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The latest trend for tech interviews: Days of unpaid homework

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Re: The latest trend for tech interviews: Days of unpaid homework

#441

Post by zaidf »

I wish companies would figure out a way to have their best engineers do blind-shopper-style interviews where they regularly see if their best engineers would be able to make it through their current interview process. This can be tricky to implement but if done right, would provide lots of insight into the types of candidates their interview process is geared to pass.

I asked a friend who worked for years at a large public company if he would have passed the company's interview process at the time that he left. His answer: "most certainly not!". I think his answer is astonishing. Here is a guy who is considered a top notch engineer at his company, assigned to help the company screen for similar top notch engineers and yet, the established process would specifically fail a good percentage of high-quality engineers of the type that already work at the company.

Re: The latest trend for tech interviews: Days of unpaid homework

#442

Post by psyc »

irq11 wrote: post #428
Arzh wrote: post #396

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Then the other option is to do a small take home test. Are you ok with that?

The other option is to check references, do credential checks, and simple bullshit screens during interviews, like every other professional interview. Literally every other profession has this challenge! Programmers are unique only in their seeming inability to realize that they are not unique. Accountants are not asked to solve double-entry accounting whiteboard problems. Finance professionals are not given take-hom…

Yes. I told the interviewer he could call any of my past managers, knowing they would take the call, and knowing they’d give a glowing report. He laughed!

Re: The latest trend for tech interviews: Days of unpaid homework

#443

Post by latencyloser »

ams6110 wrote: post #284
teachrdan wrote: post #265

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Real talk? I'd be concerned that, at a non-tech company, I'd be seen as a IT rather than a software engineer. And the conventional wisdom goes that IT is a cost center. Some of the best career advice I've ever gleaned is to work on something that visibly makes money for the company. I get to do that every day at my tech company. I don't know that I could say that if I worked in a technical capacity in another industr…

The best "work environment" tech job I ever had was at an investment bank. Didn't disrupt anything (quite the opposite) but got great experience with databases, unix, C, scripting, working with internal clients, determining requirements, managing projects, etc. 9:00 - 4:30 daily hours, no nights, no weekends. Full benefits, good salary, good yearly bonus, quiet office, great people who were there to get a job done an…

I'm gonna second this. Started my career as a software dev at a commodities exchange. Pay was excellent for the area I lived in and my experience level, 9-5 was 100% standard and enforced by the team culture, on-call was nonexistent as dedicated support people handled that, bonus was better than the ones I got while working at Microsoft, and got to work with some of the best software engineers I've ever met. Incredible job security, no one got let go or put on any kind of PIP as everyone was pretty self motivated--even if they weren't the best. All in all, I would highly recommend this as a good career path.

I left because it was my first job out of college and I wanted to see what else was out in the world. But it stays a fond memory of a solid job.

Re: The latest trend for tech interviews: Days of unpaid homework

#444

Post by poulsbohemian »

I've noticed an interesting trend in my career: the more grueling the interview, the less-satisfying the job. The jobs I enjoyed the most, had the most interesting challenges, etc, were the ones where it was little more than a handshake. The ones where they put me through hoop after hoop turned out to be the ones that were the least interesting and had the least upside.

Re: The latest trend for tech interviews: Days of unpaid homework

#445

Post by enraged_camel »

neurobashing wrote: post #295
teachrdan wrote: post #265

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Real talk? I'd be concerned that, at a non-tech company, I'd be seen as a IT rather than a software engineer. And the conventional wisdom goes that IT is a cost center. Some of the best career advice I've ever gleaned is to work on something that visibly makes money for the company. I get to do that every day at my tech company. I don't know that I could say that if I worked in a technical capacity in another industr…

Real talk? There is nothing wrong with being in IT. Imagine if someone said "I would be concerned I'd be seen as a carpenter and not a woodworking artisan". You're a carpenter. You nail boards together to serve the business interests of the company. Even if the boards are SQL queries or ReactJS or whatever. Companies need tech. You can bring value by making everyone's jobs better with your technology - sand off those…

Many non-tech employees view IT people as basically “computer janitors with bad attitudes”. Heck, I’ve worked in tech for a decade and I can count the number of people who have a positive view of their IT department in one hand.

