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The Tech Recruitment Process at Drivy

drivy.engineering

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Re: The Tech Recruitment Process at Drivy

#11

Post by _asummers »

dasmoth wrote: post #3

or the codebase from a previous position That was a little startling. Other than open source companies, how many employers would be happy to know their code is being shown off to potential future employers?

That whole section needs an alternate. Enough people are NDA etc. bound that you're going to have qualified people who literally can't do this step. Many people don't have large software written in the public domain or do not have anything showable because they don't have access to the source anymore. It'd be awesome if everyone had enterprise level software on GitHub, but that seems an unfair requirement to show technical competency for closed software.

Re: The Tech Recruitment Process at Drivy

#12

Post by marcgg »

_asummers wrote: post #11
dasmoth wrote: post #3

or the codebase from a previous position That was a little startling. Other than open source companies, how many employers would be happy to know their code is being shown off to potential future employers?

That whole section needs an alternate. Enough people are NDA etc. bound that you're going to have qualified people who literally can't do this step. Many people don't have large software written in the public domain or do not have anything showable because they don't have access to the source anymore. It'd be awesome if everyone had enterprise level software on GitHub, but that seems an unfair requirement to show tec…

We accept any kind of code, be it a kata made during a workshop or a side project... really we just want to talk about code that the candidate wrote previously. It doesn't need to be large to have interesting tradeoffs made

Re: The Tech Recruitment Process at Drivy

#13

Post by JustSomeNobody »

dasmoth wrote: post #3

or the codebase from a previous position That was a little startling. Other than open source companies, how many employers would be happy to know their code is being shown off to potential future employers?

Yeah this caught me off guard. Had to read it again.

I'm pretty sure I'm not legally allowed to possess the code from previous employment contracts.

Re: The Tech Recruitment Process at Drivy

#14

Post by marcgg »

peteretep wrote: post #2

I'm elbow deep in all parts of the recruitment process, and the take-home test and "bring some sample code in" are much superior to anything algorithm-y or whiteboard-y, so +1

Thanks! So far it's been also very interesting on our end to discuss "real life" problems

Re: The Tech Recruitment Process at Drivy

#15

Post by hack_edu »

marcgg wrote: post #10
hack_edu wrote: post #4

To start, thanks for the self-submitted promo piece on your company. If you want publicity, earn it. You ought to make a statement about this fact in the comment section. Or, submit this using an official account. Here is basically how it goes: - Phone screening - Take home assignment - "Resume” interview - Technical interview - Product interview - Interview with another team - Finalizing the hire This might seem tha…

If you sum it all up, it is less than a day. The phone screening is ~20 minutes, the assignment takes a couple of hours and so on. I think it's fair to expect that a candidate is willing to invest at least 5-6 hours in an interview process. Compared to what I've seen before (full day interviews, freelance period etc) this seems fair to me. But like you comment proves, it might not be for everybody.

If this is the case, you are merely writing a piece of "our interview process is entirely average." I don't know about you, but 5-6 hours is standard. What's the point of breaking out your day-of process into 4 bullet points if its just the same as your normal engineering interview? Fluff.

Finally, realize that your candidates (just like your Eng org) spend much more time prepping for your interview than you quantify on paper. However much they choose to is up to them, but don't pretend you're doing them a favor.

Re: The Tech Recruitment Process at Drivy

#16

Post by _asummers »

marcgg wrote: post #12
_asummers wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That whole section needs an alternate. Enough people are NDA etc. bound that you're going to have qualified people who literally can't do this step. Many people don't have large software written in the public domain or do not have anything showable because they don't have access to the source anymore. It'd be awesome if everyone had enterprise level software on GitHub, but that seems an unfair requirement to show tec…

We accept any kind of code, be it a kata made during a workshop or a side project... really we just want to talk about code that the candidate wrote previously. It doesn't need to be large to have interesting tradeoffs made

That ignores the class of FOSS people I like to call the "fixers", the ones that will spelunk a code base because they have a problem, find the 10 line fix that fixes their issue and never come back to the project again. Those 10 lines were probably very useful but doesn't show any larger design ability, despite that being a thing the candidate may be very good at, or large enough to garner a gauge on how that person sees code. Also consider the people who have never contributed to open source because they leave their work at the door. This is all your prerogative on how you want to run this, but I was personally put off reading that section, despite having a good idea what you're looking for. out of it

