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Please stop the coding challenges

blackentropy.bearblog.dev

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Re: Please stop the coding challenges

#221

Post by Jtsummers »

duped wrote: post #211
Jtsummers wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://www.bls.gov/ooh/computer-and-information-technology/... Junior salaries go down much lower than $100k.

That doesn't match my experience on both ends of the hiring table. And forgive me if forwarding the BLS statistics to candidates doesn't get them to accept offers, because I know it wouldn't help me when I can get paid a lot more elsewhere.

> That doesn't match my experience on both ends of the hiring table.

Congratulations, your experience is limited. The BLS stats represent the actual US salary data, not just your limited experience. If you want to make a claim about salaries in the US then look at data across the US and not just whatever is true within your limited bubble.

> And forgive me if forwarding the BLS statistics to candidates doesn't get them to accept offers

Did I ever even suggest such a thing?

Re: Please stop the coding challenges

#222

Post by alkonaut »

Code challenges are great if well made, and horrible if not. They have to be short enough not to be unpaid labor (few will go through the trouble of paying their victims to work on interview tasks, and if I have an existing job I don't want to plow even 8 hours into getting any new job).

But having a simple coding task does some great things in that it will make the interviewee have to fix problems. They need to ask when unsure. You'll know who stops and asks and who plows through and solves the wrong problem. You'll know who throws their hands up when instructions are unclear and just says "I can't do this" and gives up. It's one of those extremely valuable and very effective filters that you just shouldn't be without.

The actual assignment can be however simple, but if they manage to install the tools, clone your repo, read the instructions, build the thing etc. then you already filtered out half the applicants or more. And that's without even starting to code.

Re: Please stop the coding challenges

#223

Post by milesvp »

fishtoaster wrote: post #195

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…

Interesting. I think I slightly prefer take homes, mostly because they're not as hectic. The problem ends up being, that I don't have any guarantee that the other side will spend any time on it. At least with an in person, I know that the company had to incur a significant cost so I know my time is less likely to be wasted. There's already a growing asymmetry with job searches, and this is one more trend that accelerates that. I still have a non technical friend who's annoyed with me for not completing a take home years ago, because, while the main ask was obviously trivial, there was enough slop in the directions that I could kill hours trying to decide if something was good enough to submit. On top of that it was expecting some fairly narrow set of techs, that, while not difficult to pick up, were not something I was interested in trying to learn enough about for a chance to maybe help some company that "couldn't find any technical talent".

Re: Please stop the coding challenges

#225

Post by stickfigure »

bhhaskin wrote: post #209
fishtoaster wrote: post #195

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.

What would you waste your time with?

I exclusively give pairing interviews, usually just 1 hr. The variance between good and bad candidates is amazing, and you wouldn't guess at all from resumes or casual conversations. Most candidates have given me very positive feedback. Why wouldn't you want to be interviewed like this?

Re: Please stop the coding challenges

#226

Post by asdfman123 »

Whiteboard coding interviews are underrated. Sure, they suck to learn and master, but once you gain the experience it's a passport to a wide range of top-shelf jobs.

Can people game them? Are they flawed? Absolutely. But that's true of literally any interview practice.

The idea behind whiteboard interviews is if they're challenging enough, the only people who can fully exploit them are either very bright, very motivated, or some combination of both. That's a better signal than asking someone to lie about their "passion," which any slob can do.

Re: Please stop the coding challenges

#227

Post by mplewis »

swatcoder wrote: post #143
mekoka wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> IRL, this individual is a good but not exceptional engineer having worked with them on a small project. Have you worked with them since they went through this regiment? Doing a DS&A coding problem regiment + system design will change you as an engineer. You might be surprised how good they've become. Also they say they've forgotten. But if they were able to get that position, they probably could do medium level lee…

No home study grind on puzzle problems is a substitute for years of practical experience, which is what most teams actually hope for in their higher-level engineers. The point is not that the friend didn't pick up some implicit knowledge or become a sharper engineer than they were before grinding, it's that by exploiting the screening strategy, they got placed into a job they're not truly qualified for. Are they brig…

How is one supposed to get a job that requires years of practical experience if all jobs require years of practical experience?

Re: Please stop the coding challenges

#228

Post by KronisLV »

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…

> Solo developer at the tiny company.

> Fix bugs and add features while keeping the system available to the tens of thousands of users.

Don't tens of thousands of users warrant more developers? Or having enough of a budget to work on tests, or other things to improve the developer experience and be able to work without lots of stress? That's unfortunate.

Re: Please stop the coding challenges

#229

Post by asdfman123 »

CharlieDigital wrote: post #72

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.…

> It doesn't matter if you've actually designed similar or more complex systems

You know you've designed more complex systems. The interview has no way of knowing if that's true, or you're an actor following the "I've designed complex systems" script.

And acting talent is arguably more common among the population than programming talent.

Re: Please stop the coding challenges

#230

Post by alkonaut »

bhhaskin wrote: post #209
fishtoaster wrote: post #195

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.

Because for a senior role you need to hire a person with senior role skills, I suppose. Just N years of experience at X company doesn't provide that. I'd rather look at someone's github repo than talk to their reference tbh.
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