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On asking job candidates to code

philcalcado.com

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Re: On asking job candidates to code

#351

Post by kozukumi »

Chris2048 wrote: post #328
kozukumi wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> A couple of months ago I did a 'homework' assignment for an interview (it involved writing a simple REST service in go, even though I have at least one personal project demonstrating exactly this skill -- to an even greater degree -- in my github profile). I would have asked them to look at that code and ask me any question they have about it. If they are not willing to do that I wouldn't have bothered continuing t…

I think it's unfair to say a 25yo is too young to be a lead. I'd also note that the term 'these kids' isn't particularly respectful...

Very true but in my experience the number of under 30 year olds who have the experience to be an effective lead developer is extremely small. Yes you get some amazing 20-somethings but more often than not it is just someone who was given the title rather than a proper pay rise or similar and they took it to make their CV look better. Of course it is just my personal opinion from my own experiences.

Re: On asking job candidates to code

#352

Post by x0x0 »

dominotw wrote: post #215
ryandrake wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Often the "information sideband" is the very fact that the company decided to cut off all communication as a way to convey rejection. If they treat random people that way, how do you think they treat people who are obligated to be on their worksite every day? Companies: DON'T DO THIS! I, for one, actively discourage smart friends from interviewing at places that treat candidates like shit.

I had nightmare of a interview experience with AirBnb in 2012. They asked me take 2 days off from work and fly all the way to SFO after I wasted couple of hours doing their coding homework. The first interviewer started with "your degree is not from a good school" like the very first sentence right to my face. He then asked me a string matching question, and insisted that I code up his brute force solution (with terr…

That sucks.

I was an internal referral there for an ml position. They rolled a fucking front-end developer who had never looked at my resume into my first interview just shy of 25 minutes late. And yes I'm sure about the time, because I was walking out at 25 minutes. Dude was nice and we had fun chatting (not about work, just a cool outdoorsy dude), but we had nothing in common in the work we do. I finally talked to one of their ml people and absolutely nailed that part of the interview. And talked to a weird founder (who always asks weird questions. That were not a good fit for a quantitative person.)

They then decided they weren't sure if I wanted to work there (apparently because, you know, I'm in the habit of wasting a day of my life interviewing for giggles) and made me have another conversation with an early engineer there. Who was really cool, but still, it was a strange process.

They also low-balled me on cash, and were strange about it when I turned them down and didn't negotiate at all. Someone else offered me $20k more and I figured it was a sign they wanted me so I went with them.

The whole thing was a strange experience.

Re: On asking job candidates to code

#353

Post by iolothebard »

Chris2048 wrote: post #317
iolothebard wrote: post #261

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Any interview I've ever had where HR is involved is somewhere I would never work. Last time this happened I was informed that Russian and Indian are races. Talking about my coworkers by their country of origin (I was saying how refreshing it was to work with a broad array of people in SF vs what I normally work with [white male] in Oklahoma.) Russian is a race. Seriously. HR employees are worthless in my experience (…

> (I was saying how refreshing it was to work with a broad array of people in SF vs what I normally work with [white male] in Oklahoma That's a dickish thing to say about white men :-/

How is this a dickish thing to say about white men. I am a white man. Having worked with 1 woman in 15 years in Oklahoma & Texas in development I worked with roughly 60/40 (men to women) developer teams in the Bay Area. Also the broad array of cultures and experiences brings different opinions to the table as well.

It wasn't intended as a slant against white men, it was more a happy dividend that I didn't realize I was missing (diversity). SF is rather diverse, but in IT competency still matters far more than gender, race, etc.

Re: On asking job candidates to code

#354

Post by sotojuan »

dominotw wrote: post #167
jcadam wrote: post #89

A couple of months ago I did a 'homework' assignment for an interview (it involved writing a simple REST service in go, even though I have at least one personal project demonstrating exactly this skill -- to an even greater degree -- in my github profile). During the phone-discussion after turning in the project, the mid 20-something lead developer couldn't find anything to nitpick (I could have) and even told me he…

I've noticed that your github profile doesn't even get looked at until you jump through all the standard phonescreen/homework hoops. Even after than many interviewers look at your resume like 10 minutes before the interview there is no chance that they would read through your code on github. github as your resume is overrated. I am curious to know if people hire or get hired purely based on their github profile witho…

I'm a college senior and I've gotten interviews based on my Github activity, but still have to go through the interview ceremony. Most interviews I get start by mentioning my projects.

