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

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

#641

Post by keithnz » Thu, Apr 19, 2018, 9:49 PM UTC

monocasa wrote: post #250

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…

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…

The amount of times I've heard interviewers go "Oh I had this super experienced guy who but in the interview he couldn't even do some simple programming problem". To me that is a failure in the interview process. I've seen this when I've interviewed people. If people don't do well when their resume implies that they should, I'll discuss it with them and say we want to get some kind of confidence in their abilities. Then work out a way to do that. This has worked out really well in my experience. I've ended up with devs who are quite different from me, one person of note (who we employed), was much slower at solving problems but far far more methodical and exhaustive in approaching problems and often notices very subtle details (which is a good thing in firmware development!).

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

#642

Post by dominotw » Thu, Apr 19, 2018, 9:50 PM UTC

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…

This is the format at almost every single company these days.

1. Initial phone screen with recuriter - 30 mins

2. Phone screen(s) - 1-4 hr

3. (optional) phone live-coding on coderpad - 1 hr

4. Take home assignment - 4 - 8 hrs

5. Full Day onsite interview - 2-3 days if traveling.

Rinse and Repeat for atleast ten interviews minimum you are looking at almost 1 month of pure interview time. Add on practise time for algorithms and puzzles.

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

#643

Post by gshulegaard » Thu, Apr 19, 2018, 9:51 PM UTC

default-kramer wrote: post #595

gshulegaard wrote: post #564

Interesting, I actually prefer take home challenges to the previous trend of whiteboard interviews. And within the realm of take home challenges I prefer ones without time limits which usually implies they are full or multi day assignments. Even with rehearsal I am not a great public speaker and impromptu formats certainly don't make me better. I also prefer take home assignments since it is more closely related to h…

With no time limit, aren't you just optimizing for the candidate with the most free time? (Granted, some people are more efficient than others, but you probably only want to hire from the top band of efficiency anyways. Meaning that "time spent" becomes the primary deciding factor.)

This is definitely something to keep in mind, but we keep the requirements for the microservice extremely light for this reason (2 API endpoints). A solution submitted in a week with many extra features can be just as appealing as a solution submitted in a day with the bare minimum. It's not primarily about how much work is put in or how fast it is done; rather it is about the quality of what is included.

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

#644

Post by pnw_hazor » Thu, Apr 19, 2018, 9:51 PM UTC

BrendanD wrote: post #79

gaius wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

are you willing to pay for it? Would you pay the candidate a reasonable sum This would be additional income complicating tax, and many companies restrict employees from taking on outside paid work without approval. No matter how you slice it, these multi-hour homeworks are a stupid idea. And the real reason for them is to discourage candidates to justify getting indentured labour instead. Or to discriminate against o…

The homework is, in part, a personality test to see how much the company will be able to take advantage of an applicant. This may or may not not be the intent, but it is a result.

AKA hazing.

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

#645

Post by Symbiote » Thu, Apr 19, 2018, 9:52 PM UTC

ams6110 wrote: post #466

Clubber wrote: post #398

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That definition morphs by time and company. At the last place I worked the IT department was the devs, dbas, net admins, and help desk.

This is the case at every non-tech company I've worked at. It's (mostly) the tech companies that segregate IT as a lower-status function.

I'm at a "tech" place, but we're very small (8 developers).

Laptops, printers, email, document storage and so on is part of the software development team's responsibility -- so we outsource all of it, and spend a little time on it roughly every 6 months for a new system or similar.

"Hey, I can't print". "Here's the helpdesk number for the people we pay for printers". (Some people were annoyed at first, but understood when they saw the developers' salaries compared to what we paid for the "boring" services.)

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

#646

Post by stevenwoo » Thu, Apr 19, 2018, 9:55 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 gotten a couple of 24 hour tests - they were released electronically so you are timed from when you choose to start to when you turn it in and both times was graded on how much time it took you - more than 24 hours and you failed. One of them had two puzzle questions and I understood how to one of them in an hour or so but didn't figure out the trick for the other one until I took a shower a couple of days later but since I could only do one of them I immediately just told them I would pass on it.

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

#647

Post by monocasa » Thu, Apr 19, 2018, 9:56 PM UTC

poulsbohemian wrote: post #528

monocasa wrote: post #461

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So a little more on the interview. I've got a laptop setup with eclipse, all rigged up with an integration test and filled out function signatures. I show the interviewee what to press to compile, and the subsequent failing tests. The code builds in it's initial state, but the tests fail. I also show them on the desktop that the original source is squirreled away in case they fat finger and erase everything (I've tot…

Todd, is that you? Sounds a lot like the process used by someone I worked with years ago. It sounds to me like you’ve done some careful thinking about this, and it doesn’t sound unreasonable. One of my beefs really gets down to the interview process turning into a one-way grilling, dehumanizing the candidate into a “code monkey.” It sounds to me like you are trying really hard to evaluate their technical skills, but…

Haha, nope, not Todd.

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

#648

Post by user5994461 » Thu, Apr 19, 2018, 9:56 PM UTC

dominotw wrote: post #642

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…

This is the format at almost every single company these days. 1. Initial phone screen with recuriter - 30 mins 2. Phone screen(s) - 1-4 hr 3. (optional) phone live-coding on coderpad - 1 hr 4. Take home assignment - 4 - 8 hrs 5. Full Day onsite interview - 2-3 days if traveling. Rinse and Repeat for atleast ten interviews minimum you are looking at almost 1 month of pure interview time. Add on practise time for algor…

This is stupid. They should always do the take home test first or after a short phone call. It's easier and saves everyone time.

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

#649

Post by exodust » Thu, Apr 19, 2018, 9:57 PM UTC

admax88q wrote: post #571

the-pigeon wrote: post #555

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I've resolved not to take any more live coding interviews, on the grounds it is uninformative, degrading hazing. Depends on the job. I'm currently hiring and the live coding exercise is a must for the position because I want to see how the person problem solves while under stress. Because stuff happens. My team works on mission critical systems that can have issues that we sometimes must resolve quickly which is ve…

> If you can't handle the stress of me watching over your shoulder while you code then you can't handle the stress of getting a critical bug fixed immediately. Those are two very different kinds of stress. In one situation you're stressed because you feel like your every action and step is being judged. Every moment you spend floundering you feel is being docked against you, you can't help but worry about how the per…

Exactly. The previous poster doesn't seem to grasp the nature of stress and its variants relative to the social or work situation.

To echo your point, fixing a bug with someone you just met standing over your shoulder clock ticking, is nothing like fixing a bug at your regular place of work.

In an interview, if you don't perform the task well, you can fuck off back to the street where you came from. In your job, you get to ask colleagues, consult previous project code, refer to in-house or external documentation, and calmly analyse to figure it out under your own "in the zone" steam.

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

#650

Post by modbait » Thu, Apr 19, 2018, 9:57 PM UTC

stupidcar wrote: post #247

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…

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.

If you can't tell in a ten-minute casual conversation whether or not someone is grossly lying on their resume, you probably shouldn't be an interviewer.