Please stop the coding challenges • Hacker News Board

Re: Please stop the coding challenges

#161

Post by ecshafer » Fri, Nov 15, 2024, 5:47 PM UTC

> These high-stress, solo coding assignments don’t reflect the actual job. Instead, they put developers in situations they’d never face in the workplace, where collaboration and support are standard. When was the last time you had to debug an ancient codebase without documentation or help from a team?

I have had to do this, on numerous occasions. Sometimes there is a system that no one who built it is left, the documentation doesn't exist or can't be found, and that's it. This is not a great example. Being able to debug a program, follow requests around and see what's happening is a good skill.

What this example is really bad at though is that you pigeonhole yourself into developers. If you have a legacy php application, you are weeding out the java, python, ruby, go etc developers that do have those skills but don't know php and will be slower at it. Despite them possibly being stronger developers given a couple months of hands on php.

> A “4-hour” assignment can quickly turn into 8, 10, or even more, just to ensure it’s in great shape.

This I agree with. Suggested time can easily be gamed, so someone who has more time can look like a better candidate.

Re: Please stop the coding challenges

#162

Post by sanderjd » Fri, Nov 15, 2024, 5:49 PM UTC

agentultra wrote: post #154

> When was the last time you had to debug an ancient codebase without documentation or help from a team? All the time. 300-400k SLOC in C++. Legacy in the sense that there were no tests of any kind. Little-to-no documentation. Solo developer at the tiny company. Fix bugs and add features while keeping the system available to the tens of thousands of users. A more recent example: here’s a patch for a critical feature…

Yeah I thought that was a weird thing to highlight. The "debug this!" kind of interview is pretty much my favorite, because it's by far the closest to what I do for like 90% of my time at work (when I'm not doing communication tasks...).

Re: Please stop the coding challenges

#163

Post by ironman1478 » Fri, Nov 15, 2024, 5:49 PM UTC

paxys wrote: post #75

The more people online complain about coding interviews, the more confident I am that they are the absolute best way to filter candidates for a software development job. Across the industry there are way too many talkers/pretenders/meeting schedulers and not enough people who can roll up their sleeves, jump into the code and actually get stuff done. And this problem becomes worse at higher levels. You can bitch about…

I am good at passing these interviews and am at a faang (will be moving to another one this month). These interviews are useless and provide a false signal on problem solving skills and people's abilities to learn things. The interviews specifically don't test whether or not somebody can roll up their sleeves and jump into code, because if it did why do I as a new hire have to explain so much about software engineering and debugging practices to people who have been here so long?

If you've actually worked at a large company, you'd know that 90% of the real work is done by like 5% of people (maybe even less). If the interviews worked this ratio would be so much better.

Re: Please stop the coding challenges

#164

Post by botanical76 » Fri, Nov 15, 2024, 5:49 PM UTC

duped wrote: post #82

Xelynega wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn't the average for software developers in the US ~100k(before taxes)? Assuming that high earners are offsetting that to the higher end, most people aren't making 6 figures, and the bar isn't which language they're programming in.

100k is on the lower end of junior salary

Is this some coveted attempt to push tech salaries higher?

Re: Please stop the coding challenges

#165

Post by FartyMcFarter » Fri, Nov 15, 2024, 5:49 PM UTC

pydry wrote: post #144

FartyMcFarter wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But is there a good way to find the "better possible hires" which doesn't have other significant disadvantages? If you have a convincing method of doing that, many companies would be interested in your ideas.

Yes, ask give interview tasks which are realistic depictions of the actual job tasks. No, the hiring managers that are into cargoogle culting are not actually that interested in how to do interviewing properly. Not unless, say, google does it and they can copy it. For them the important thing is that leetcode is a safe, defensible choice because "everyone else does it that way".

> Yes, ask give interview tasks which are realistic depictions of the actual job tasks.

I think this is exactly what a lot of companies try to do when interviewing. Depending on how much time they want candidates and interviewers to spend on the task, this ranges from leetcode-style problems to bigger coding challenges (possibly with some debugging or collaboration involved).

What would you suggest concretely?

Re: Please stop the coding challenges

#166

Post by carlos-menezes » Fri, Nov 15, 2024, 5:49 PM UTC

> When was the last time you had to debug an ancient codebase without documentation or help from a team?

Literally my first internship. Had to migrate a small system from C to (modern) C++ in the span of 6 months. Most files (and I'm going to say in the ballpark of 85%) had last been touched in 2003.

I started my intership in 2020.

Re: Please stop the coding challenges

#167

Post by sanderjd » Fri, Nov 15, 2024, 5:51 PM UTC

ecshafer wrote: post #161

> These high-stress, solo coding assignments don’t reflect the actual job. Instead, they put developers in situations they’d never face in the workplace, where collaboration and support are standard. When was the last time you had to debug an ancient codebase without documentation or help from a team? I have had to do this, on numerous occasions. Sometimes there is a system that no one who built it is left, the docum…

When I interviewed at Stripe, they had a "debug this!" question ready to go in a number of languages. (I think the list was something like: ruby, java, python, javascript, go, maybe one or two more.) I thought this was pretty great, but also seemed pretty labor intensive.

Re: Please stop the coding challenges

#168

Post by htrp » Fri, Nov 15, 2024, 5:51 PM UTC

The beatings will continue until morale (or the job market) improves.

In all seriousness, we just need to get together and refuse to do these types of problems (starting with hiring managers and strong candidates).

Re: Please stop the coding challenges

#169

Post by ddq » Fri, Nov 15, 2024, 5:51 PM UTC

0xmarcin wrote: post #117

paxys wrote: post #75

The more people online complain about coding interviews, the more confident I am that they are the absolute best way to filter candidates for a software development job. Across the industry there are way too many talkers/pretenders/meeting schedulers and not enough people who can roll up their sleeves, jump into the code and actually get stuff done. And this problem becomes worse at higher levels. You can bitch about…

Maybe there were in the past, currently there is entire industry there to help you game the system. - Cracking the coding interview. - Elements of programming interviews in Java|Python|whatever... - leetcode & other sides with paid premium subscriptions... - mock interview bootcamps... It's no longer about skill, it's only about gaming the system.

The ease with which interviews allow the unscrupulous to inflate their abilities has been well-known for long enough for it to be metagamed and exploited for profit and now the effects have become abundantly apparent. Imposters institutionally infested in this manner across industries have reached a critical threshold where their fundamental lack of competency can no longer remain hidden.

Re: Please stop the coding challenges

#170

Post by AnotherGoodName » Fri, Nov 15, 2024, 5:51 PM UTC

0xmarcin wrote: post #117

paxys wrote: post #75

The more people online complain about coding interviews, the more confident I am that they are the absolute best way to filter candidates for a software development job. Across the industry there are way too many talkers/pretenders/meeting schedulers and not enough people who can roll up their sleeves, jump into the code and actually get stuff done. And this problem becomes worse at higher levels. You can bitch about…

Maybe there were in the past, currently there is entire industry there to help you game the system. - Cracking the coding interview. - Elements of programming interviews in Java|Python|whatever... - leetcode & other sides with paid premium subscriptions... - mock interview bootcamps... It's no longer about skill, it's only about gaming the system.

Typical table stakes prep work for a high paying job with a lot of competition.

I’m serious. It’s not even guaranteed you’ll get the job if you do the above but everyone who passed the big tech interviews will acknowledge they fucking studied for it. What do expect here?