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I was offered to interview at a company, they wanted me to do a coding "pre-screening" which consisted of creating a full-stack, and fully operational registrat

I was offered to interview at a company, they wanted me to do a coding "pre-screening" which consisted of creating a full-stack, and fully operational registration website from scratch. Maybe I'm a super slow architect and developer, but I'd estimate that to be a greater than 8 hour time commitment. I assume that the org's leadership acted in good faith, that someone honestly think's a non-slapdash solution would be a couple hours of work. It boggles my mind. And yes, I declined their invitation to pre-screen and thus did not complete the interview process.

NhanH 10y ago
Just to confirm, you meant just register -> store to database + forgot password and validation right? (Greater than 8 hour time commitment do sound about right, but I'm just curious to make sure I read it correctly).
- novaleaf 10y ago
  The instructions did not give an upper bound in terms of functional requirements, though the lower bound of "realistic use" was given! So yes, I would assume that includes things like full email validation round-trip too. Even just slopping together an in-memory, no-email-sent deployed solution is at least 3 or 4 hours in my book, which seems way excessive for a pre-screening question!
  - oswamano 10y ago
    And you had to do that from scratch? No libraries allowed? That does seem rough. With libraries allowed you could probably spin something up with rails + scaffolding + devise though.
    - deleted 10y ago
      [deleted]
    - novaleaf 10y ago
      maybe libraries are allowed, but I don't know any that can really turn this into a 30 minute project. And even researching libraries is hours of work :) If you have any suggestions for this on nodejs, I'll be happy to add it to my interviewing toolbelt :D
      - brianwawok 10y ago
        Cookie cutter Django. 30 mins seems on the high side.
        georgemcbay 10y ago
        Even if that were allowed as a solution, it is still a terrible prescreen interview task. Depending upon whether or not you can use pre-existing frameworks/libraries they are either asking you to: 1) do something which takes so much work that it is completely unreasonable as a prescreen (which will filter out good programmers, who won't deal with that shit), or 2) they are asking you to basically edit some templates on top of some off-the-shelf solution (which will not filter out bad programmers).
        brianwawok 10y ago
        I don't disagree at all, was just poining out it could be done :) Coding to even talk to someone is a terrible idea.
      - oswamano 10y ago
        Sorry for the late reply, Just noticed your comment. I don't know a way to do it in node. If you have setup devise a few times recently you could possibly get it done with ROR + the devise gem + scaffolding. This is a pretty terrible interview question though, as testing if someone has practiced a canned solution ( which is really all you could do in that time) doesn't seem that great, and actually taking the time to make your own solution would take much longer and an 8 hour unpaid interview question also seems bad </rambling>.
  - andrei_says_ 10y ago
    What about user editable profiles with the associated valudations on email change ;)
Beltiras 10y ago
Depends which framework you pick for the solution. Using Django what you propose is doable within an hour.
- novaleaf 10y ago
  a nodejs solution was the requirement, but maybe if the org's leadership was comming from a Python/php background they might assume using a scafolding was a given. I don't know anything like django for nodejs though!
  - meggar 10y ago
    isn't express.js kind of like a django for node?
    - morgante 10y ago
      No, Express is much closer to Flask than Django. One of my biggest gripes with Node is that there's really no equivalent to Django/Rails in terms of developer productivity and best practices.
      - malyk 10y ago
        Ember? Sails?
        morgante 10y ago
        Ember is not a server-side framework. Sails is leagues behind Django in terms of everything from tooling to quality.
        dclowd9901 10y ago
        I thought Ember had isomorphism now...

NhanH 10y ago

Just to confirm, you meant just register -> store to database + forgot password and validation right? (Greater than 8 hour time commitment do sound about right, but I'm just curious to make sure I read it correctly).

novaleaf 10y ago
The instructions did not give an upper bound in terms of functional requirements, though the lower bound of "realistic use" was given! So yes, I would assume that includes things like full email validation round-trip too. Even just slopping together an in-memory, no-email-sent deployed solution is at least 3 or 4 hours in my book, which seems way excessive for a pre-screening question!
- oswamano 10y ago
  And you had to do that from scratch? No libraries allowed? That does seem rough. With libraries allowed you could probably spin something up with rails + scaffolding + devise though.
  - deleted 10y ago
    [deleted]
  - novaleaf 10y ago
    maybe libraries are allowed, but I don't know any that can really turn this into a 30 minute project. And even researching libraries is hours of work :) If you have any suggestions for this on nodejs, I'll be happy to add it to my interviewing toolbelt :D
    - brianwawok 10y ago
      Cookie cutter Django. 30 mins seems on the high side.
      - georgemcbay 10y ago
        Even if that were allowed as a solution, it is still a terrible prescreen interview task. Depending upon whether or not you can use pre-existing frameworks/libraries they are either asking you to: 1) do something which takes so much work that it is completely unreasonable as a prescreen (which will filter out good programmers, who won't deal with that shit), or 2) they are asking you to basically edit some templates on top of some off-the-shelf solution (which will not filter out bad programmers).
        brianwawok 10y ago
        I don't disagree at all, was just poining out it could be done :) Coding to even talk to someone is a terrible idea.
    - oswamano 10y ago
      Sorry for the late reply, Just noticed your comment. I don't know a way to do it in node. If you have setup devise a few times recently you could possibly get it done with ROR + the devise gem + scaffolding. This is a pretty terrible interview question though, as testing if someone has practiced a canned solution ( which is really all you could do in that time) doesn't seem that great, and actually taking the time to make your own solution would take much longer and an 8 hour unpaid interview question also seems bad </rambling>.
- andrei_says_ 10y ago
  What about user editable profiles with the associated valudations on email change ;)

Beltiras 10y ago

Depends which framework you pick for the solution. Using Django what you propose is doable within an hour.

novaleaf 10y ago
a nodejs solution was the requirement, but maybe if the org's leadership was comming from a Python/php background they might assume using a scafolding was a given. I don't know anything like django for nodejs though!
- meggar 10y ago
  isn't express.js kind of like a django for node?
  - morgante 10y ago
    No, Express is much closer to Flask than Django. One of my biggest gripes with Node is that there's really no equivalent to Django/Rails in terms of developer productivity and best practices.
    - malyk 10y ago
      Ember? Sails?
      - morgante 10y ago
        Ember is not a server-side framework. Sails is leagues behind Django in terms of everything from tooling to quality.
        dclowd9901 10y ago
        I thought Ember had isomorphism now...