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I don’t have time for coding challenges

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Re: I don’t have time for coding challenges

#171

Post by [deleted] »

johnfn wrote: post #149
autarch wrote: post #50

> "I’m writing this as an interviewee, having never been on the other side of the interview table ..." > ... > "Most candidates will have side-projects or work they’ve done for previous employers." As someone who has actually done a lot of interviewing, I can say with great confidence that this is simply wrong. At my current employer, we have a "homework assignment" as part of the interview process. We tell candidate…

Them: "We've got a coding challenge for you..." Me: "I've got this repo on Github with millions of downloads and 10k stars. It's at least 20k lines of my own code. Would that be good to demonstrate my coding ability?" Them: "Haha, no, that'd be too much work for us. Please do the test instead." Me: "Fine." Then they rejected me because I used GET instead of POST. Clearly that shows I have no idea how to code. That wa…

[deleted]

Re: I don’t have time for coding challenges

#172

Post by golergka »

johnfn wrote: post #149
autarch wrote: post #50

> "I’m writing this as an interviewee, having never been on the other side of the interview table ..." > ... > "Most candidates will have side-projects or work they’ve done for previous employers." As someone who has actually done a lot of interviewing, I can say with great confidence that this is simply wrong. At my current employer, we have a "homework assignment" as part of the interview process. We tell candidate…

Them: "We've got a coding challenge for you..." Me: "I've got this repo on Github with millions of downloads and 10k stars. It's at least 20k lines of my own code. Would that be good to demonstrate my coding ability?" Them: "Haha, no, that'd be too much work for us. Please do the test instead." Me: "Fine." Then they rejected me because I used GET instead of POST. Clearly that shows I have no idea how to code. That wa…

> Then they rejected me because I used GET instead of POST.

OK, I'm honestly curious here. What was the request, and why did you make such a decision? Do you think it is the right approach in this case, or that it's an insignificant mistake that does not represent a person's understanding of HTTP protocol?

I remember hearing about at least one story where using GET instead of POST lead to disastrous consequences, as some robot crawled all over the "delete" links - but I have to admit, I can't imagine how it would happen without other significant design flaws happening as well (as "delete" links being public or robot being able to crawl under authenticated user's identity). This sounds like an error that can cause irrational irritation by the reviewer, but I can't imagine it being the sole reason to decide that the author can't code.

Re: I don’t have time for coding challenges

#173

Post by salt-licker »

_qulr wrote: post #165
salt-licker wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s definitely not an exact science. 1. I try to make the parameters of the interview as friendly as possible — language of their choice, don’t have to worry about code style or computational complexity, or talk while they’re coding, just write working code that solves the problem. They can use google freely. I’m there as a resource to talk through their solution, answer questions, and help them get unstuck if neede…

> I know that some of this is nerves but it can’t account for all of it. Why not? If you've never experienced severe situational anxiety, you may not know how debilitating it can be. And then, maddeningly, perhaps just minutes after the interview is over, you return to your "normal" self, and start to think about what you would have done in that situation if you weren't nervous. It's basically stage fright, which can…

I guess I'm generally going off of an interviewee's body language, which isn't entirely fair since I'm not a mind reader. And I'm sure I'm missing some cases of stage fright, which is why again I mentioned all the techniques above that I try to mitigate this, but I agree is a really unfortunate side-effect of the interview process that I don't have a fool-proof solution for.

Still, I do have some EQ. A lot of candidates exhibit visible anxiety and then get into a rhythm and calm down when they start coding. Or they visibly calm down once I start asking them questions about how they're thinking and coax them towards viable implementation. On the flip side, a lot of candidates actually exhibit overconfidence running in the wrong direction, which I try to lightly mitigate but can't prevent in all cases without giving an unfair advantage.

Re: I don’t have time for coding challenges

#174

Post by pseudalopex »

cyrux004 wrote: post #112
ijidak wrote: post #106

What I love (sarcasm) is companies that just need basic line of business apps, but want you to complete a coding challenge navigating graphs and trees in constant, nlogn time, etc. I find it hilarious and often ask, "Can you explain to me how solving this challenge applies to what you do day to day?" They say.... "That's a really good question..." Then I watch them squirm as they have no idea how to explain a real wo…

how about "we found a strong correlation between who can complete coding challenge do well on the job. We understand that correlation doesny imply causation; but we and the majority of the industry havent found anything better yet. We also understand that we are potentially missing out on good candidates who dont generally fare well in coding challenge; but thats a trade off we are ok with"

How did you find that correlation?

Re: I don’t have time for coding challenges

#175

Post by lhorie »

autarch wrote: post #166
lhorie wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd say "work they've done for previous employers" is something that nearly every candidate with industry experience has. The problem is that when I ask about it, candidates often are terrible at communicating what the work consisted of: often they focus on microscopic minutiae that appears disconnected from the big picture (e.g. gloating about gluing some trivial library as if that's a big accomplishment, when the p…

Just to clarify, I thought the author of the linked piece was suggesting that people could share actual code from previous employers somehow. Of course it's reasonable to ask people about their past work in an interview and to expect them to speak about it coherently.

