5 ms·

I won't spend half a day in your building without being paid. At home, I can split the task. Beside, 4 hours task is a bad joke. I interview at a lot of differe

I won't spend half a day in your building without being paid. At home, I can split the task. Beside, 4 hours task is a bad joke. I interview at a lot of different companies. I have no time for this.

dawnerd 7y ago
My policy, before finding a place I like and plan to stick around at, is no programming tasks. There's plenty of companies desperate to hire than you can be picky if you know your stuff. I also will walk out if they start up with those 'clever' programming questions that have nothing to do with the job.
- skrebbel 7y ago
  Can you illustrate that in practice? You took out the time to go to some office. You just spent an hour talking about your hobbies and attitudes and the company's working culture etc. Then, a programmer asks you to balance a red/black tree. You do.. what? You angrily throw the marker on the ground, cry insult, and run out the building? No, right? So then what? I see this repeated a lot on HN and I'm not sure I'd have the guts to walk out of an interview. To be honest, I doubt many people do.
  - bitcoinmoney 7y ago
    Also agree with you. Although I want to try it sometime, maybe when I have an offer on hand and just interviewing for shits and giggles
  - aloisdg 7y ago
    > You took out the time to go to some office. How about a phone call or a quick email to ask what is their hiring process, what is the work and how it is usually fulfill? In the current market you are not a seller, you are the buyer. Why should I consider working for you?
    - ivan_gammel 7y ago
      In the current market there’s abundance of junior or mid-level developers from body shops applying to senior level positions. If you cannot stand from this crowd and shine by balancing the tree right, why someone would care hiring you? I can tell you plenty of stories about people who had impressive background and great soft skills, but in the end barely can do their job.
      - rightbyte 7y ago
        On a first date you don't do boring everyday stuff becouse you don't want to spend time on that. My experience is that hireing descicion is so noisy that there are no reason to invest too much since the rate of sucess is barely increased anyway. The more picky the employer seems the less reason to apply. It might be a internal candidate allready chosen or they are just hoarding resumés to keep recruiters occipied. The decision is allready made from the from the first minutes ... but you can ruin it of course.
      - matwood 7y ago
        > If you cannot stand from this crowd and shine by balancing the tree right I don't think memorization of an algorithm is what should make a senior level candidate stand out. Senior people need to be able to lead, mentor, self manage (this is a huge one IMO), and understand the bigger picture. "How do we avoid having to balance this tree at all?"
        davnicwil 7y ago
        This is brilliant! The role of the senior Engineer isn't to tell you how to balance the tree. You, or anyone you instruct to, can simply ask google that or use a library. Their role is to ask why we need to balance the tree. You very definitely can't ask google that, and that's why you need to hire a senior Engineer.
        ivan_gammel 7y ago
        It’s one of the ways, for sure. But it is really interesting to me how a person without deep knowledge of fundamentals can lead or mentor anyone while being on a non-management position? They are supposed to gain authority from their professionalism, but without theoretical knowledge they won’t be able to justify their decisions, and then what? What exactly they can teach anyone?
  - ht_th 7y ago
    > Can you illustrate that in practice? I have walked out of interviews as well. Sometimes the interviewer and I discover together that the recruiter we worked with didn't know their job, at all! More often, though, it sort of was clear from the start of the interview that the company would not be a good fit for me. I would tell them so, and my reasons why I thought so, and leave after thanking them for their time. If they ask me to do some simple programming task, I ask them if they have looked at my Github repository and what they think they will learn during the simple task they could not from my repository. If they do would have a good answer for that, for example they want to get to know my thought processes while coding, I am happy to oblige. But if they clearly have not looked at my Github repositories, nor have any inclination to customize the interview process, I tell that I do not believe in the validity of the process. I have also walked away twice during the one-month trial period. Once the company was unable to find a project for me, even though they kept on promising there would be one for me soon. The other time I discovered I was unable to combine working full-time with finishing writing my PhD thesis. Anyway, I also found that in half of the cases I walked out, the other party did understand and accepted why. Of course, it is easy to walk away when you know you will find a job soon anyway and even if you would not you will get some support from the government anyway.
