211–220 of 493 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
100k is on the lower end of junior salary
https://www.bls.gov/ooh/computer-and-information-technology/... Junior salaries go down much lower than $100k.
Debugging (and setting up the debugger) is a core skill every developer should have.
They're just encrypted IQ tests, working around the Duke Power supreme court ban on IQ testing employees. You're being tested on your general intelligence, not because anybody cares about binary trees or reversing linked lists or whatever.
A lot of interviewers missed that memo. They are in fact very focused on a specific algorithm or design approach. It's quite tiresome.
"Are you testing the candidate on what the job will actually require, and ONLY that?"
With an onsite whiteboarding challenge, you're most likely testing if they're really good at thinking and talking in front of a crowd when extremely nervous, not writing code.
Same with a live coding challenge over zoom (CoderPad style) - this tends to be a test of nerves more than coding ability. But, if you're planning on a lot of pair programming, and want them to be able to dive into that on day one, maybe it's the right way to interview.
I find take-homes often the most accurate way to interview, as it most closely reflects the reality of most coding jobs. You're on your own, you don't have to deal with the extremely odd (and for some of us terrifying) feeling of someone watching you type. Hopefully, the take home questions are carefully designed to reflect what the job requirements will be. As almost every other comment has pointed out, debugging an ancient code base without documentation may be a perfect question, or it may be completely irrelevant and unnecessarily eliminate candidates.
But please, make the interview match the requirements you're actually hiring for, otherwise, everyone's time is being wasted.
> 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…
Heck, I have to debug the stuff that some idiot (me) wrote six months ago and it might as well have been someone else who wrote it for all I remember about how to debug it
> 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…
I recently ran an interview process for a relatively senior eng role at a tiny startup. Because I believe different interview methods work better for different people, I offered everyone a choice: 1. Do a takehome test, targeted to take about 4 hours but with no actual time limit. This was a non-algorithmic project that was just a stripped-down version of what I'd spent the last month on in actual work. 2. Do an onsi…
Why would you even do any of that for a senior role? I wouldn't waste my time with it, and it shows you don't know how to interview/evaluate for a senior position.
I recently ran an interview process for a relatively senior eng role at a tiny startup. Because I believe different interview methods work better for different people, I offered everyone a choice: 1. Do a takehome test, targeted to take about 4 hours but with no actual time limit. This was a non-algorithmic project that was just a stripped-down version of what I'd spent the last month on in actual work. 2. Do an onsi…
Why would you even do any of that for a senior role? I wouldn't waste my time with it, and it shows you don't know how to interview/evaluate for a senior position.
A small anecdote. A partner of a friend quit their job earlier this year. They then took 4-6 weeks to prepare for each interview with Big Tech companies (4-6 weeks for Meta, 4-6 weeks for Stripe, etc.). Along the way, they also took random interviews just to practice and build muscle memory. They would grind leetcode several hours a day after researching which questions were likely to be encountered at each Big Tech.…
Demonstrating the ability to learn, even if it's just scripted, should be good enough. Granted, they might get passed over by someone with actual experience, but the lack of real experience shouldn't be a deal breaker. It's fine as long as the employer has realistic expectations of the employee.
A small anecdote. A partner of a friend quit their job earlier this year. They then took 4-6 weeks to prepare for each interview with Big Tech companies (4-6 weeks for Meta, 4-6 weeks for Stripe, etc.). Along the way, they also took random interviews just to practice and build muscle memory. They would grind leetcode several hours a day after researching which questions were likely to be encountered at each Big Tech.…
Sounds like the system worked exactly as intended then. A seemingly smart person got a good job. What's the problem with this story exactly?
if you provide utility to the market, you shouldn’t need credentials or a corporate ladder to climb to prove it, it should be immediate compensation no matter how disparate
so despite how coveted tech compensation packages are at this tier of company, a seemingly smart person getting a good job after doing a contrived aptitude test does meet that criteria. other people outside the field (and within) have difficulty passing it and don't have the cognitive ability to study for it, or the financial stability to prioritize studying for it
I also agree that a less contrived aptitude test would be better