Re: The Tech Recruitment Process at Drivy

#17

Post by [deleted] »

marcgg wrote: post #10
hack_edu wrote: post #4

To start, thanks for the self-submitted promo piece on your company. If you want publicity, earn it. You ought to make a statement about this fact in the comment section. Or, submit this using an official account. Here is basically how it goes: - Phone screening - Take home assignment - "Resume” interview - Technical interview - Product interview - Interview with another team - Finalizing the hire This might seem tha…

If you sum it all up, it is less than a day. The phone screening is ~20 minutes, the assignment takes a couple of hours and so on. I think it's fair to expect that a candidate is willing to invest at least 5-6 hours in an interview process. Compared to what I've seen before (full day interviews, freelance period etc) this seems fair to me. But like you comment proves, it might not be for everybody.

[deleted]

Re: The Tech Recruitment Process at Drivy

#18

Post by Bahamut »

marcgg wrote: post #10
hack_edu wrote: post #4

To start, thanks for the self-submitted promo piece on your company. If you want publicity, earn it. You ought to make a statement about this fact in the comment section. Or, submit this using an official account. Here is basically how it goes: - Phone screening - Take home assignment - "Resume” interview - Technical interview - Product interview - Interview with another team - Finalizing the hire This might seem tha…

If you sum it all up, it is less than a day. The phone screening is ~20 minutes, the assignment takes a couple of hours and so on. I think it's fair to expect that a candidate is willing to invest at least 5-6 hours in an interview process. Compared to what I've seen before (full day interviews, freelance period etc) this seems fair to me. But like you comment proves, it might not be for everybody.

A take home assignment alone is likely more than a work day, if not multiples - I'll take a 7 hour onsite interview gauntlet over that any day.

The only side this process seems to be favorable for is the company interviewing.

To give a flip side, I just finished interviewing with over 10 companies in a rigorous search. Of those, two did take home tests, and ultimately I didn't have the time to complete either, especially since the requirements were written in a way where candidates were encouraged to dump a lot of time into them. My schedule was filled with many high stakes interviews, which was mentally exhausting. It simply is not in my interest to do a take home project, as it reduces the number of companies I can simultaneously interview at.

Re: The Tech Recruitment Process at Drivy

#19

Post by CodeMage »

marcgg wrote: post #12
_asummers wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That whole section needs an alternate. Enough people are NDA etc. bound that you're going to have qualified people who literally can't do this step. Many people don't have large software written in the public domain or do not have anything showable because they don't have access to the source anymore. It'd be awesome if everyone had enterprise level software on GitHub, but that seems an unfair requirement to show tec…

We accept any kind of code, be it a kata made during a workshop or a side project... really we just want to talk about code that the candidate wrote previously. It doesn't need to be large to have interesting tradeoffs made

Why? You already gave the candidate a "take home assignment". That assignment should involve interesting trade-offs. If it doesn't, tweak it until it does. Why not discuss that code?

I'm the kind of guy who still likes to code on the side, at home, for fun, after all these years, but I'm also aware that not everyone is like that. Maybe that's one of your filters -- maybe you're looking for people who prefer coding to be 90% of their lives -- but that would be a big red flag in my book. I've seen too many companies who think that they are entitled to employees who will give them everything for next-to-nothing in return.

Re: The Tech Recruitment Process at Drivy

#20

Post by marcgg »

hack_edu wrote: post #15
marcgg wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you sum it all up, it is less than a day. The phone screening is ~20 minutes, the assignment takes a couple of hours and so on. I think it's fair to expect that a candidate is willing to invest at least 5-6 hours in an interview process. Compared to what I've seen before (full day interviews, freelance period etc) this seems fair to me. But like you comment proves, it might not be for everybody.

If this is the case, you are merely writing a piece of "our interview process is entirely average." I don't know about you, but 5-6 hours is standard. What's the point of breaking out your day-of process into 4 bullet points if its just the same as your normal engineering interview? Fluff. Finally, realize that your candidates (just like your Eng org) spend much more time prepping for your interview than you quantify…

I never said our interview process was perfect, I mainly wanted to share it because I saw a lot of people complaining about whiteboard coding and so on... so I figured it could be interesting to some to see a less exhausting alternative.
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