    - SamReidHughes 7y ago
      You have it all backwards. Companies shouldn't be making custom interview processes just for you. That hurts the accuracy of the process.
  - logfromblammo 7y ago
    A cute thing to do whenever someone sandbags you with trivia is to suggest going over to the developer desks and asking everyone in turn if they know the answer. If you find someone that does, you answered the question. If you don't, then you suggest doing a web search, and you have also shamed your interviewer. If they don't wave you off at the suggestion, you also get to meet everyone and see their work environment.
  - Bubbadoo 7y ago
    I did. I walked into the hiring manager's office and he barely looked up while asking me to decode the complex declaration on the white board that wrapped twice. My departing words were along the lines of: if you and your team write code like that, this is not a match. So I left.
  - pmiller2 7y ago
    I remember an interview at Coinbase I should have walked out of. The first question was "what is the angle between the hour and minute hands of an analog clock at 3:15?" It went downhill from there.
- TomK32 7y ago
  I have a large-ish personal project to show and if 700+ commits of my code don't tell them enough, nothing will.
  - nprateem 7y ago
    From my experience, you're in the minority.
    - TomK32 7y ago
      In having a large private codebase to show prospect clients or employers? Or in having it accepted as an alternative to standardized tests?
      - nprateem 7y ago
        Having it to show. I'd happily accept that in place of a coding challenge, but sadly incredibly few candidates have anything they can show.
- wpietri 7y ago
  I think you're totally right to walk out on puzzle questions. But if you avoid companies that make sure you can program, aren't you worried about the skills of your colleagues?
  - dawnerd 7y ago
    There's other ways to evaluate if someone can program. A "4 hour" take home test for example isn't a good one as they could easily cheat or spend more time on it. In person tests are often setup to test your memorization which let's be real, how many of us don't google stuff on the daily? What I feel is more important is a persons thought process on how they approach a problem and come to a solution.
ivan_gammel 7y ago
I can offer different perspective here: what about a task which also has some value for you? I rarely give tasks to candidates and only in cases where otherwise good candidate is not familiar with our technology stack. The task in that case is to build a proof of concept on that stack and requires fast learning and general understanding of software architecture. I always give detailed feedback on completed solutions. Even if the candidate was not selected, they still can take something from it and won’t consider it wasted time.
- JacKTrocinskI 7y ago
  I would never spend 4 hours on a task after hours for a company I'm interviewing for, that is my time and I value my work life balance. It is my humble opinion that a serious interview should take max 1 hour.
  - ivan_gammel 7y ago
    If you don’t see any value in learning and trying something new, I can understand it. At the same time there are plenty of people who see it differently and accept such challenge, willing to commit much more time to this kind of task. Maybe it’s not the kind of the job you would be interested in, but then why your opinion on it would matter? One hour interview cannot be more than just screening, when split 50-50 to give candidates enough time to ask their questions. It leaves ridiculously small amount of time to the really interesting technical topics. And this discussion is important: CVs are not trustworthy, plenty of people lie or exaggerate the facts — only a live talk can verify the necessary knowledge, experience and skills. It may not be enough, true, but hiring someone after barely speaking to him is unnecessary risk. And hiring someone without necessary practical knowledge and without proving the ability to learn quickly is the same.
    - JacKTrocinskI 7y ago
      It's not a marriage, it's a job, and if you can't screen someone in a hour interview then you're doing it wrong. Have two rounds of interviews, whatever, if a company wants me to learn some skill they need then they can offer training as one of the benefits of the job.
gowld 7y ago
Perhaps you should be more selective about wich companies you advance beyond the intro chat with.

