Isn't this obvious blog traffic generation against HN guidelines? I'm flagging it.
No and why do you think the current system is good?
Ask HN: Should we change the way we do software interviews? What's stopping us?
31–40 of 96 posts
Re: Ask HN: Should we change the way we do software interviews? What's stopping us?
#32Earlier quoted context omitted.
So your solution is to have people work a second for free with the hope that maybe they'll get a job after a while?
To be fair to OP, I think there's ways to structure throwaway projects in such a way that it contains flaws and they're useless to a real company but complex enough to gauge experience/familiarity, etc. I don't think GitHub would be optimal since then people could clone these throwaway projects and create brain dumps.
We actually pay contracted engineers (up $100/hr) to write these projects. They're usually recreations of interesting problems have had to implement or work on in their careers. Some are just forks of open source projects.
We don't turn around an use the code the candidate wrote. If you consider the cost to use to write the project AND the cost to have it reviewed N number of times, we'd be overpaying drastically for that feature to be implemented.
Re: Ask HN: Should we change the way we do software interviews? What's stopping us?
#33I would fail utterly at a real coding interview. I've been out of school too long for that crap. And also, my tolerance for it has dropped as well. But, I'm now a dev manager so I get to sit on the other side. I've been doing interviews in the last week for a dev position and I don't subject candidates to coding. I talk with them about what they work on, one of my senior devs sits in and goes even deeper -- learning…
I encounter people who can make pleasant conversation about programming all day... but literally can’t seem to actually program in practice. Do you see that? How does your interview check for that?
Re: Ask HN: Should we change the way we do software interviews? What's stopping us?
#34Whiteboarding is a waste of time in my opinion. The problems are recycled anyway (reverse singly linked list, needle in haystack search, etc). It doesn’t give you a useful signal about the person’s coding ability when they can just do rote memorization on a toy problem.
For pure algo Q I would agree, but being able to use a white board to sketch out solutions to wider problems can be usefull - remember some people are more visually biased and may find visual aids like this usefull.
Re: Ask HN: Should we change the way we do software interviews? What's stopping us?
#35Earlier quoted context omitted.
So your solution is to have people work a second for free with the hope that maybe they'll get a job after a while?
We're still new to this, but we have tried a few interviews where we pay the candidate $80 an hour (~$160k salary annualized). On average, good candidates complete the projects in about 3.3 hours, so that's a ~$270 expense to us, which we've been fine with. Candidates who did the unpaid version saw the clear value: they invest 3-5 hours once, and potentially cut out 20+ hours of first round interviews, or even all th…
I really like that you compensate candidates for their time. I can't think of anyone else who follows that model presently, so thank you for keeping in mind being fair to prospective hires. Are you all SF-only?
Re: Ask HN: Should we change the way we do software interviews? What's stopping us?
#36We absolutely should. Here's what I'm doing to help change it: I'm launching a new venture that will try to help connect great engineers with great companies. Companies with great teams, competitive benefits, and the belief that engineers shouldn't have to go through bullshit interview practices and shouldn't have to study 150 hours for a round of interviews. The flow is pretty simple: a quick Skype/Hang out call to…
It's really easy to say "interviewing is broken" and get a bunch of people excited and agreeing. It's almost like saying "politics is broken," everybody agrees but doesn't agree how to fix it.
I can tell you we've gotten rave reviews from the companies we've partnered with, and almost all of the candidates we've tested with this love our process better than the alternative. I can't fix interviewing for everybody, but I think we're on a pretty good track for at least some of the world. I'll take that, for now.
Re: Ask HN: Should we change the way we do software interviews? What's stopping us?
#37I would fail utterly at a real coding interview. I've been out of school too long for that crap. And also, my tolerance for it has dropped as well. But, I'm now a dev manager so I get to sit on the other side. I've been doing interviews in the last week for a dev position and I don't subject candidates to coding. I talk with them about what they work on, one of my senior devs sits in and goes even deeper -- learning…
Honest? Smart? Positive attitude? Fun to work with? Willing to learn new stuff? Learn new stuff on your own because you like coding?
Ok. We're done. Now check references.
We'll follow that up with an audition, show up on a Saturday and pair up with team members for some random hacking, see how you handle working closely with people on a problem.
Re: Ask HN: Should we change the way we do software interviews? What's stopping us?
#38[deleted]
Re: Ask HN: Should we change the way we do software interviews? What's stopping us?
#39We absolutely should. Here's what I'm doing to help change it: I'm launching a new venture that will try to help connect great engineers with great companies. Companies with great teams, competitive benefits, and the belief that engineers shouldn't have to go through bullshit interview practices and shouldn't have to study 150 hours for a round of interviews. The flow is pretty simple: a quick Skype/Hang out call to…
Here is idea for you, aspiring recruiter - you want great engineers to interview? Pay them $150/hour to work on your github repo that you want to use in interview. Everyone wins - engineers don’t get their time wasted, and interviewing companies are quite interested in not to waste theirs.
This is essentially how Wordpress does interviews. It’s the best process I’ve seen.