Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Tell HN: Unpaid home assignments are not ok

news.ycombinator.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

141–150 of 470 posts

Re: Tell HN: Unpaid home assignments are not ok

#141

Post by indigochill »

social_quotient wrote: post #71

Isn’t the root of this need to make developers code stuff to prove their skills because we don’t have an accredited body giving people meaningful certification? A dr would not do a quick surgery and a power plant engineer won’t build “just a quick test reactor” because they have credentials and the hiring bodies trust those creds. In software is the problem that we don’t trust what the resume implies? Where does the…

It goes beyond upfront accreditation. Doctors and lawyers get accredited credentials, sure, but more importantly they're also subject to strict regulations around malpractice. You can BS your way through most degree programs, but you can't BS your way through a law or medical practice because sooner or later you'll wind up doing something illegal and be stripped of the right to practice.

In software, it would not be enough just to require a degree. We'd have to also have some auditing entity that ensured the software written in practice conformed with the standards of professional engineering. And as the industry stands today, that applies to 0% of software created in a professional setting, never mind that very few corporations would be cool with auditors poking around in their code, at least without strict NDAs.

Not that I'm arguing that we should go this way. I for one embrace the wild west era of software for as long as it lasts. But if we were to give accreditation any weight, it would have to come accompanied with a standardized method to verify the accreditation is actually meaningful.

Re: Tell HN: Unpaid home assignments are not ok

#142

Post by mytailorisrich »

jerf wrote: post #76

According to the HN gestalt, you shouldn't do a whiteboard interview because that's too unrealistic because nobody programs on a whiteboard, you shouldn't expect programmers to code with their laptop in an interview because that's too much pressure and also unrealistic, you shouldn't expect programmers to be willing to do a take home exam because that's too much work without money (and if people did pay, the complain…

I don't know if it's still a thing but during many interviews I did for software dev. positions I was simply asked to perform a 30 minute coding task on paper and left alone in a room to do it, plus maybe another 10-20 minutes to fill a questionnaire related to the language of choice.

Thinking about it, I think this is a good approach. Duration is right, you're left alone to think, and it's pen and paper so while low tech it does show your own reasoning and your own knowledge of the language (a typo here or there is not critical to the exercise).

Re: Tell HN: Unpaid home assignments are not ok

#143

Post by Matticus_Rex »

ChuckNorris89 wrote: post #120
sarchertech wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You’re setting up a gigantic straw man. There are camps on HN who dislike all of those things individually—you can’t just take the union of everything someone here dislikes and call it the HN gestalt. >do something unfun to get hired I don’t know of any other industry who hires senior people the way we do outside of performing arts. I personally don’t mind putting together a portfolio the way most other creative indu…

>I don’t know of any other industry who hires senior people the way we do outside of performing arts. Because nearly every other industry is credentialed, so proving your 3-8 years of university grind is enough to get hired. Outside of tech, any other white collar interview is basically a 15-60 minute coffee or lunch with the boss (the culture fit interview basically) and then, unless you showed some red flags, you g…

> Because nearly every other industry is credentialed, so proving your 3-8 years of university grind is enough to get hired.

Nearly every other industry is credentialed and a degree is enough to get hired? I don't think that matches reality at all.

Re: Tell HN: Unpaid home assignments are not ok

#144

Post by bluGill »

dbrgn wrote: post #129
bluGill wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Apparently the approved HN method is to arrange the resumes on a dartboard, throw darts at it, and commit up front to hiring whoever you hit unconditionally for at least two years without no possibility of having to fire them. Name me one interview method that actually has better results than that? Okay, lets eliminate the ones that are obviously unqualified from the ones we paste up, is your method still better? M…

Links to such scientific research would be welcome!

