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On asking job candidates to code

philcalcado.com

491–500 of 524 posts

Re: On asking job candidates to code

#491
post #400
post #352

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> 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) That's not really fair though. Tons of people apply for jobs because they need a job. I've surely done it in the past. I've applied and accepted jobs I didn't give a damn crap about. I had to pay rent, feed 2 kids, and pay my wife's tuition. And even did…

> "I also actually did interview at times just for giggles."

Then you are an asshole. Seriously you wasted how many people's time for your own amusement? If you want practice or informational interviews there are ways to achieve those without being completely inconsiderate and disrespectful of peoples time.

It fits that you are suspicious of other people based on your own questionable practices. Most normal people don't do this however.

Re: On asking job candidates to code

#492
post #307

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's almost like we need a glassdoor for folks who've just interviewed at companies.

... so, like regular GlassDoor.com. Not sure if you were joking: https://www.glassdoor.com/Interview/Airbnb-Interview-Questio...

Except glassdoor is a joke. Have you looked at it lately? Everything behind a sign up wall? Terrible layout and iframes.

Re: On asking job candidates to code

#493
post #41

I'm going through the interview process this week at two different companies. One of the companies I found through an ad on Stack Overflow whereby they publish two programming "exercises/puzzles" with the opportunity to earn $100 for a correct answer to each puzzle ($200 total for two correct answers). While I spent more than eight hours on both puzzles, I found them to be thought provoking and I learned stuff in the…

What these companies have successfully done is weed out all the great devs who value their time very much. Those who are desperate for a job will spend the 8hrs it takes on these silly tests and make it thru the process. Good developers who can take their choice of jobs will just ignore these companies who think they are being clever to require a test, and just move to some other company what is not showing signs tha…

So you basically dismissed all of Google, Microsoft, Facebook, Amazon - all of them. Because, guess what, they all want you coding, sometimes on a computer, sometimes on a white board.

And no, they can't determine how awesome you are based on a normal interview process. Nobody can.

I've interviewed people with "20+ years of industry experience" who will swear up and down they can hack the Linux kernel but then can't reverse a string in place or write a function that determines if a word is a palindrome or not.

Having someone write some code, any code is meant to weed out those muppets. Just show me you can actually write a loop. With an 'if' statement somewhere. Please. That's all I ask. You have 15 years+ experience with SQL server? How about a simple JOIN statement? Please?

Now, companies like Google take that too far and I'm 99% positive that the day-to-day job for more than 19/20 people who work there does not involve suffix trees or reverse-printing a linked list through recursion or implementing a stack with two queues, but those are meant to shrink the pool of potential hires from the thousands to the dozens. Nobody wants to sit through a normal interview with thousands of people, better to stump most of them with idiotic, useless quiz questions and interview only a few dozen in person. I get it.

I think interviewing for software jobs is horrible everywhere, period. We just have no way to determine if someone is good or not - you can put anything on your resume and it's hard to verify and compare/contrast with other candidates.

I believe the solution is to hire someone temporarily for a few months on reduced salary/benefits (which would still be considered an amazing deal for 85% of the work force in the US) and see how they work out - can they actually produce? If so - full time, if not - bye.

Re: On asking job candidates to code

#494

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 professional software developer. I don't use GitHub, or StackOverflow. At all. I don't think that reflects on my skills.

Wait is this a thing now, "send us links to your StackOverflow questions"? If you don't ask questions on StackOverflow you might not be a good candidate? What complete nonsense. Whats next my Uber passenger rating? There is something so ridiculous about this.

Re: On asking job candidates to code

#495
post #141
post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh, I'm in Florida. The local market isn't that great (though I am presently employed) so I've been interviewing for remote jobs.

Remote is insanity now a days, it was a reasonable market a few years ago but not anymore. There's a glut on both the supply and demand sides. Many years ago there was a limited demand for remote work, which probably tapered the supply, but in my experience from every 3 leads you followed (granted you had the experience), 2 were promising and 1 was almost always an offer. Now a days it's more like you need to follow…

I'm not sure there's a correlation between remote work and insane hiring processes. That doesn't sound correct. Also I think that lots of this ridiculous behavior is in S.F. and the Valley. There are plenty of tech companies that exist out side the confines of cliche shallow bubble culture.

Re: On asking job candidates to code

#496
post #307

Earlier quoted context omitted.

... so, like regular GlassDoor.com. Not sure if you were joking: https://www.glassdoor.com/Interview/Airbnb-Interview-Questio...

Except glassdoor is a joke. Have you looked at it lately? Everything behind a sign up wall? Terrible layout and iframes.

Yes, how horrible of them to restrict expensively-gathered content to those who have signed up for free...

Re: On asking job candidates to code

#497

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Its all too common. Probably for the usual reason - it works so well. Many candidates from a 'good school' have been filtered for ability, so essentially come with an endorsement. Those from other schools don't have that endorsement. They may be equally capable, but then again they may not. In fact, often not. So, discrimination is rampant because it works so well. Its not fair, possibly not legal, but hard to stamp…

Theranos did the same thing to me. The first question their COO aggressively asked me was, "how come you went to such a bad school?" Now I look at what's happening with Theranos and laugh, and laugh :)

There's kind of a correlation between that kind of attitude, and the troubles they're experiencing right now, when you think about it.

