How to hire programmers using online coding test • Hacker News Board

Re: How to hire programmers using online coding test

#31

Post by gregors » Tue, Sep 17, 2013, 2:30 PM UTC

VLM wrote: post #23

twic wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If the best you can do is to set a trivial programming problem, then indeed, that is deeply unimpressive. Happily, that is not what the article is suggesting, nor what anyone actually does. The article gives three steps: first, a trivial programming problem, second, a challenging programming problem (here delivered as homework), and thirdly, a face-to-face interview to check cultural fit. The purpose of the trivial p…

> check cultural fit. I see lots of references to "culture" in hiring comments, so I'm not trying to call you specifically out, but what does it mean? It always bristles me, like if your criteria is "white men only need apply" well just outright say it, don't tiptoe around it. As a suggestion to anyone on HN who does hiring, if for example you're not going to hire my wife because of her ethnicity or because she's a w…

I read it as "people from Standford aged 19-26"

Re: How to hire programmers using online coding test

#32

Post by swamp40 » Tue, Sep 17, 2013, 2:32 PM UTC

saching90 wrote: post #25

7Figures2Commas wrote: post #8

I always find it funny that half the people/companies advocating these approaches can't even keep a simple WordPress blog up when faced with a bit of traffic. Surely there must be an algorithm for that?

You spend day and night on building a product, you make sure everything works right and its scaled for traffic. Once you have a beta product ready, you decide to blog about it, you meticulously work on generating some good content, fire up a large instance on AWS, set up a wordpress blog, and the blog is live. Now you decide to post about it on HN, fortunately some people like what you have written, you start getting…

So is there a simple solution?

Re: How to hire programmers using online coding test

#33

Post by saching90 » Tue, Sep 17, 2013, 2:33 PM UTC

arikrak wrote: post #16

7Figures2Commas wrote: post #8

I always find it funny that half the people/companies advocating these approaches can't even keep a simple WordPress blog up when faced with a bit of traffic. Surely there must be an algorithm for that?

I hosted my WP blog for free on OpenShift and (with free Cloudflare) it was able to handle Reddit/HN traffic spikes without a problem. Not sure why everyone doesn't do something similar.

Thanks for sharing this :)

Re: How to hire programmers using online coding test

#34

Post by VLM » Tue, Sep 17, 2013, 2:33 PM UTC

artmageddon wrote: post #20

7Figures2Commas wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1. Write program that prints prime numbers below 100. 2. ? 3. Profit! Interviews are a two-way street. If you're looking to hire an experienced developer and the best you can do is ask him to do something that he'll probably never have reason to do on the job, you're sending a pretty strong message about your company. If you're going to ask somebody to code (or solve a problem) as part of the interview process, there…

> Interviews are a two-way street. If you're looking to hire an experienced developer and the best you can do is ask him to do something that he'll probably never have reason to do on the job, you're sending a pretty strong message about your company. I know others will probably disagree, but I feel this way about brain-teaser questions. I remember one very specifically from a ex-Microsoft employee who interviewed me…

That's technically a memorization test or a trivia test, because its really easy if you remember the trick, and a total PITA if you don't remember the trick. If I recall correctly the trick is something along the lines of pouring a full 5L into a empty 3L and when the 3L is full there's 2L left in the 5L, so then you dump out the 3L then pour the 2L in the 5L into the 3L such that the 3L contains 2L of H2O, and then refill the 5L and pour the 5L into the 2/3 full 3L till its full such that about 4L remain in the 5L bottle. Ta Da, I've just proven I can memorize meaningless trivia, does that mean I am now a C++ developer or whatever they were interviewing for?

If you started life as a chemist this is kind of a lab joke as in its funny but if anyone in the lab tried something this wasteful of time and product or risky of contamination if you reuse the product, they're too stupid/lazy to work in your lab. The correct answer is supposed to be walk to the stockroom and ask for a 4L container.