I know it exists, or at least my HR department tells me it exists, but I have no idea how to find it. All I know is HR claims the interview training I've had is based on research. (the STARs system which dates to the 1950s, I'm not sure if it is still considered a good system in research)

Re: Tell HN: Unpaid home assignments are not ok

#145

Post by SloopJon »

I applied for a QA position at a company that uses time-of-flight cameras with industrial robots. I researched their solution, got a sense for its architecture, and started toying around with building a Flatland-style version of their product. I figured that a demo like that would stand out much better than anything on my resume.

They rejected my application before I got too far with the demo, which would have taken me a lot more than six hours to finish. Although it might have been an interesting addition to my Github repo, it was kind of tailored to this one company.

I'm not disagreeing with the OP, because I probably wouldn't find an interview project nearly as fun. I wonder, though, whether anyone has been successful with a one-off, company-specific project like this, as opposed to a general portfolio of projects that you've made over the years.

Re: Tell HN: Unpaid home assignments are not ok

#146

Post by kasey_junk »

warrenm wrote: post #121
kasey_junk wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Many states in the US don’t have the moonlighting protections that California does. A paid assignment outside of their main employer will very frequently will be basis for dismissal, or at least will demand prior notification.

Not if it's done out of hours and on !work equipment

This is wrong in the jurisdiction I live in (Illinois) where an employment contract is allowed to state that outside work is not allowed.

Most contracts I’ve had will actually state “without manager approval” but that’s just as bad in many instances.

[later] Actually this became illegal in Illinois at the beginning of this year, though the protections don’t extend to clients or competitors.

Re: Tell HN: Unpaid home assignments are not ok

#147

Post by preommr »

> It took me about 6h to develop and iron out the edge cases.

This is where you messed up. Set a hard limit of 1-2 hours, and mention edge cases in your comments and move on. It also depends on the stage of the interview. If you're in the early stages then they probably just want to see that you know what you're doing, and it should be fairly fast with the right frameworks, scaffolding, starters, etc.

Re: Tell HN: Unpaid home assignments are not ok

#148

Post by phreack »

JadoJodo wrote: post #100

The tactic I’ve employed at my company when vetting a candidate is to give them a link to a small code sample (usually a single class or service for backend, some JS/CSS for front end) to review the day before the interview. The code itself will include some obvious issues, some less obvious issues, some language specific opportunities for improvement, etc. We then walk through their notes (if they made any), and the…

Yeah I'm baffled why people do such weird random leetcode challenges when this option is so good. At a place where I used to worked they'd give people a couple of class and ERD diagrams with obvious issues and give them about an hour for them to think about and how they'd change things.

It was such a good trigger for discussion and we could easily measure a candidate's fit in moments. Some would just go "yeah this code's perfect" and not argue at all, some would spend ages with irrelevant details, and the couple of people who immediately looked at the diagram and spotted the most glaring OOP issues turned out to be great at their job.

Re: Tell HN: Unpaid home assignments are not ok

#149

Post by BossingAround »

jerf wrote: post #76

According to the HN gestalt, you shouldn't do a whiteboard interview because that's too unrealistic because nobody programs on a whiteboard, you shouldn't expect programmers to code with their laptop in an interview because that's too much pressure and also unrealistic, you shouldn't expect programmers to be willing to do a take home exam because that's too much work without money (and if people did pay, the complain…

> Apparently the approved HN method is to arrange the resumes on a dartboard, throw darts at it, and commit up front to hiring whoever you hit unconditionally for at least two years without no possibility of having to fire them. Or something like that.

I actually think that'd have, statistically speaking, similar results as right now for a lot of companies that aren't Google.

Re: Tell HN: Unpaid home assignments are not ok

#150

Post by naniwaduni »

morelisp wrote: post #118
sarchertech wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You’re setting up a gigantic straw man. There are camps on HN who dislike all of those things individually—you can’t just take the union of everything someone here dislikes and call it the HN gestalt. >do something unfun to get hired I don’t know of any other industry who hires senior people the way we do outside of performing arts. I personally don’t mind putting together a portfolio the way most other creative indu…

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

But then also doesn't want to train juniors!
Post reply on HN