Re: On asking job candidates to code

#498
post #220

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A couple of quick notes: * If you don't provide a link to your github profile, I'm not supposed to look at it. This an HR requirement. Other companies may use this same policy. * I definitely look at github, but it's not always easy to tell if a project is original or not. Quite often I'm presented with either 30 forks, or a few projects that seem like they started as some boilerplate. * Don't just provide github, al…

My issue with the whole "github resume" thing is all my best code is in private projects because they are related to serious side projects I intend to monetize. I suspect the same could be said for any other developer who is serious about their side projects.

Exactly. A frequently under-appreciated fact. Another one is that much (complete/quality) code may be from past employers/clients, which you have no right or ability to display publicly.

Re: On asking job candidates to code

#499

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have the same issue. It costs me hundreds of dollars to even agree to an interview, at my hourly rate. To further ask me to do homework is to bilk me for thousands. I cannot afford to apply for most jobs, as long as I have a consulting backlog. Which I almost always do.

Do you interleave full-time and consulting gigs? If so, how does that work in practice? Wouldn't doing a fulltime job for a while tend to dry up your client pipeline, as they find someone else for urgent work? With that in mind, when is it worth it to even try to find a fulltime job? I'm about to start my career, and wondering how hard it is to walk the line between consulting and "regular" jobs.

As you mention, having a client pipeline is the easiest way to find contracts. My last fulltime job came out of a contract - they wanted me on board. Worked for a few years, then they changed direction.

I thought work might have dried up. But I got a call the next day from somebody who had dug up my number in an old rolodex, desperate to get me to pick up the slack on a project. So, right back in the saddle!

That works better if you have 10 or 20 years of experience at different places. So there are people out there thinking of you.

Re: On asking job candidates to code

#500
post #288

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nowadays, at least for their engineering internships, they have a pre-filled list of top schools to choose from followed by an "other" option (at least when I tried applying a couple years ago). That told me exactly what I needed to know. I'd be instantly rejected because of not going to a "good school".

Curious. What schools are on the list? Would a CS degree from Georgia Tech do? Also curious about VT and NC State. I think all three of those are 'good technical schools'.

I studied Computer Science at NC State. Your experience will depend entirely on what you hope to get out of a CS education:

At some schools, the CS curriculum is focused on "pure" computer science. These curricula are packed full of theoretical CS and rigorous mathematical courses, and are great for people who hope to go into CS research or academia.

At other schools, the "CS" curriculum would be better called "software engineering." These curricula focus on programming and applied CS, giving more "practical" skills for people planning to proceed straight to industry.

At NC State, the undergraduate CS curriculum was a pretty good balance between both. You'll get a mix of both theoretical and applied CS, the downside being that you won't get very deep coverage of either. However, I feel that I was well-prepared to enter industry after graduation, and I've been pretty successful in my line of work.

Here's a small subset of what I studied as an undergrad at NC State:

    Theoretical                 | Applied
    -------------------------------------------------------------
    Discrete mathematics        | Java
    Automata theory             | C
    Computability & complexity  | x86 assembly language
    Linear algebra              | Software engineering
and some courses that offered a healthy mix of both:

    Mix
    ----------------------------
    Data structures & algorithms
    Operating systems
    Computer graphics
    Artificial intelligence
    Database management systems
    Multimedia systems
    Human-computer interaction
Of course, there are a lot more courses offered than just these, but this is a subset of the ones I took, along with how I would categorize them. Using your restricted and free electives, it's definitely possible to plan a degree that leans one way or the other: more theoretical or more applied, but the way the required courses are laid out, your foundation will always be a bit of both. There's also a "Senior Design" capstone project, where you're put into a small team (~4 students) and given a project from a local sponsor company. You'll work closely with some contacts at that company on a real-world software project. I formed lasting bonds with my team mates, and we still keep in touch to this day. Two of us were also offered full-time positions at EMC (our team's sponsor company), where I worked for about 2 years before leaving for greener pastures.

Another benefit of NC State is that it's in the NC Research Triangle area, and the Research Triangle Park is only about 10 minutes down I-40 from campus. RTP is home to a TON of tech companies, so there are plenty of opportunities for relevant employment, both for students (internships, co-ops) and for recent graduates (full-time work).

Raleigh is also a great place to live and work. Plenty to do, great job availability, low cost of living, and traffic is never too bad. The only downside is that the public transportation story isn't nearly as good as, say, D.C.'s (the bus system isn't terrible, though -- I generally found that I could get where I wanted to go in a reasonable amount of time, and there are connecting buses that will take you to nearby Durham (Duke) and Chapel Hill (UNC)).

I very much enjoyed my time at NC State, and if I could go back and choose a university again, knowing what I know now, I'd choose NC State again.

I hope this helps! Feel free to ask me questions :)

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