Re: The latest trend for tech interviews: Days of unpaid homework

#446

Post by SilasX »

ksk wrote: post #275
speby wrote: post #218

Our industry's hiring practices are absolutely obnoxious. In an ideal world, you could trust someone's resume. e.g. "I've written large production programs in C." Ok, great, so then clearly this person knows C so there should be no need to dissect code or run them thru some linked list algorithm and see if they know how to use pointers correctly. Yet, we do. Ok, then what about open source contributions (if they have…

Are programmers more dishonest than say artists? I imagine an artist could easily fake their portfolio too (especially if they were a digital artist). Maybe the artist would be found out much easier than a programmer. I think the fact that programmers have to re-prove themselves is more a symptom of non-technical people having no earthly idea of what it is that programmers actually do. For a programmer, its the same…

I had the same question about how photography differs and received a pretty thorough reply:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11878012

Re: The latest trend for tech interviews: Days of unpaid homework

#447

Post by seccess »

woolvalley wrote: post #425
speby wrote: post #218

Our industry's hiring practices are absolutely obnoxious. In an ideal world, you could trust someone's resume. e.g. "I've written large production programs in C." Ok, great, so then clearly this person knows C so there should be no need to dissect code or run them thru some linked list algorithm and see if they know how to use pointers correctly. Yet, we do. Ok, then what about open source contributions (if they have…

Our vigorous interview culture also allows us to not be as credentialist & elitist about what school you've went to. As a result, someone can get a job a google without having to have gone to a top ten comp sci school, like you would have to with law or business.

Supporting anecdote: Awhile ago I interned at Google and my engineering manager - who was quite high level - did not have a high school degree.

Re: The latest trend for tech interviews: Days of unpaid homework

#448

Post by talmand »

aje403 wrote: post #423
newnewpdro wrote: post #415

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Historically, and if we're talking about someone with 30 years programming experience, this history is very relevant - programming has been a popular field for smart but antisocial/unsocialized nerds who had very few if any friends growing up and have spent much of their life alone at a computer. For a person with that background, simply sharing a relatively small private room with a total stranger can be overwhelmin…

But what if you're looking to hire people who go outside sometimes and can talk to people and can write code too? Or should that be illegal?

Now we're tacking on an additional aspect of the job that we didn't know about before. If the job requires a social interaction with people outside of the company then, of course, it becomes a factor. Let's not be silly in an effort to just be right and prove someone else wrong.

Re: The latest trend for tech interviews: Days of unpaid homework

#449

Post by nugget »

reaperducer wrote: post #271
nugget wrote: post #242

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let me play devil's advocate for a second. Knowing how to write code isn't binary, of course; there's a wide range of skill even among those who have contributed to large production systems. If I hire someone who seems great on paper and turns out to be a dud, then I immediately let them go. It's bad for me, and bad for them. If a 10 hour project-specific coding task reduces mis-hires by 50%+, isn't it better for bot…

>If I hire someone who seems great on paper and turns out to be a dud, then I immediately let them go. If you keep hiring duds, you shouldn't be allowed to hire people. In spite of what the headhunter firms and cookie-cutter websites would have you believe, interviewing and hiring is a skill, not a punchlist. >If a 10 hour project-specific coding task reduces mis-hires by 50%+, isn't it better for both parties? Only…

I've hired about 50 full-time w2 on-site developers over the last decade and maybe 3 or 4 of them were total duds (due to extreme mis-representation of technical skills) once employed. I'm not sure how this ratio compares to others but it certainly seems to be an issue that the industry talks about, so I'd be surprised if it were ultra rare.

> Only if you pay me for my ten hours. Otherwise, you've already indicated that you and your company don't value me or my time.

My favorite way to hire is short term consulting project into full time position. Not every candidate is willing or able to do this, but it has produced the highest success rate in terms of hiring signals. By the way, this underscores that it's not a money problem - hiring the wrong person is a lot more expensive than paying five candidates to produce something meaningful (and find the best one of the five).

Re: The latest trend for tech interviews: Days of unpaid homework

#450

Post by carlosdp »

Clubber wrote: post #419
stupidcar wrote: post #247

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The hiring process is a response to the fact that employers cannot trust a single word candidates say about their experience. This isn't paranoia. Literally, most candidates we see cannot code, even when they supposed have a decade or more of industry experience. If the industry wasn't so full of lying incompetents, it wouldn't be an issue.

Yes but you can tell the difference without a whiteboard or take home test, right?

I think so, I personally prefer the "look at this already written code, what does it do and can we find any bugs or issues?", less stressful and more collaborative, but good luck getting any non-startup size company to let you do it.
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