I think OP did suggest sharing actual work, which would make sense if said work consists of e.g. semantic html that can be looked at in a publicly accessible site.

Obviously sharing backend trade secrets would be a big no-no. I've had people say they can't talk about their work due to NDAs, and that's completely fine in my books. We just move on to another topic.

FWIW, even when a candidate mentions having an OSS project, I refrain from looking at the actual code, and especially doing code review. I don't consider an interview setting the appropriate place to be grilling people on why they used a while loop instead of a for loop or whatever, since a) nearly everyone writes "bad" code occasionally and b) often things are done in certain ways for some good reason that isn't really relevant to my goal of evaluating the candidate. At the end of the day, the interviewer's goal IMHO should be to get as many signals they can from the conversation and make a determination about whether the candidate meets/exceeds a minimum threshold of competence

Re: I don’t have time for coding challenges

#176

Post by cyrux004 »

pseudalopex wrote: post #174
cyrux004 wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

how about "we found a strong correlation between who can complete coding challenge do well on the job. We understand that correlation doesny imply causation; but we and the majority of the industry havent found anything better yet. We also understand that we are potentially missing out on good candidates who dont generally fare well in coding challenge; but thats a trade off we are ok with"

How did you find that correlation?

Majority of companies including FAANG (not sure about Netflix) do these type of challenges

Re: I don’t have time for coding challenges

#177

Post by pavel_lishin »

nogabebop23 wrote: post #79
autarch wrote: post #50

> "I’m writing this as an interviewee, having never been on the other side of the interview table ..." > ... > "Most candidates will have side-projects or work they’ve done for previous employers." As someone who has actually done a lot of interviewing, I can say with great confidence that this is simply wrong. At my current employer, we have a "homework assignment" as part of the interview process. We tell candidate…

We use a coding challenge as well but I like your addition of "auditing" the coding part and using existing open source or side project work. Bonus points if it uses some of the target technologies too! The author doesn't appear to understand the economics of the hiring company; it's about time & effort to filter and the cost of making a bad hire. I cannot give every application 1-2 hours of review if I get 100+ resu…

The commenter doesn't appear to understand the economics of the job-seeking candidate; it's about time & effort to keep your current job and the cost of getting hired at a bad company. I cannot give every company I apply at hours of coding if I apply to dozens of jobs. I can't give every company a half-day assessment. I can't get hired easily and then get fired easily. I can't invest weeks of work from myself on non-ideal potentials. I know this means I pass on great jobs and that really sucks and is totally unfair. I'm sure that's happened to me as well. The problem is that nothing presented here is a better alternative.

Re: I don’t have time for coding challenges

#178

Post by quicklime »

wendyshu wrote: post #118
quicklime wrote: post #114

> Have a probationary period As someone who's done a lot of interviews, my rule is that letting someone go during their probationary period is an absolute last resort. It'll never be used as an excuse to take risks during the interview stage - except in extreme situations, everything should be decided up front. This is purely for the benefit of the candidate. Many people quit their old jobs only after they've receive…

Why not just ask the candidate if they're willing to do a probationary period rather than deciding for them?

I suspect the type of people I'd need to fire during their probationary period are the ones who would be desperate enough to say yes to anything during the pre-offer stage.

Also, firing people isn't something I really enjoy, so even just for selfish reasons I'd rather avoid it. If it's preventable, I'd rather just get it done property at the start, rather than take these risks later.

And if it got to it, HR would make my life difficult.

Re: I don’t have time for coding challenges

#179

Post by ergocoder »

scubbo wrote: post #161
ergocoder wrote: post #5

Then, don't. I want to move from my 2000 USD a month (this is a good salary already) in a 3rd world country to a FAANG that pays 20k USD per month. I'm willing to go through any challenge because the reward is superb for me. Not to mention, without objective interview questions, an introverted non-native English speaker (who doesn't speak latin-germanic-based language) like me would fail most of these subjective ques…

> 20k USD per month As someone who's been in a FAANG for nearly 8 years and is making 2/5 of that...where the hell did you find that position!? EDIT: oh wait. I was comparing my take-home salary. You're probably describing gross total comp? In which case - yeah, that makes sense. Good luck!

20k/month is only 240k a year. It's a take home TC for an average senior engineer in Bay Area.

Re: I don’t have time for coding challenges

#180

Post by ergocoder »

fractionalhare wrote: post #60
frequentnapper wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know of any software company that would hire an introverted person who can't articulate themselves for 20k a month. This is how micro-service architected fully optimized solutions that solve the wrong problem happen. Do you really think the high value of a developer just comes from being able to pass coding challenges when there's millions of them out there?

Eh, each of FAANG will do exactly that (as will other tech companies!). To be charitable to the parent commenter's point, they probably mean articulate in two senses: 1. Speaking perfect English, both fluently and without a heavy accent. 2. Talking about technical topics or other shibboleths with the same cultural affect an American would, as opposed to a foreigner. For example, many Indians will call a phone screen…

Thank you for being charitable. I speak English well enough to fare in FAANG as senior engineer.

But I always notice how a native English speaker almost always speak perfect English. They pick the right word to use and many other small things that make their English superb.

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