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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

#781

Post by _o_ »

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…

... and that is wrong with the software development today. Our generations of developers started with playing games, using computer, reinstalling, configuring computers, then we started to mess with computers, os, hardware, network, routers, programing came in somewhere in the middle (we wanted to make a game, demo scene, ), cleaning malware, then we started automating the computer tasks, learned multiple programing languages with a clear vision - "I want to learn C, coz then I can do anything" :D, switches multiple computers, security started to become an issue (winnuke (tm) :D), riding the irc splits, taking over irc channels for fun, started to study networks at low level, got first data loss, learned to rescue data, switching controllers on hard disk, studying prolog as it was hilarious, got first job, ... when we started to develop commercial software we had accumulated decade of knowledge from multiple platforms and OSs (I have wrote my first program in simons basic on c64 at age of 11, put together my first 386 from components). We have tinkered with anything coming under our hands, software development was just another skill and we use our knowledge from IT in development and vice versa.

Today? At 20... "what will I be doing for a living? Hm, I did some html and copy pasted js, I WILL BE A DEVELOPER and be RICH". Went to college, learned to develop. But I don't have any foundation, web and sql is all I know, and I am sleeping with Programming patterns book under my pillow and looking at latest programming hype (silently laughing at year of nosql databases and year of blockchain, now AI, and eagerly waiting for the next silver bullet that will solve ALL our problems :D)

IT is not a different field, but the level of today knowledge IS, also the attitude.

A friend of mine is having a successful software company and he said to me once: "If I get a guy with the attitude and background we had, I will hire him even if I wont be hiring at that moment. They became so rare, that it is worth having him on a bench, just to be there when you need him".

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

#782

Post by gaius »

cornholio wrote: post #54
raducu wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All of the complaining is just a tantrum fit of an emotionally immature industry who, just like a spoiled child has had it very easy so far. "Why aren't there 100x more people than I actually need (because we only hire top 1%, right?) with 100 years of working experience with this technology that I just dreamt last night that want to work for free?"

Developers have a similar attitude, despite currently being one of the most privileged segments of the workforce save perhaps investment bankers. We have a straightforward professional path that does not require massive debt and burning half of our youth doing academic busywork and entry level drudgery - like it happens in almost any other professional field with similar compensation. The industry requirement to prov…

investment bankers. We have a straightforward professional path that does not require massive debt and burning half of our youth doing academic busywork and entry level drudgery

You’ve never worked in banking I see. There’s a 3-5 year grind of doing nothing but updating Excel sheets 80-100 hours/week at entry level. Pay is decent for the 1-in-10 that make it through this stage (i.e to Associate 3 and up) but the hours are still long and the work dull.

And there’s nothing at all straightforward about guessing which language or “framework” will be fashionable next...

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

#783

Post by cpolis »

ereyes01 wrote: post #779
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…

Said space shuttle firmware engineer probably never had to solve a pop-quiz problem on a whiteboard. It's much more likely that he/she deliberated for weeks about a simple change with the rest of their team, and perhaps even with the person/astronaut they might kill if the change had a bad bug. Who cares if this person can't solve fizz-buzz on the whiteboard? That's probably not even a relevant skill to the job openi…

Developing software requires high level/architecture type decisions that you mention in your first paragraph. It also requires solving many small fizz-buzz size subtasks, which are necessary and demonstrate competency.

A marathon runner doesn't need a stellar 100 yard dash time, but they should at least be able to jog 100 yards.

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

#784

Post by snovv_crash »

monocasa wrote: post #475
TheGRS wrote: post #463

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think this assertion that the technical interview is inherently filtering out great candidates is being very honest (you responded similarly to another comment of mine the same way). One quality being tested is "can you try to do the thing that we're asking for?" That's a measurement in competence and the willingness to get something done. If said candidate is saying "this test is ridiculous and a waste of my…

Most senior devs have a family, value work/life balance, and currently have another job. I don't expect them to take their work home past 5 while they're working with me, so why should I expect them to do that before I'm even paying them?

Finding a new job isn't part of your current job. It is over and above. If you aren't willing to put in a few hours after work for something not related to your job, why are you even bothering to go looking for a new job anyway? Are you job hunting on your current employer's time?

