of the tasks IME:

- code reading & refactoring

- figuring out why two libraries aren't playing nice

- bug triangulation

- optimization (not the algorithmic type, but rather the fix-the-auto-generated-SQL-query / frontend asset packing kind)

- repetitive/simple/obvious bits of jQuery

Maybe there's some kind of online test that could exercise those skills, but if you ask me the main performance changers for modern web development are, they're: really knowing the stack (problem anticipation, what to use, how to use the various tools to quickly get search keywords), google fu, and most importantly having done it a couple hundred times (muscle memory).

Re: a16z Programming Test

#64
post #34

This doesn't quite make sense to me. Or, it makes sense, but not for the reasons presented on the surface. If you're Andreesen Horowitz, you have access to a nearly-unlimited supply of capital. You also have incredible access to information and dealflow throughout the industry. In situations in which you are not capital constrained, the most efficient way to establish a workforce is to acquire it from somewhere else;…

Not to sound offensive , but you're not A16z. 1. > No one is rich enough to buy people , unless well if you're talking about criminals. 2.Most good engineers will tell you , that money is NOT the primary motivator for them to build great products.( So aqui-hiring won't work) 3. As for Hackerrank--> that's what they're supposed to do - find people with good technical skills.

Perhaps you're not technically buying a human being; but everyone's allegiance has a price.

I'll retract my statement if someone shows me real evidence that they've turned down a 500 (ok, perhaps 50 should be enough) million dollar job offer.

Re: a16z Programming Test

#65
post #8

I wonder if this could act as a negative filter for good programmers. Who worth their salt is going to invest 3 hours of their time just to submit a resume? Wouldn't you want to talk to the employer first to see if they're a good fit? In a tight labor market, people willing to do this are more desperate than others. So it's going to filter for desperate developers who passed a 3 hour basic skills test. Old fashioned…

one of the best programmers i know refuses to continue with a job application if there is a programming test... its a bit eccentric but valid given that his experience and past achievements say more than a programming test ever could.

Re: a16z Programming Test

#66
post #34

This doesn't quite make sense to me. Or, it makes sense, but not for the reasons presented on the surface. If you're Andreesen Horowitz, you have access to a nearly-unlimited supply of capital. You also have incredible access to information and dealflow throughout the industry. In situations in which you are not capital constrained, the most efficient way to establish a workforce is to acquire it from somewhere else;…

Even Andreessen is unlikely to be structured such that spending millions of dollars at a time on things that don't make returns is a sensible thing to do.

You have to understand the way capital inside venture funds is usually allocated - it's not just one big checking account. A common way to describe the economics of a venture fund is "2 and 20" which means that the fund takes 2% management fees per year (across a 10 year fund lifetime) and takes 20% of the returns or upside.

So, in a hypothetical $300m fund with this arrangement, 80% of the money is reserved for making investments that provide returns. Every time an investment is made, a capital call takes place where the LPs are asked for the money.

The other 20% of the fund goes to management fees - 2% per year although it's not uncommon that these fees be non-linearly distributed, IE 3% in the early years and 1% in the out years when (presumably) new funds are also throwing off management fees.

So your $300m fund really generates $500k / month in management fees. (Probably paid annually or quarterly.) Enough for some very comfortable salaries, ample support staff, great office space and a travel budget but not enough to really start throwing dollars around millions at a time.

Now of course Andreessen has a reported ~$4B under management but I'd be surprised if they're really generating north of $6M in management fees per month. As fund size grows, management fees may come down (since it doesn't take 10x the effort to write checks 10x as large) or a fund as confident as Andreessen (and in as strong a position) might make a "1.5 and 30" deal where they take fewer dollars as management fees up front but get a larger percentage of the upside.

Note, I know absolutely nothing about what's really happening inside Andreessen, this is a purely hypothetical story against what is considered "typical" in the industry. (In the US.)

Re: a16z Programming Test

#68
post #12
post #8

I wonder if this could act as a negative filter for good programmers. Who worth their salt is going to invest 3 hours of their time just to submit a resume? Wouldn't you want to talk to the employer first to see if they're a good fit? In a tight labor market, people willing to do this are more desperate than others. So it's going to filter for desperate developers who passed a 3 hour basic skills test. Old fashioned…

Well, empirically we're getting quite a lot of people attempting it! :) Three hours is pretty lenient (you could blaze through it in less time), though the last question is challenging. We think the questions are kind of fun as well. Without something like this we'd just have 100s-1000s of unstructured resumes in different formats to rank against each other. This process is more fair and (IMO) allows someone without…

>> allows someone ... from outside the US, to compete on a level playing field.

Just curious, why do you say that the normal process doesn't allow people outside the US to compete on a level playing field? Higher barrier to on-site interviews?

Re: a16z Programming Test

#69
post #29

HN policy for years has been to allow two kinds of job ad: (1) job posts by YC startups, and (2) the Who's Hiring threads. We kill job ads that are neither of these. (Incidentally, PG designed the /jobs posts to be the one privilege that YC startups get on HN. Other than that, the site policy is to treat them the same way as everybody else.) It's not uncommon for posts to be in a grey area between job ad and story. A…

>> A programming test for an interview process doesn't seem all that grey, though, so I've been killing these.

I'm quite interested in those tests, could there possibly be a way to see them?

Re: a16z Programming Test

#70
post #65
post #8

I wonder if this could act as a negative filter for good programmers. Who worth their salt is going to invest 3 hours of their time just to submit a resume? Wouldn't you want to talk to the employer first to see if they're a good fit? In a tight labor market, people willing to do this are more desperate than others. So it's going to filter for desperate developers who passed a 3 hour basic skills test. Old fashioned…

one of the best programmers i know refuses to continue with a job application if there is a programming test... its a bit eccentric but valid given that his experience and past achievements say more than a programming test ever could.

I have come across this opinion as well from some excellent developers, but I can't say that I agree with it. All in all, a well-executed* technical test can be an excellent filter and basis for further interviews.

* By well-executed, I mean - relatively language agnostic, lacking in trick questions and meaningless trivia, and being open to multiple good answers. The intention is to not only check basic ability to solve simple problems, but the general approach and programming style of the individual interviewed.

Past experience is often vaguely stated in CVs and looks great on paper, but can be disingenous. It takes a thorough two-way discussion which is customised to each individual to reveal this, however. Some people have excellent and highly visible past achievements, but not everyone does. I wouldn't throw out a CV simply because the individual doesn't have any open source code to show me, nor do they have any awards from companies they have worked for (which is often more about self-marketing than actual ability).

I guess your mileage may vary based on the position that's in question and the companies involved, but I've seen some shocking discrepancies between CVs and actual programming ability. Even worse than the usual "fizz-buzz" statistics that get thrown around.

Post reply on HN