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Please stop the coding challenges

blackentropy.bearblog.dev

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Re: Please stop the coding challenges

#381

Post by skydhash »

vunderba wrote: post #308
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…

Yeah, I saw that coming a mile away. Don't you remember uni? Students always breathed a sigh of relief when the final exam was a take home project. Now add this to the fact that a vast majority of your applicants are going to be feeding your assignment directly into an assistive LLM. As an interviewer, you really can't win. - If you have a take-home test, people will either complain that it's too involved, and time c…

That's because these three methodologies test different things. Take-home is the best representative, but it's heavily skewed by the prize. Whiteboarding only test for algorithms knowledge and a bit of problem-solving. Paired programming relies more on communication. And the last two add time pressure that rarely exists in real world scenario.

The fact is, it all depends on the person you need and the team they will be slotted in. But it seems that the ones who know the criteria is rarely involved in these matters.

Re: Please stop the coding challenges

#382

Post by alkonaut »

John_Cena wrote: post #289
bhhaskin wrote: post #269

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wouldn't that be a red flag if they don't have any public code at all as a senior developer? They aren't fresh out of school or just starting their careers. They should have something.

I'm a senior developer and my github is half guitar tabs. I'm not interested in peacocking. Maybe it's because Hackaday refused to put my name on the article with my senior design project years ago and I just don't want to play the game.

That's a great signal (that you have a hobby playing guitar). If the other half is also interesting, it sounds like a great portfolio.

Re: Please stop the coding challenges

#383

Post by akudha »

drdrey wrote: post #358
ironman1478 wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am good at passing these interviews and am at a faang (will be moving to another one this month). These interviews are useless and provide a false signal on problem solving skills and people's abilities to learn things. The interviews specifically don't test whether or not somebody can roll up their sleeves and jump into code, because if it did why do I as a new hire have to explain so much about software engineeri…

what do you think would be a better test?

I have mentioned this before. The best interview I had as a candidate was - they gave me access to their codebase, explained an actual relatively small bug, asked me to fix it and left me alone (I was seated among their devs, they were minding their business, I was minding my own). I think it took me half hour or so (can't remember the exact time, it was a few years ago). I fixed it, they asked me to explain how I found the bug/fixed, they made an offer.

No talking (other than me showing them how I fixed it). No bullshit questions like "where do you see yourself in 5 years" or "talk to us about your strengths" etc.

Second best - they asked me to design and write pseudo code for a simple system. Don't worry about syntax, but make sure to follow good design practices, within reason. Gave me a pen and notepad and left me alone for an hour. I wrote it, explained my thought process, they made an offer.

Then I had shitty interviews - one very large, very famous insurance company - they had 5 rounds of interviews back to back, for a normal developer role, lol. Asked me about some obscure options for grep etc. It was an exercise in them showing off their skills (more like their memory of Linux commands) than learning about my skillset. I couldn't wait to get the hell out of that building.

Of course interviews can't be light when you are hiring for highly technical, high critical positions (like security, for example). But for most software dev positions, the formats above are very efficient. Most software devs are writing "glue" code, not rewriting some mission critical real time OS.

Re: Please stop the coding challenges

#384

Post by TZubiri »

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…

"> When was the last time you had to debug an ancient codebase without documentation or help from a team?"

I mean, even if you have a team, you are hired to do specifically this kind of work. I'm confused what OP thinks a software job is if not EXACTLY this.

Re: Please stop the coding challenges

#385

Post by TZubiri »

theamk wrote: post #283
redundantly wrote: post #249

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> > When was the last time you had to debug an ancient codebase without documentation or help from a team? > All the time. So you were forced to do it in a silo? No access to any type of documentation, whatsoever? Not able to refer to any C++ manuals or any other type of documentation? Not permitted to access the internet to look things up? Barred from using online forums to seek help?

You've read the post, right? The OP says: "A “4-hour” assignment". This is take-home, so candidates are free to use any C++ manuals, documentation, AI, online forums, whatever...

4 hours!

Yes, I'll do it, that'll be $(4 hours x hourly rate - 1 cent), please

Re: Please stop the coding challenges

#386

Post by akudha »

nerdponx wrote: post #151
ryandrake wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yea, I happen to hate coding challenges, but not because they're hard--because they bias towards "people who have time to do coding challenges". That said you're absolutely right about how many phonies are in the industry and coding tests are probably the best we have to weed them out.

The problem I see in a lot of cases is putting too much emphasis on solving the problem in the interview, instead of working through it. Many interviewers claim that they care more about the latter, but in practice failing at the former ends up disqualifying you.

instead of working through it

Loonnnng time ago (25+ years) I remember appearing for an entrance exam of a very famous, hard statistical course. It was a 3 hour exam, with only 7 or 8 questions. The exam explicitly stated that they do not care much for the actual answer, but the path taken to get to the answer (all questions were math problems). As a kid this sounded weird to me, but now it makes sense. Someone with good problem solving instincts will get to the right solution (even if it takes a couple of attempts to get there) vs someone who got lucky the first time (or brute forced their way)

Re: Please stop the coding challenges

#387

Post by lcnPylGDnU4H9OF »

bigstrat2003 wrote: post #341
janalsncm wrote: post #286

Frame shift: coding challenges are work. (I don’t care that the assignment is useless for the company, that’s not my problem!) The issue for me is that it is unpaid. If you really want me as a developer, pay me. As an industry, we might even set a standard rate for these homework assignments. I suggest a rate which is enough for me to say it wasn’t a waste of my time. As an anecdote, I was interviewing at a startup t…

Nobody is going to pay candidates for their time during the hiring process. And honestly nor should they. You are not doing work for the company when you do some test to demonstrate your skill. I'm not in favor of take home "go write this thing" projects, but what you're suggesting isn't a viable answer at all.

> Nobody is going to pay candidates for their time during the hiring process.

Not if they don't ask. If you asked, you'd find many who are willing.

> You are not doing work for the company when you do some test to demonstrate your skill.

You literally are, it's just not work from which they are likely make a profit. That is not the candidate's problem. This doesn't make it unreasonable for the candidate to ask for compensation.

Re: Please stop the coding challenges

#388

Post by synergy20 »

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…

you probably missed the whole point,the coding test might just be an effective way to filter out old engineers

Re: Please stop the coding challenges

#389

Post by skydhash »

alkonaut wrote: post #370
John_Cena wrote: post #297

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The elitism is rampant. As an embedded sector guy everyone thinks every other RTOS isn't a real RTOS and the knowledge and wisdom don't translate. Every time I find some open source I would contribute to, what I wanted to implement is already there or is already in the works. I'm not going to change shit just to change it. I'll buy them a coffee tip and leave.

If I'm interviewing for people to work in some specific tech stack or business, it's just as good to see completely different things they can show. Could be a php site for their book club or whatever. But the key is to have some code to discuss that is their code. Because I want to see them describe and reason about code they know, and it works 10x better if it's code they know, rather than some code I present and sa…

Why not discuss a problem you have? You're obviously hiring for someone to solve your problem. Looking to check if they can code (in a specific language) seems like the XY problem.

Re: Please stop the coding challenges

#390

Post by kuratkull »

> When was the last time you had to debug an ancient codebase without documentation or help from a team?

I wonder why the author thinks this is something unthinkable and unrealistic. Small teams with strict ownership and skilled engineers. If you join a company like that you will inevitably find yourself in that situation.

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