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I find this attitude frustrating. It seems like a constant on sites like reddit and HN is a strong disdain for the algorithmic question style technical intervie

by smiths1999 9y ago

I find this attitude frustrating. It seems like a constant on sites like reddit and HN is a strong disdain for the algorithmic question style technical interview. Some companies take note and switch up the interview process and ask real world questions (like CircleCI using a current bug or problem) rather than how to invert a binary tree and people get upset about not being compensated. How should companies interview people in a manner that assesses their technical skills but doesn't "exploit" them? Personally I think the algorithm based interviews are great but also see value in these modified approaches of a short take-home assignment.

lghh 9y ago
By paying them for their work if you are asking them to do anything outside of an interview.
- smiths1999 9y ago
  Sure if the company gives a long assignment that takes several hours or more, that is reasonable. But I do not expect to be compensated for an hour long assessment/assignment - that seems ridiculous. If a candidate asked for compensation for an hour long assessment I gave them that would be a _major_ red flag. In this specific case, that is not what is happening. Rather than assessing candidates on some arbitrary algorithms question (which people are constantly complaining about), they are giving them a real problem the team is currently tackling. It's your time to shine and show how well you work as an engineer on real problems. I'm baffled that companies have finally heard the non-stop complaints about algorithms questions and are treated to new complaints about not being compensated for time spent interviewing. What an amazing time to be alive
  - lghh 9y ago
    You keep bringing this false dichotomy up, that because some companies have given up white board algo questions they can then as you to do whatever they want outside of the interview. Yeah, if something was only going to take an hour I wouldn't complain. But I have been extended multiple 8+ hour take home work from companies. That's not okay. That being said, I don't know what an hour take home problem could be past an open book white board problem anyways. You're not learning anything new about the candidate letting them take it home than you are doing it in room. "What an amazing time to be alive"
- nunez 9y ago
  It's only a problem if the candidate in the candidate-employee pair produce code that ends up in master and that candidate doesn't get hired. My assumption would be that if a candidate's code is good enough to get released, then the candidate is, by definition, good enough for the company. I also assume that most of the time spent in this "interview" in a live codebase is the employee asking about how the candidate thinks and decides on things, not for the pair to actually produce working code. I also assume that the code used within the codebase is non-business-critical stuff like an internal tool.

lghh 9y ago

By paying them for their work if you are asking them to do anything outside of an interview.

smiths1999 9y ago
Sure if the company gives a long assignment that takes several hours or more, that is reasonable. But I do not expect to be compensated for an hour long assessment/assignment - that seems ridiculous. If a candidate asked for compensation for an hour long assessment I gave them that would be a _major_ red flag. In this specific case, that is not what is happening. Rather than assessing candidates on some arbitrary algorithms question (which people are constantly complaining about), they are giving them a real problem the team is currently tackling. It's your time to shine and show how well you work as an engineer on real problems. I'm baffled that companies have finally heard the non-stop complaints about algorithms questions and are treated to new complaints about not being compensated for time spent interviewing. What an amazing time to be alive
- lghh 9y ago
  You keep bringing this false dichotomy up, that because some companies have given up white board algo questions they can then as you to do whatever they want outside of the interview. Yeah, if something was only going to take an hour I wouldn't complain. But I have been extended multiple 8+ hour take home work from companies. That's not okay. That being said, I don't know what an hour take home problem could be past an open book white board problem anyways. You're not learning anything new about the candidate letting them take it home than you are doing it in room. "What an amazing time to be alive"
nunez 9y ago
It's only a problem if the candidate in the candidate-employee pair produce code that ends up in master and that candidate doesn't get hired. My assumption would be that if a candidate's code is good enough to get released, then the candidate is, by definition, good enough for the company. I also assume that most of the time spent in this "interview" in a live codebase is the employee asking about how the candidate thinks and decides on things, not for the pair to actually produce working code. I also assume that the code used within the codebase is non-business-critical stuff like an internal tool.