I won't spend half a day in your building without being paid. At home, I can split the task. Beside, 4 hours task is a bad joke. I interview at a lot of different companies. I have no time for this.

dawnerd 7y ago

My policy, before finding a place I like and plan to stick around at, is no programming tasks. There's plenty of companies desperate to hire than you can be picky if you know your stuff. I also will walk out if they start up with those 'clever' programming questions that have nothing to do with the job.

skrebbel 7y ago
Can you illustrate that in practice? You took out the time to go to some office. You just spent an hour talking about your hobbies and attitudes and the company's working culture etc. Then, a programmer asks you to balance a red/black tree. You do.. what? You angrily throw the marker on the ground, cry insult, and run out the building? No, right? So then what? I see this repeated a lot on HN and I'm not sure I'd have the guts to walk out of an interview. To be honest, I doubt many people do.
- bitcoinmoney 7y ago
  Also agree with you. Although I want to try it sometime, maybe when I have an offer on hand and just interviewing for shits and giggles
- aloisdg 7y ago
  > You took out the time to go to some office. How about a phone call or a quick email to ask what is their hiring process, what is the work and how it is usually fulfill? In the current market you are not a seller, you are the buyer. Why should I consider working for you?
  - ivan_gammel 7y ago
    In the current market there’s abundance of junior or mid-level developers from body shops applying to senior level positions. If you cannot stand from this crowd and shine by balancing the tree right, why someone would care hiring you? I can tell you plenty of stories about people who had impressive background and great soft skills, but in the end barely can do their job.
    - rightbyte 7y ago
      On a first date you don't do boring everyday stuff becouse you don't want to spend time on that. My experience is that hireing descicion is so noisy that there are no reason to invest too much since the rate of sucess is barely increased anyway. The more picky the employer seems the less reason to apply. It might be a internal candidate allready chosen or they are just hoarding resumés to keep recruiters occipied. The decision is allready made from the from the first minutes ... but you can ruin it of course.
    - matwood 7y ago
      > If you cannot stand from this crowd and shine by balancing the tree right I don't think memorization of an algorithm is what should make a senior level candidate stand out. Senior people need to be able to lead, mentor, self manage (this is a huge one IMO), and understand the bigger picture. "How do we avoid having to balance this tree at all?"
      - davnicwil 7y ago
        This is brilliant! The role of the senior Engineer isn't to tell you how to balance the tree. You, or anyone you instruct to, can simply ask google that or use a library. Their role is to ask why we need to balance the tree. You very definitely can't ask google that, and that's why you need to hire a senior Engineer.
      - ivan_gammel 7y ago
        It’s one of the ways, for sure. But it is really interesting to me how a person without deep knowledge of fundamentals can lead or mentor anyone while being on a non-management position? They are supposed to gain authority from their professionalism, but without theoretical knowledge they won’t be able to justify their decisions, and then what? What exactly they can teach anyone?
- ht_th 7y ago
  > Can you illustrate that in practice? I have walked out of interviews as well. Sometimes the interviewer and I discover together that the recruiter we worked with didn't know their job, at all! More often, though, it sort of was clear from the start of the interview that the company would not be a good fit for me. I would tell them so, and my reasons why I thought so, and leave after thanking them for their time. If they ask me to do some simple programming task, I ask them if they have looked at my Github repository and what they think they will learn during the simple task they could not from my repository. If they do would have a good answer for that, for example they want to get to know my thought processes while coding, I am happy to oblige. But if they clearly have not looked at my Github repositories, nor have any inclination to customize the interview process, I tell that I do not believe in the validity of the process. I have also walked away twice during the one-month trial period. Once the company was unable to find a project for me, even though they kept on promising there would be one for me soon. The other time I discovered I was unable to combine working full-time with finishing writing my PhD thesis. Anyway, I also found that in half of the cases I walked out, the other party did understand and accepted why. Of course, it is easy to walk away when you know you will find a job soon anyway and even if you would not you will get some support from the government anyway.
  - SamReidHughes 7y ago
    You have it all backwards. Companies shouldn't be making custom interview processes just for you. That hurts the accuracy of the process.
- logfromblammo 7y ago
  A cute thing to do whenever someone sandbags you with trivia is to suggest going over to the developer desks and asking everyone in turn if they know the answer. If you find someone that does, you answered the question. If you don't, then you suggest doing a web search, and you have also shamed your interviewer. If they don't wave you off at the suggestion, you also get to meet everyone and see their work environment.
- Bubbadoo 7y ago
  I did. I walked into the hiring manager's office and he barely looked up while asking me to decode the complex declaration on the white board that wrapped twice. My departing words were along the lines of: if you and your team write code like that, this is not a match. So I left.
- pmiller2 7y ago
  I remember an interview at Coinbase I should have walked out of. The first question was "what is the angle between the hour and minute hands of an analog clock at 3:15?" It went downhill from there.
TomK32 7y ago
I have a large-ish personal project to show and if 700+ commits of my code don't tell them enough, nothing will.
- nprateem 7y ago
  From my experience, you're in the minority.
  - TomK32 7y ago
    In having a large private codebase to show prospect clients or employers? Or in having it accepted as an alternative to standardized tests?
    - nprateem 7y ago
      Having it to show. I'd happily accept that in place of a coding challenge, but sadly incredibly few candidates have anything they can show.
wpietri 7y ago
I think you're totally right to walk out on puzzle questions. But if you avoid companies that make sure you can program, aren't you worried about the skills of your colleagues?
- dawnerd 7y ago
  There's other ways to evaluate if someone can program. A "4 hour" take home test for example isn't a good one as they could easily cheat or spend more time on it. In person tests are often setup to test your memorization which let's be real, how many of us don't google stuff on the daily? What I feel is more important is a persons thought process on how they approach a problem and come to a solution.

ivan_gammel 7y ago

I can offer different perspective here: what about a task which also has some value for you? I rarely give tasks to candidates and only in cases where otherwise good candidate is not familiar with our technology stack. The task in that case is to build a proof of concept on that stack and requires fast learning and general understanding of software architecture. I always give detailed feedback on completed solutions. Even if the candidate was not selected, they still can take something from it and won’t consider it wasted time.

JacKTrocinskI 7y ago
I would never spend 4 hours on a task after hours for a company I'm interviewing for, that is my time and I value my work life balance. It is my humble opinion that a serious interview should take max 1 hour.
- ivan_gammel 7y ago
  If you don’t see any value in learning and trying something new, I can understand it. At the same time there are plenty of people who see it differently and accept such challenge, willing to commit much more time to this kind of task. Maybe it’s not the kind of the job you would be interested in, but then why your opinion on it would matter? One hour interview cannot be more than just screening, when split 50-50 to give candidates enough time to ask their questions. It leaves ridiculously small amount of time to the really interesting technical topics. And this discussion is important: CVs are not trustworthy, plenty of people lie or exaggerate the facts — only a live talk can verify the necessary knowledge, experience and skills. It may not be enough, true, but hiring someone after barely speaking to him is unnecessary risk. And hiring someone without necessary practical knowledge and without proving the ability to learn quickly is the same.
  - JacKTrocinskI 7y ago
    It's not a marriage, it's a job, and if you can't screen someone in a hour interview then you're doing it wrong. Have two rounds of interviews, whatever, if a company wants me to learn some skill they need then they can offer training as one of the benefits of the job.

gowld 7y ago

Perhaps you should be more selective about wich companies you advance beyond the intro chat with.