The latest trend for tech interviews: Days of unpaid homework • Hacker News Board

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

#631

Post by pnw_hazor » Thu, Apr 19, 2018, 9:40 PM UTC

BeetleB wrote: post #552

pwthornton wrote: post #322

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can tell if someone knows what they are doing by talking to them and having them walk you through what they have worked on. Also, in the United States, you could fire someone easily if they were really incompetent. Considering how much time and money people spend per candidate to interview, it's probably much cheaper and more efficient to hire faster and fire faster. Some companies are spending tens of thousands…

>it's probably much cheaper and more efficient to hire faster and fire faster. Reality is otherwise. Lots of paperwork involved (for both hiring and firing). And leads to a not-too-great work culture.

Firing duds is the best moral booster there is.

There is very little paperwork required to fire someone.

If the employee is still on contract (ala contract-to-perm) just collect their badge and be done with it.

If they are a W-2 employee with benefits, you hand them a few benefits notice forms and send them on their way.

If they apply for unemployment, the company will get a notice that the former employee has applied for benefits.

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

#632

Post by marssaxman » Thu, Apr 19, 2018, 9:40 PM UTC

spookthesunset wrote: post #612

marssaxman wrote: post #583

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a job interview, not a college exam; if you have to "cram", you're doing it wrong. (If they are interviewing you in such a way that "cramming" would make a difference, they're doing it wrong, and why would you want to work there?)

A lot of whiteboard interviews require cramming. You never use any of the 'skills' these whiteboard interviews ask for in your day job at all. As somebody with decades of experience, your best bet is to get a "cracking the interview" book and run through all the practice test questions. After all, it is basically a little exam like back in school (because apparently that is who these people want to hire.... fresh gra…

As somebody with decades of experience myself, I have never experienced anything like you describe. The "skills" involved in whiteboard interviews I've participated in generally consist of "writing code", "thinking through a problem", and "communicating about your process". A more intense interview might also involve skills like "understanding computational complexity" and "making reasonable order-of-magnitude estimates". It is difficult for me to imagine how someone could work as a software developer without using these skills regularly.

Then again, I never took any "algo class" or any other CS classes, so what do I know. I just think people fret way too much about getting all the details right in coding interviews, because in my experience (both interviewing and being interviewed) that just isn't the point.

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

#633

Post by DoubleGlazing » Thu, Apr 19, 2018, 9:42 PM UTC

I've been experience this more and more lately. Some employers make their own tests, some rip off those from big players like Facebook/IBM/Google and some are just blatant attempts to get some work done for free.

There is a lot of talk on HN about the best way to do IT recruitment, but whatever method is close it really shouldn't take more than a few hours of face-to-face contact and some legitimate tests. With HR doing due diligence by checking references etc after an offer is made.

The first time I encountered this I was told that I would have to do a 8-12 hour coding challenger over the weekend. They wanted me to come up with a way of proving someone has watched a training video without skipping or faking an API call - something they admitted in their interview that their system was lacking i.e. free work for them. I told the recruiter that I would not be doing any such thing. I have young children and my weekend time is precious. If you can't validate my skills from my a few interviews, my detailed CV, plus HR doing due-diligence, then it makes me wonder about the organisational culture of your company.

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

#634

Post by geofft » Thu, Apr 19, 2018, 9:42 PM UTC

compiler-guy wrote: post #578

geofft wrote: post #470

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why wouldn't such a policy prevent you from writing code during an interview? (Amount of code?)

A careful reading of most policies would show that the company claims it does own the code you write during an interview. They just don't care to enforce it because that code never really goes anywhere. These policies are actually fairly onerous as written. Most of us just get by because the company doesn't care to enforce.

I mean, an asshole company's incentives to enforcing "You shouldn't interview at competitors" are extremely strong. I'd expect that the reason that they don't enforce "You can't write code at interviews" is not that the company doesn't care to enforce it, but that either they can't legally prevent people from interviewing with industry-standard practices (nb, I am guessing this with zero knowledge/training in employment law) or that they know that this will end poorly for them PR-wise, because people won't interview for them.

So those incentives, I think, also apply to take-home projects. Those are also about as industry-standard these days as in-person coding interviews, and so any legal or social pressures against saying that you can't write code in person should also apply to saying that you can't write code for a few hours on an evening as part of an interview.

Meanwhile, the legal situation for "you can't get paid" is very different because so many legal things are different when money is involved, and the social pressures for "you can interview via whatever means they want you to interview, you just have to refuse payment" are going to also be very different.

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

#635

Post by DoofusOfDeath » Thu, Apr 19, 2018, 9:43 PM UTC

poulsbohemian wrote: post #393

monocasa wrote: post #250

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I used to hate it, but have now performed enough interviews of supposedly senior devs with decades of experience. I've literally seen someone who did firmware for the space shuttle grind for 45 minutes on fizz buzz without making progress. Like, I'd they struggle for ten minutes or so, I take a step back and say "Ok, screw syntax, let's just vaguely talk about what needs to happen and mock up some pseudo code.". Even…

I’m going to show some vulnerability… this happened to me this week. I’m probably like a lot of you here: professional software developer for 20 years, have shipped countless products in multiple languages / technologies. Work has appeared on tv and print media multiple times. Have generated millions and millions in cost savings and revenue for employers and clients. But I totally failed a technical screen. It’s been…

Similar thing happened to me in a Google phone screen with coding exercise.

