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Please stop the coding challenges

blackentropy.bearblog.dev

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41–50 of 493 posts

Re: Please stop the coding challenges

#41

Post by arkh »

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

Right the fuck now. That's what happen when you get saddled with whatever monstrosity the last coder(s) who quit commited or had to maintain themselves.

And then you get the joys of trying to frankenstein some modern js "component" developed like only React exists on some vanilla / jquery front. Also a personal rant for those modern js script kiddies: forms action attributes exist and work.

Re: Please stop the coding challenges

#43

Post by liontwist »

keybored wrote: post #24
liontwist wrote: post #4

Remember that in other fields like medicine, finance, academia, and law, getting in involves 5+ years of hoop jumping and commitment signaling that have nothing to do with the final job. We are blessed.

Remember to watch out for people who remind you that not being insane is a blessing. Where the sole pseudoargument is that things could be worse.

It’s not insane for companies to filter candidates. More people want to be highly paid software engineers than positions available.

The insane thing would be to expect someone to take you at your word for 150k*, when hiring managers know that 50-70% of people with your resume fail to write a nested for loop.

Re: Please stop the coding challenges

#44

Post by nsluss »

> Dropping these absurd assignments and focusing on what really counts ...

These assignments are so much closer to a simulation of doing the actual job than the industry standard LC interview. The only thing closer is work trial which has the significant problem of requiring candidates to not currently have a job.

Re: Please stop the coding challenges

#45

Post by braza »

I had a very bad experience at a company that did not conduct any coding tests; there were just 2 or 3 interviews, and that was it.

The issues began when we started working together in a Data Engineering team. Most of our stack was based on Hadoop, Kubernetes, Ruby, Python, and several other technologies that required a basic understanding of cloud computing.

However, since we had such a wide range of work experiences and backgrounds, I often found myself not doing the work I was hired for but instead covering for others. I ended up doing a lot of "glue work" to compensate for the fact that some colleagues couldn’t even handle basic tasks, such as Python CLI packaging using Docker or inspecting jobs in Hadoop. After some time, I decided to leave—not because I thought I was special, but because I was fed up with spending 80% of my time providing support for people who were hired at the same level or even higher than me.

I recognize that the company had very poor hiring practices, but some form of basic technical testing is necessary.

Re: Please stop the coding challenges

#47

Post by dawnerd »

Tenoke wrote: post #11

The take-home challenges at my last jobs have been close enough to the work to be useful, and much more relevant than anything else I've seen in any interview.

That’s how we do it too. Take home test that’s actually based what we do. We even time cap it like our day to day tasks are.

Re: Please stop the coding challenges

#48

Post by lijok »

ggregoire wrote: post #20
liontwist wrote: post #4

Remember that in other fields like medicine, finance, academia, and law, getting in involves 5+ years of hoop jumping and commitment signaling that have nothing to do with the final job. We are blessed.

Genuinely curious, knowing nothing about this field: does, for example a neurosurgeon with 15 year of experience, when looking for a new place to work, have to pass surgery "challenges", like doing a lumbar puncture in 15 min on a fake body to prove his experience?

No, because the fact that a neurosurgeon with 15 years of experience is not in jail means they know what they're doing. Not the case for devs unfortunately.

Re: Please stop the coding challenges

#49

Post by badgersnake »

liontwist wrote: post #4

Remember that in other fields like medicine, finance, academia, and law, getting in involves 5+ years of hoop jumping and commitment signaling that have nothing to do with the final job. We are blessed.

Just because other people are worse, it doesn't mean we shouldn't try to do better.

Re: Please stop the coding challenges

#50

Post by andrewmutz »

This happens when companies have too many applicants. It isn't the best way to evaluate candidates, but it is a cheap and easy way to do it and resumes aren't enough.

It's common for candidates who have an internal referral to skip all these steps, because the referral establishes a base line of credibility.

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