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

#785

Post by calcifer »

modbait wrote: post #688
Analemma_ wrote: post #661

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They can: with FizzBuzz. That's the whole point.

No--a ten-minute conversation with no coding, not a pop-quiz.

That's not realistic. You and I are complete strangers; we can have a talk for 10 minutes where not a single word that comes out of my mouth is true and you'd be none the wiser.

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

#786

Post by PeterStuer »

The main reason 'take home' assignments are BS: It will take the qualified person that needs to evaluate the submitted result more time to go through the code you produced and make a basic judgement, than it would take that same person sitting in a room together with the candidate to produce a far better judgement of the skills by just talking with the candidate if front of an IDE.

Truth is many of these 'assignments' will never be looked at by a person that can actually derive good insights from the submitted work. Most of the superficial treatment they will receive could have been established in a five minute phone interview.

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

#787

Post by cs02rm0 »

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…

I avoid doing interviews, but I've suggested fizz buzz a few times to people I've worked with because it's so simple but once outside the environment of your usual IDE seems surprisingly simple to screw up.

Whenever I've suggested it a usually more junior guy has scoffed at how trivial it is... I'm yet to then have one supply a complete and flawless solution. These are from people I work with, respect and happily rely on to be able to code. Their recognition that the problem isn't so trivial for themselves is the only thing I've got out of it - I'm no closer to understanding if it's just a poor test or not.

There first time I came across the problem was as a candidate and I screwed up the upper bound of my for loop just because I was slightly thrown by starting from 1 instead of the almost obligatory zero. Naming things, caches and off by one errors.

My worst candidate experience was only a couple of years ago when they wanted me to reason about booking cinema tickets over the phone (like it's the 90s?!) I've never booked cinema tickets and I think they thought I was joking, but they went at me for at least half an hour on what users would need to supply other than location, film title, date and maybe time, to begin the process of booking tickets. Why they didn't just tell me what attribute they were after I'll never know - eventually they just wrapped it up.

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

#788

Post by dblohm7 »

throwaway84742 wrote: post #331
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…

That sounds to me like fight or flight response. Happens to me sometimes, and when it does I can’t code worth a damn, in spite of having a decade and a half of experience on the top projects at some of the top companies in the industry. This, in fact, happened to me the first time I interviewed with Google: I bombed that pretty spectacularly. The second time I applied I already had a couple of very generous offers el…

Agreed. I suffer from Generalized Anxiety Disorder, and the environment of the technical interview immediately throws me into a fight-or-flight state.

I've never applied to Google and I never will, because it would be nearly impossible for me to perform in one of their interviews.

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

#789

Post by BjoernKW »

typon wrote: post #754
Franciscouzo wrote: post #472

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And then people that aren't part of that network of trust (like minorities or women) can't get work.

Bingo. You end up becoming like all the other industries dominated by white men at positions of power (Law e.g.)

Even if that were the case, which I don’t think it is because the underlying problem is something else, the current predominant interviewing process does little to alleviate that problem as well.

I don’t think we can magically solve inequality by trying to fix the interviewing process or by denying there are social networks.

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

#790

Post by dvtv75 »

Viliam1234 wrote: post #556
ams6110 wrote: post #466

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

It can happen either way. I worked in a tech startup, where everyone did everything, and where doing everything was considered high-status: it meant you were competent at everything. Or perhaps the other way round: trying to avoid any computer-related task, for whatever reason, was perceived as an admission of incompetence, therefore low-status. (I didn't agree with that philosophy. I am humble enough to admit that I…

> where everyone did everything, and where doing everything was considered high-status: it meant you were competent at everything.

In my current (non-IT/software dev) workplace, the CEO and the manager pride themselves on how all our staff can do everything. We're all sold on it with the line that "..all your future employers will be amazed at how much you can do!" Unfortunately, everything we produce is second rate junk as a result of this, as we are "all responsible for quality control," and the customers pay appropriately.

It's not that it doesn't work, clearly it does for some businesses, it's just that someone has to be responsible for making sure that the product is fit to be presented to the customer, and if everyone's running around doing everything, nobody's really doing anything.

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