Re: On asking job candidates to code

#355

Post by PirateDave »

w8rbt wrote: post #311
spike021 wrote: post #310

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here is the screenshot I took at the time: http://i.imgur.com/FXEHuhc.png

Wow, they are leaving a lot of great EE/CS schools out. No worries, the competition will hire them ;)

CalTech didn't make it, so I guess Knuth would be out of the running ;-)

Re: On asking job candidates to code

#356

Post by busterarm »

ironchef wrote: post #339
busterarm wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wholehearted agreement here. The only purpose of these challenges is to start a conversation about code. Why not just bypass the bullshit challenges and just _have a conversation about code_? My best job experiences are exactly as you describe. The worst have been companies that sought me out (I didn't apply) and then wasted my time during the phone screen (having background conversations with other people in the roo…

"Why not just bypass the bullshit challenges and just _have a conversation about code_?" Because talking and doing can be different? _Do_ they actually write test cases? Do they write documentation? Do they make output machine parseable? etc. I want to see what work product looks like even if the work product is simple. (which is also why the homework I assign is nothing ridiculous like 8 hours nor do I timebox it)

Talk about that stuff. People sometimes spend extra time polishing a code challenge than they do in their day-to-day. People can lie to you in code just like they can in conversation.

Sure, you know that their ability to do it is there, but you still don't know that they will and you still don't know that if they didn't they could learn. You can get that information from having the right conversation.

What testing tools do you use? What's your approach to testing? What pitfalls have you run into with testing? What projects have the best and worst documentation that you've used. How does this affect the work you do? How do you make your code usable to others? What's your opinion about input and output of functions? Separation of concerns, etc?

Or the best question of all: What books about programming have you read and liked and why?

You can't stare at somebody's code and know if you'll like working with them. More importantly, weedout challenges are a solution for the wrong problem. If you're worried about wasting your time bringing in the wrong people to interview, maybe focus on getting better indicators on the kinds of people that you (want to) bring in.

Re: On asking job candidates to code

#357

Post by avalaunch »

NotSammyHagar wrote: post #125
robodale wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I should add that no company has taken me up on my offer. I'm too busy with work to care anyway.

Wow, that's self confidence. Paying someone for the homework problem feels semi-okay. But what if you have a no-moonlighting clause at your current job? But asking to be paid during the interview seems too much, even though you could have spent 3 days of your life, traveling each way plus the interview day.

Asking to be paid during an interview seems too much but a 4-8 hour interview doesn't seem too much? The average interview length across all industries is 40 minutes. Asking interviewers to spend 4+ hours on the hope of a job offer seems a tall demand. I think asking to be paid seems a fair counter to what is otherwise a very unfair ask.

Re: On asking job candidates to code

#358

Post by kafkaesq »

SilasX wrote: post #345
kafkaesq wrote: post #329

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They have a perfect right to use educational background as a filter. But that's not the issue here. If that's the filter they want to use -- the time to apply it is before inviting the candidate to take 3 days out of his/her life to fly across the country for an interview. If it's such a huge "ding" for them that a candidate doesn't come from a certain set of preferred schools -- fine, don't invite them for an interv…

This x1000. Well said. I've gone through the same thing: at one place, for the third(!) onsite, I got to talk to the CEO, who said, "Well why the heck should I hire you, given that [part of history]?!" -- something that had been discussed with each interviewer over the previous two rounds. I wanted to find a diplomatic way to say, "I don't know if you're just probing my ability to sell myself, but if not, and this wa…

If that [part of history] was a brush with law, taking time out to deal with personal problems, or being caught up in a failed business endeavor of some sort -- you can always spin it out as a learning experience, and say some variation of "It wasn't the best choice make, but I think that going through it made me a better, more mature person."

But not knowing what exactly that [part of history] was about, of course we can only speculate.

Re: On asking job candidates to code

#359

Post by nobleach »

pyb wrote: post #254
nobleach wrote: post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I remember reading that comment about Google... even though a ton of people at Google use Homebrew. The question is, what would would you be writing at Google? Would you be reversing binary trees? Would you need to instantly know which sorting algorithm would be most efficient at the drop of a hat? or would you be building more tools like you already have. The one thing that isn't immediately clear from your GitHub i…

"The one thing that isn't immediately clear from your GitHub is if YOU wrote the code and HOW you wrote the code." Spend a few minutes looking at the commit history and all shall be revealed...

History shows when you forked from somewhere, not copypasta.

Re: On asking job candidates to code

#360

Post by busterarm »

IanCal wrote: post #315
busterarm wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The only purpose of a code challenge or whiteboard session is to get the candidate and the interviewer talking about code. This is the only signal that you really want out of these exercises. To do both is wasteful, but if I did either and that _didn't result in a conversation about code_, I wouldn't continue with the interview process. Their processes are broken.

> Their processes are broken. That depends heavily on what they're actually screening for. I've received an embarrassing number of utterly atrocious code challenges from candidates in the past. If you can't code something like a roman numeral generator/reader (when allowed to do so at home, in whatever language you want, spending as long as you want on it) then continuing the interview process at this point is a huge…

Call it what it is then. It's not a challenge but a weed-out. I know full well that that's what your company is screening for, but that also means that I know that I don't want to work for you. My time and contributions will not be appropriately valued by such a company and I won't like working there. My skills/value are not commodity. I don't want to start out a hopefully multi-year relationship on dishonesty.

I imagine though that if you explicitly call it a weed out that a sizable percentage of the quality talent pool won't apply...unless they're a referral, and then why are they doing a code challenge anyway?

On that note: giving code challenges to employee referrals, especially hiring to their own teams, is a clear indicator that you don't trust your employees.

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