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Ask HN: What did I do so wrong in this coding interview

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Re: Ask HN: What did I do so wrong in this coding interview

#91

Post by notaio »

notduncansmith wrote: post #79
Ryel wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not the OP but I really appreciate your answer. Thank you for taking the time. What is the "right" amount of time/effort to put into a "job-application" project like this?

As much as they give you, minus a few hours. Give the impression that you can meet/beat deadlines, but be sure to utilize as much time as you can and deliver something that's of the calibre they're expecting. For example, if they give you 3 days for a project as simple as this, they probably expect something production-ready: polished, cross-browser tested, responsive, etc. Deliver exactly that in under 72 hours and…

FYI I had no timeline attached to this test, but who ask candidates to work 3days on something before being hired ?? If its what they expected from me I would have straight refused.

Re: Ask HN: What did I do so wrong in this coding interview

#92

Post by notaio »

msantos wrote: post #82
honestfeedback wrote: post #19

Disclaimer: I'm posting this under a new dummy account because I don't want this to be seen as feedback from my company. We didn't interview you, but I'm a senior manager and I want to help w/o implicitly dragging my team into it. (The key word is also "help"; I'm not trying to belittle you, just give my honest assessment of this project, quick as it was to create.) tl;dr: I agree with the assessment that this doesn'…

Your great feedback takes me back to something I've heard in a conference sometime ago. These are not the speakers exact words but nearly.. ... unless the role and the job post clearly state a particular framework as pre-requisite, resorting to frameworks in an attempt to impress interviewers when applying to a senior role is the worse thing you could do. i.e. just because you know your way around Photoshop that does…

In the "Angular, Ember and friends era", not using a front-end framework show exactly that I don't use frameworks for the sake of it.

Re: Ask HN: What did I do so wrong in this coding interview

#93

Post by notaio »

notduncansmith wrote: post #78
Sgoettschkes wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Regarding 1. As far as I know, npm says in it's docs you should add node_modules to your scm because there is no way to install the exact same version through npm on different machines. On the other hand, composer has a .lock file which specifies commit hashes it installed on the dev machine, so a composer install installs the exact same commit on every machine. @OP: You didn't commit the composer.lock. That means th…

Can you provide a link to that? That's not how npm works at all . You specify dependencies as a dictionary: keys are package names, and values are versions. They support commit hashes, but do not require them. See: https://www.npmjs.org/doc/package.json.html#dependencies

https://www.npmjs.org/doc/faq.html#Should-I-check-my-node_mo...

Re: Ask HN: What did I do so wrong in this coding interview

#94

Post by sirrocco »

Thanks for posting this, the whole thread was a learning experience and congrats for having the guts to "Ask HN".

I won't really comment on the code but I think that the company could have come back with something like: "Hey, can you make this much smaller? with only minimal use of frameworks?"

An explanation like "Falling far short of senior developer standards" sounds like an absolutely pointless comment and I feel someone had a bit of a childish reaction when seeing the code (their comment could fit them just as well).

Re: Ask HN: What did I do so wrong in this coding interview

#95

Post by bmm6o »

mahesh_gkumar wrote: post #81
honestfeedback wrote: post #19

Disclaimer: I'm posting this under a new dummy account because I don't want this to be seen as feedback from my company. We didn't interview you, but I'm a senior manager and I want to help w/o implicitly dragging my team into it. (The key word is also "help"; I'm not trying to belittle you, just give my honest assessment of this project, quick as it was to create.) tl;dr: I agree with the assessment that this doesn'…

I wish all companies who ask their candidates to solve a coding exercise give honest feedback like this after the end of the interview. Most times its just the canned 'Sorry you are not a fit' or the response the OP got.

For every 1 candidate who would take it as constructive criticism, there are 19 that would react hostilely or think it was the next step of an ongoing debate. Read some of notaio's responses in this thread and remember that he started this discussion with the express purpose of soliciting feedback.

Re: Ask HN: What did I do so wrong in this coding interview

#96

Post by bjourne »

honestfeedback wrote: post #19

Disclaimer: I'm posting this under a new dummy account because I don't want this to be seen as feedback from my company. We didn't interview you, but I'm a senior manager and I want to help w/o implicitly dragging my team into it. (The key word is also "help"; I'm not trying to belittle you, just give my honest assessment of this project, quick as it was to create.) tl;dr: I agree with the assessment that this doesn'…

If you don't think this guy has the skill of a senior developer, you're either reading hacker news to much or haven't done any interviewing at all.

You're right about your criticism of course, his memory game implementation is crap in many, many ways. But in the grand scheme of things, it's details. Most developers in the real world wouldn't be able at all to put it together in javascript in only two days (i've worked with people who wouldn't have been able to do it in two months). Hell, a large minority of developers can't solve the FizzBuzz test so disqualifying this guy for using to many dependencies and requiring sudo is silly.

Re: Ask HN: What did I do so wrong in this coding interview

#97

Post by stcredzero »

utunga wrote: post #57
stcredzero wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

(Note: the following is not criticism directed at you . I'm merely using your comment as a springboard for commentary about the industry on many matters you also show you are aware of.) These things are highly subjective. Yes. leads them to judge your work in the harshest light instead of an evaluative one Should any professionals have to present apologetics for others in his procession doing such a thing? We are all…

>> leads them to judge your work in the harshest light instead of an evaluative one > Should any professionals have to present apologetics for others in his procession doing such a thing? We are all human beings, but shouldn't we be trying not to be this quickly and arbitrarily judgemental Well sure. But this is php we're talking about here.

Well sure. But this is php we're talking about here.

I'm not sure this is any more substantive than an interview where you're supposed to have the right names on everything and show up in a pressed suit.

Re: Ask HN: What did I do so wrong in this coding interview

#98

Post by Jemaclus »

ufmace wrote: post #85
Jemaclus wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We always give some sort of programming test, usually a dumbed down version of a problem we've recently solved ourselves. You shouldn't have to spend more than two hours on it, if that. Most of the time our applicants say they spent less than an hour on it. It also weeds out a non-zero number of people who aren't really super interested in the position.

That sounds fine; it's more a question of the timing. I'm guessing you give your test before the in-person interview? That would make a lot more sense to me than doing it after, which they apparently did to OP.

Yes, it's usually "homework" (i.e., send us your resume and your code sample at the same time). I have a "problem solving" task where I expect you to bang out an algorithm (as opposed to code) for the in-person interview. That's mainly just so I can watch you think out loud.

I can teach you my project's programming language... I don't have time to teach you problem solving basics.

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