4 ms·

- take home tests/projects longer than a couple hours' worth. Especially before they ask some basic questions such as expected salary or at least a preliminary

- take home tests/projects longer than a couple hours' worth. Especially before they ask some basic questions such as expected salary or at least a preliminary phone interview.

ljw1001 11y ago
yeah, someone recently asked me to fix a bug deep in their code, which they said would take about 20 hours with no discussion of salary or any other steps in the process.
- spinlock 11y ago
  They _said_ it would be 20 hours? That's crazy.
- eru 11y ago
  Charge them. That sounds like at least a week of fulltime work. Check what consultants take for that amount of work in your area. If they say no, you say no. Also, if there's no pay, wouldn't you have copyright over that part of the code then? You could arbitrarily tell to stop using your code at any time, and sue them if they don't..
donatj 11y ago
I spent probably six hours on a take home project for Facebook. When I returned it to them they then told me that after reviewing my resume they wouldn't be considering my solution and would not look at it at all - and I could re-apply in a year. I'm still upset about the massive waste of time. Why did you not consider my resume before giving me a massive take home project. I took a day off work to build this thing, the least you could do is look at it. I shined that code to a beautiful luster.
- hiphipjorge 11y ago
  I spent like 10 hours working on this: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11452445 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11452445 and I thought I nailed it. Unfortunately, they passed and never told me what was wrong with it. To this day I'm still curious what the problem was! Anyone here from FB who passed this and knows what I did wrong?
  - hiphipjorge 11y ago
    Wrong link: https://github.com/thejsj/calendar-exercise https://github.com/thejsj/calendar-exercise
    - donatj 11y ago
      That is the EXACT same problem they had me work on! We should start a club. I tried to impress them by not using any libraries, that may have been a mistake. It was a couple years ago now...
    - vector57 11y ago
      I am not from Facebook, but I read through your tests and found one that violates the problem description on line 74 of test/index.js. The first statement of the problem is, "If two events collide in time, they MUST have the same width." So a width of 2/3 is not possible, all widths must have a numerator of 1. This rule is important because it makes the widths of the events deterministic, which otherwise they are not. That same test illustrates this exact problem, why not have the widths be 1/2, 1/4, 1/4, 1/2? Considering the first constraint the correct layout is all having width 1/3. https://github.com/thejsj/calendar-exercise/blob/master/test/index.js#L74 https://github.com/thejsj/calendar-exercise/blob/master/test...
  - spion 11y ago
    The solution violated the invariant: > If two events collide in time, they MUST have the same width. This is an invariant. Call this width W The solution is actually much easier that way.
- zeemonkee3 11y ago
  It shows a fundamental disrespect for you and your time. No doubt Facebook gets away with this because it has an endless line of applicants, but if they disrespect you so much before you even work for them, what are they going to be like as employers?

- take home tests/projects longer than a couple hours' worth. Especially before they ask some basic questions such as expected salary or at least a preliminary phone interview.

ljw1001 11y ago

yeah, someone recently asked me to fix a bug deep in their code, which they said would take about 20 hours with no discussion of salary or any other steps in the process.

spinlock 11y ago
They _said_ it would be 20 hours? That's crazy.
eru 11y ago
Charge them. That sounds like at least a week of fulltime work. Check what consultants take for that amount of work in your area. If they say no, you say no. Also, if there's no pay, wouldn't you have copyright over that part of the code then? You could arbitrarily tell to stop using your code at any time, and sue them if they don't..

donatj 11y ago

I spent probably six hours on a take home project for Facebook. When I returned it to them they then told me that after reviewing my resume they wouldn't be considering my solution and would not look at it at all - and I could re-apply in a year. I'm still upset about the massive waste of time. Why did you not consider my resume before giving me a massive take home project. I took a day off work to build this thing, the least you could do is look at it. I shined that code to a beautiful luster.

hiphipjorge 11y ago
I spent like 10 hours working on this: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11452445 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11452445 and I thought I nailed it. Unfortunately, they passed and never told me what was wrong with it. To this day I'm still curious what the problem was! Anyone here from FB who passed this and knows what I did wrong?
- hiphipjorge 11y ago
  Wrong link: https://github.com/thejsj/calendar-exercise https://github.com/thejsj/calendar-exercise
  - donatj 11y ago
    That is the EXACT same problem they had me work on! We should start a club. I tried to impress them by not using any libraries, that may have been a mistake. It was a couple years ago now...
  - vector57 11y ago
    I am not from Facebook, but I read through your tests and found one that violates the problem description on line 74 of test/index.js. The first statement of the problem is, "If two events collide in time, they MUST have the same width." So a width of 2/3 is not possible, all widths must have a numerator of 1. This rule is important because it makes the widths of the events deterministic, which otherwise they are not. That same test illustrates this exact problem, why not have the widths be 1/2, 1/4, 1/4, 1/2? Considering the first constraint the correct layout is all having width 1/3. https://github.com/thejsj/calendar-exercise/blob/master/test/index.js#L74 https://github.com/thejsj/calendar-exercise/blob/master/test...
- spion 11y ago
  The solution violated the invariant: > If two events collide in time, they MUST have the same width. This is an invariant. Call this width W The solution is actually much easier that way.
zeemonkee3 11y ago
It shows a fundamental disrespect for you and your time. No doubt Facebook gets away with this because it has an endless line of applicants, but if they disrespect you so much before you even work for them, what are they going to be like as employers?