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Depends for many people there is not a shortage of jobs to apply for, so coding a path through a maze which is just regurgitation rote memorised algos is a filt

Depends for many people there is not a shortage of jobs to apply for, so coding a path through a maze which is just regurgitation rote memorised algos is a filter for us. I do agree about a daylong set of interviews with 4 or 5 people that's also a filter id use.

mcv 8y ago
I guess it's also an issue of what you want. Are you fine with just any job, or do you want something specific, or something challenging? Do you want to be the smartest person in the room or do you want competent co-workers? In my experience, these sort of tests do often seem to be used by the more interesting, more competent kind of companies. The first company where I encountered this (14 years ago), had only highly competent developers, many of them committers to various open source projects. About the recent one where I wrote a customised version of A* (because of the presence of wormholes, which made it not remotely rote for me or for most people, I'd expect), I of course don't know how it would have turned out had I taken the job, but if they select for this kind of thinking, I see that as a very positive signal about the kind of work they do and the kind of people they hire. At companies that didn't have this kind of test, the quality of their developers was a lot more hit-and-miss. At least for permanent employees; I've never encountered this for freelancers.
- C1sc0cat 8y ago
  Really? do CERN, JPL NASA the various "interesting TLAs" do this for non New grads. I certainly didn't get asked coding Questions when I went to BHRA (ranked 1 or 2 in its field) research organisation. I was told in my first week "oh there is a book on Fortran in the library" teach yourself it
  - mcv 8y ago
    Yes, really. This is exactly my experience. I don't know whether CERN, JPL or NASA do this; they are not part of my experience. But it's very likely different for research institutes. I'm talking about companies.
    - C1sc0cat 8y ago
      That's where you go for challenging jobs and unfortunately shit pay.

mcv 8y ago

I guess it's also an issue of what you want. Are you fine with just any job, or do you want something specific, or something challenging? Do you want to be the smartest person in the room or do you want competent co-workers? In my experience, these sort of tests do often seem to be used by the more interesting, more competent kind of companies. The first company where I encountered this (14 years ago), had only highly competent developers, many of them committers to various open source projects. About the recent one where I wrote a customised version of A* (because of the presence of wormholes, which made it not remotely rote for me or for most people, I'd expect), I of course don't know how it would have turned out had I taken the job, but if they select for this kind of thinking, I see that as a very positive signal about the kind of work they do and the kind of people they hire. At companies that didn't have this kind of test, the quality of their developers was a lot more hit-and-miss. At least for permanent employees; I've never encountered this for freelancers.

C1sc0cat 8y ago
Really? do CERN, JPL NASA the various "interesting TLAs" do this for non New grads. I certainly didn't get asked coding Questions when I went to BHRA (ranked 1 or 2 in its field) research organisation. I was told in my first week "oh there is a book on Fortran in the library" teach yourself it
- mcv 8y ago
  Yes, really. This is exactly my experience. I don't know whether CERN, JPL or NASA do this; they are not part of my experience. But it's very likely different for research institutes. I'm talking about companies.
  - C1sc0cat 8y ago
    That's where you go for challenging jobs and unfortunately shit pay.