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So many feelings on this. My co-founder and I worked on this problem for awhile (https://www.headlightlabs.com https://www.headlightlabs.com) before pivoting to

So many feelings on this. My co-founder and I worked on this problem for awhile (https://www.headlightlabs.com https://www.headlightlabs.com) before pivoting to something else. Truthfully, I came away a bit jaded about the whole culture around technical interviews and whether most companies actually have a genuine desire to change their interview process. Still, we both really want to see something like this succeed. My current bet is still on https://www.woventeams.com/ https://www.woventeams.com/ but very interested to follow this as well.

jordanmorgan10 7y ago
I guess my hurdle with these kinds of things, whether they are "outsourced" to a third party or done in-house, is that they tend to still focus on the "trick", quiz or algorithms parts of engineering. It's a personal bias, as I've never been particularly strong with that area, but I can build products. So, for me, I find it hard to have these kinds of interviews. I really do enjoy "take home" interviews, but it seems that Byteboard is at least trying to key in on that in same way: "focusing on engineering skills that are actually used on the job, Byteboard allows candidates to confidently show off their role-related skills in an environment that is less performative and more similar to how they typically work as engineers. "
- wgerard 7y ago
  > is that they tend to still focus on the "trick", quiz or algorithms parts of engineering. FWIW, this was exactly what we were against at Headlight, as is Woven and (presumably) Byteboard as well. There are plenty of practical interview questions to ask candidates, but it requires a lot more thought and preparation than I think most companies want to do. The reason (imo) that quiz/trick/etc. type questions are popular is that there's a clear "right answer" most of the time. No nuance required. Introducing nuance requires humans to reason about things, and that takes up time (and thus money).
  - jordanmorgan10 7y ago
    For sure, there is definitely a valid perspective for both approaches. To be fair, at the FAANG companies the computer science is probably more important than other places. The irony for me is that when I did encounter these questions, I already knew the answers from research (i.e. the egg drop question, how would build an M&M, etc).

jordanmorgan10 7y ago

I guess my hurdle with these kinds of things, whether they are "outsourced" to a third party or done in-house, is that they tend to still focus on the "trick", quiz or algorithms parts of engineering. It's a personal bias, as I've never been particularly strong with that area, but I can build products. So, for me, I find it hard to have these kinds of interviews. I really do enjoy "take home" interviews, but it seems that Byteboard is at least trying to key in on that in same way: "focusing on engineering skills that are actually used on the job, Byteboard allows candidates to confidently show off their role-related skills in an environment that is less performative and more similar to how they typically work as engineers. "

wgerard 7y ago
> is that they tend to still focus on the "trick", quiz or algorithms parts of engineering. FWIW, this was exactly what we were against at Headlight, as is Woven and (presumably) Byteboard as well. There are plenty of practical interview questions to ask candidates, but it requires a lot more thought and preparation than I think most companies want to do. The reason (imo) that quiz/trick/etc. type questions are popular is that there's a clear "right answer" most of the time. No nuance required. Introducing nuance requires humans to reason about things, and that takes up time (and thus money).
- jordanmorgan10 7y ago
  For sure, there is definitely a valid perspective for both approaches. To be fair, at the FAANG companies the computer science is probably more important than other places. The irony for me is that when I did encounter these questions, I already knew the answers from research (i.e. the egg drop question, how would build an M&M, etc).