41–50 of 77 posts
As long as this is made clear in the interview, I see no problem with this process.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
EDIT Sorry. If you can't implement linked list and think that first item is too much for an interview, HN is not the place to swing around. Keep downvoting lol. TL; DR version: It isn't fair to throw a company out of a windows because they are serious about their hiring process. It totally depends on their company's growth need! First bullet point is extremely fair but the rest aren't and I agree on that. Longer vers…
"Implementing a linked list" is essentially measuring 1 of 2 things: 1. How long it has been since you graduated from college. The further away the less likely you will remember how to do it, because you will never do it after college. or 2. How often you have interviewed for other positions, because that is the exception to 1.
I still remember and will probably never forget how to at least psuedo-code a linked list. But you are right, I have never implemented it after college.
However knowledge of pointers, lists and b-trees have been very helpful multiple times throughout my career.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
"Implementing a linked list" is essentially measuring 1 of 2 things: 1. How long it has been since you graduated from college. The further away the less likely you will remember how to do it, because you will never do it after college. or 2. How often you have interviewed for other positions, because that is the exception to 1.
There is a reason why we have this thing called "time". You don't suddenly apply for a job do you? If you were senior, 10+ years why would you be interview at this company? I supposed there are better positions out there for you. Doesn't make sense with time. I didn't remember how to implement linked list after my class but I picked it up again over the summer as hobby to learn basic algorithm again.
You're saying implementing linked lists are good only if you are trying to hire recent college graduates who will prepare for an interview?
"...We've had to pass on some amazing engineers just because they did not have the rails web, front or back end experience. " Why would anyone want to work with amazing engineers?
That does stick out like a sore thumb. You shouldn't be hiring people because they have experience that matches your tech stack solely because they'll kick ass on the first week. You should be hiring people that will kick ass 3 weeks in, and a year from now, and 5 years from now -- regardless of whether or not they currently have competence in the nitty gritty details of whatever libwidget you use at this exact momen…
Sorry, but they're crazy if they think halfway decent engineers are going to spend 7.5 hours of their time doing a coding quiz before they even have a personal interview with them. They seem to be forgetting that potential engineers are interviewing them just as much as they're interviewing the engineers -- and such a crazy up-front time commitment is a sure way to weed out the engineers who have better things to do…
Here is an idea. Why not pay candidates for their time? e.g. "We are serious about who we hire, so we're careful about who we do hire. However, we realise you're interviewing us as much as we are you, so we're equally as serious about showing respect for your time. We really appreciate it, so we'll pay you $m/hour while you complete this tests. We think these three tests should take a competent engineer around n hour…
Unfortunately, it wreaked havoc with the candidate's schedule, especially if they had another job, and took too long to get to a pass/fail for them.
The current process let's the candidate work on a production problem, but at a time of their choosing and on their own schedule. It also gets feedback to them much sooner, within a half hour or 3 hours.
Sorry, but they're crazy if they think halfway decent engineers are going to spend 7.5 hours of their time doing a coding quiz before they even have a personal interview with them. They seem to be forgetting that potential engineers are interviewing them just as much as they're interviewing the engineers -- and such a crazy up-front time commitment is a sure way to weed out the engineers who have better things to do…
Here is an idea. Why not pay candidates for their time? e.g. "We are serious about who we hire, so we're careful about who we do hire. However, we realise you're interviewing us as much as we are you, so we're equally as serious about showing respect for your time. We really appreciate it, so we'll pay you $m/hour while you complete this tests. We think these three tests should take a competent engineer around n hour…
This is a powerful example of how (some) VC-backed companies fall into the trap of optimizing for hiring velocity rather than product-market fit.