Not sure what happened inside my brain, but I simply froze and couldn't solve a fairly trivial coding problem.

That only thing that makes me feel better is that it was a one-time problem.

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

#636

Post by gricardo99 » Thu, Apr 19, 2018, 9:45 PM UTC

exodust wrote: post #629

maxk42 wrote: post #580

This literally happened to me last week. On a Friday night before my girlfriend's birthday they sent me -- without warning -- an assignment that "should take about 8 hours". I told them to give the job to someone hungrier than me which was the politest way of telling someone to stuff it I could think of. The company in question advertises here on HN's "Who's hiring?" threads, but the role was brought to my attention…

But you didn't say how long they gave you to do it. Could you hand in the assignment a week later? I've never been given a homework assignment for a job interview, but I would love it. I absolutely hate the tests they give you on the spot, the last one I did was awful and made me angry! I would much prefer an 8 hour homework assignment. That pressure would be fun, and I get to work with my tools in my comfort zone. I…

I've done interview assignments a few times. In every instance I made it clear I needed a 2-3 weeks to complete the assignment (which was I think most people are ok spreading 8 hours of work over a couple weekends. Paid shows the company is more respectful of your time, but in the end if they're taking up much of your time they should absolutely be flexible, or they will definitely pick-up a selection bias in their candidates.

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

#637

Post by modbait » Thu, Apr 19, 2018, 9:45 PM UTC

retbull wrote: post #351

neurobashing wrote: post #295

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

IT fixes peoples computers. Software Developers don't do that. We aren't Network Admins, we don't know how to set up or fix AD and we don't manage hardware. IT is a different field. I write software to process data and mostly I don't interact with hardware or troubleshooting arbitrary software directly. If I am offering support I am a level above IT. I understand that IT needs to be done but it is a very different jo…

In my experience, Software Developers that can't configure/diagnose/fix hardware/networking issues are usually pretty mediocre at development as well. And vice versa for "IT" guys that can't program. Specialization is for insects.

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

#638

Post by kokx » Thu, Apr 19, 2018, 9:46 PM UTC

exodust wrote: post #629

maxk42 wrote: post #580

This literally happened to me last week. On a Friday night before my girlfriend's birthday they sent me -- without warning -- an assignment that "should take about 8 hours". I told them to give the job to someone hungrier than me which was the politest way of telling someone to stuff it I could think of. The company in question advertises here on HN's "Who's hiring?" threads, but the role was brought to my attention…

But you didn't say how long they gave you to do it. Could you hand in the assignment a week later? I've never been given a homework assignment for a job interview, but I would love it. I absolutely hate the tests they give you on the spot, the last one I did was awful and made me angry! I would much prefer an 8 hour homework assignment. That pressure would be fun, and I get to work with my tools in my comfort zone. I…

8 hours really is a lot of time to work for free. They are basically expecting you to dedicate some of your spare time to doing work for them.

To me, this means the company does not value my own time, and it might even be a red flag which indicates unhealthy expectations about your work-life balance.

If they had an assignment which would take about an hour, maybe two, fine. But any more than that and I think you should be paid for that.

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

#639

Post by stevenwoo » Thu, Apr 19, 2018, 9:46 PM UTC

speby wrote: post #317

monocasa wrote: post #250

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I used to hate it, but have now performed enough interviews of supposedly senior devs with decades of experience. I've literally seen someone who did firmware for the space shuttle grind for 45 minutes on fizz buzz without making progress. Like, I'd they struggle for ten minutes or so, I take a step back and say "Ok, screw syntax, let's just vaguely talk about what needs to happen and mock up some pseudo code.". Even…

I agree w/ you here. And I think a lot of people have some personal experiences encountering this kind of situation. It seems baffling, right? And yet, you have to really wonder ... what did that person do writing firmware for the space shuttle? Did they really do that? Or did they somehow lose their mind after they left and now couldn't do a simple set of modulus operations on a FizzBuzz test? How can that happen? E…

Off the top of my head the space shuttle firmware was written by a team that adherred to a very systemic process to ensure it met the spec/reduce the number of bugs, it was often cited in old software engineering papers/books in the time period as the best organization in the world, IIRC in terms of software engineering measurements like defects per lines of code. It would be important to know if someone came from that at the beginning of the space shuttle program when they were creating the standards for work, starting out or if they came on later after the process had been perfected.

I worked in a different contractor in NASA/Clear Lake at the time but even before I read those papers the organization responsible for the shuttle firmware was held in the highest regard.

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

#640

Post by darren_ » Thu, Apr 19, 2018, 9:46 PM UTC

carlosdp wrote: post #450

Clubber wrote: post #419

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I do something reasonably similar all the time at Google for iOS interviews, few hundred lines of obj-c with some issues in them (actual issues, not typos)