Its about as useful as a practical programming test as asking who won the 1984 baseball world series, in other words a complete waste of time.

Fizzbuzz at least is an excellent test of the modulus operator (oh boy is that ever useful to me on a daily basis LOL) and a so so test of control block and conditional knowledge which is actually useful on a daily basis.

Re: How to hire programmers using online coding test

#35

Post by zby » Tue, Sep 17, 2013, 2:33 PM UTC

There is another copmany that has been doing this for years: http://codility.com/ (I am an investor there).

Re: How to hire programmers using online coding test

#36

Post by Killswitch » Tue, Sep 17, 2013, 2:35 PM UTC

VLM wrote: post #23

twic wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If the best you can do is to set a trivial programming problem, then indeed, that is deeply unimpressive. Happily, that is not what the article is suggesting, nor what anyone actually does. The article gives three steps: first, a trivial programming problem, second, a challenging programming problem (here delivered as homework), and thirdly, a face-to-face interview to check cultural fit. The purpose of the trivial p…

> check cultural fit. I see lots of references to "culture" in hiring comments, so I'm not trying to call you specifically out, but what does it mean? It always bristles me, like if your criteria is "white men only need apply" well just outright say it, don't tiptoe around it. As a suggestion to anyone on HN who does hiring, if for example you're not going to hire my wife because of her ethnicity or because she's a w…

I outright ignore any job postings talking about "cultural fit"

Re: How to hire programmers using online coding test

#37

Post by Killswitch » Tue, Sep 17, 2013, 2:37 PM UTC

gregors wrote: post #28

artmageddon wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Interviews are a two-way street. If you're looking to hire an experienced developer and the best you can do is ask him to do something that he'll probably never have reason to do on the job, you're sending a pretty strong message about your company. I know others will probably disagree, but I feel this way about brain-teaser questions. I remember one very specifically from a ex-Microsoft employee who interviewed me…

Brain teaser questions are great at finding candidates who have heard the brainteaser before. They are useless at finding people who are good at coding. Even Google accepts this now.

I would ask why if I had 8 L of water containers why I would try to figure out how to have no more than half of that and just fill both jugs, then I'd say that's a stupid question and has nothing to do if I can code or not. I hate these stupid job interview things just be frank and lets talk about my skills and what you're looking for, not stupid brain teasers, fizzbuzz, or anything like that.

Re: How to hire programmers using online coding test

#38

Post by gregors » Tue, Sep 17, 2013, 2:37 PM UTC

013 wrote: post #3

> Error establishing a database connection

it must be a bug in the bubblesort!

Re: How to hire programmers using online coding test

#39

Post by eshvk » Tue, Sep 17, 2013, 2:39 PM UTC

Excellent. I love when things like this get more visibility. Now, let me go make notes on my book of all the red flags of why I should stop talking to a company.

As a candidate, I understand the system is incredibly broken. Maybe one way out is to have recruiters who have a technical background. I have seen that happen with exactly one company where the lead recruiter had a BS from MIT. She was awesome and a genuine pleasure to talk to. Also, she had enough of a understanding of the company stack that the interview acted like a semi-filter.

Re: How to hire programmers using online coding test

#40

Post by eshvk » Tue, Sep 17, 2013, 2:42 PM UTC

saching90 wrote: post #25

7Figures2Commas wrote: post #8

I always find it funny that half the people/companies advocating these approaches can't even keep a simple WordPress blog up when faced with a bit of traffic. Surely there must be an algorithm for that?

You spend day and night on building a product, you make sure everything works right and its scaled for traffic. Once you have a beta product ready, you decide to blog about it, you meticulously work on generating some good content, fire up a large instance on AWS, set up a wordpress blog, and the blog is live. Now you decide to post about it on HN, fortunately some people like what you have written, you start getting…

HN is not the place for parody but I want to rewrite your entire paragraph talking about developers who ship gigantic systems and suddenly find out that a company is rejecting them because they don't code the intricacies of bubble sort on a white board from the get-go.