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I don’t do code challenges anymore. I have a full time job, I’m working on a startup on the side, I do some extra contracting, and I have an ever growing list o

by nscalf 7y ago

I don’t do code challenges anymore. I have a full time job, I’m working on a startup on the side, I do some extra contracting, and I have an ever growing list of potentially profitable opportunities that I want to build. I would love to get paid more for my full time gig, and I should. I’m solidly a senior engineer, but I lack the title or pay. But I don’t have the time to actually spend 8 hours doing some silly app. I get that it makes sense for the hiring manager to give a coding challenge, but I don’t care. And the reality of our world right now is that I don’t need to care. There are plenty of other companies desperate to bring on good people. My skills give companies extreme multiples of ROI, and no other fields have nearly as ridiculous a hiring process. Have someone come onsite for a day and pay them, we can both decide if it’s a decent fit. But I don’t know you, your company, your team, the work process, the supporting teams, your funding, etc... honestly, one of those things are probably really awful. I’m not jumping through hoops for free. You’re not google, you won’t pay me $150,000+. Pass.

hdhdbdn 7y ago
$150k is way the fuck under google money. my last fully remote startup of less than 100 people happily paid me more than that to be a sysadmin... Honestly sounds like Gravitational's hiring filter is doing its job...
- inimino 7y ago
  Compensation and engineering skill aren't as correlated as you seem to think.
tptacek 7y ago
Spending a week doing off-and-on phone screens and then a day on-site doing an interview loop is a bigger hoop to jump through than banging out some code on your couch. But, I mean, people have all sorts of reasons not to apply to a job. Some people don't want to touch Java code. Some people don't want to work for a company in Santa Clara. You don't want to work anywhere that asks you to complete a code challenge. That's totally fine.
- bryanrasmussen 7y ago
  Every place I've seen over the last couple years (other than where I am right now, and the consulting I do) has on and off phone screens and then several hours interview loop as well as at least 6 hours code that they swore was only 3 hours. So I am currently only accepting interviews that give a 20% raise - and I am already quite high priced for my region.
  - tptacek 7y ago
    I don't disagree that there is a cohort of developers who will command their highest compensation packages at companies that either don't hire rigorously, or hire very rigorously and painfully but have their choice among top developers. I'm happy for them! I just don't see why a shop that isn't Google or Facebook would hire that way, or target those developers in particular.
- runT1ME 7y ago
  If I am doing a phone screen + an all day onsite, sure it sucks but at the very least I know I'm a serious enough candidate that the company is willing to burn one engineer day to evaluate me. With a coding challenge, I have no way of knowing! Maybe they sent the challenge to ten other candidates, maybe twenty, etc? I don't even know if the code will be reviewed. Make me jump through as many in person hoops as you want, I refuse to do take home coding challenges. shrug
  - tptacek 7y ago
    That's totally fair, one of a million criteria you can legitimately use to determine whether you want to talk to a potential employer.
  - nscalf 7y ago
    I think ultimately the problem I haven’t isn’t that I have been assigned a problem to see my code skill. I think that’s pretty fair. The problem is that it’s not a great indicator if your beyond a staff level, it offloads all of the cost of finding and filtering an employee to the applicant, and like you said, it has no indication of their commitment to the code challenge while demanding an open ended commitment from the applicant.
IshKebab 7y ago
Would you do a 2 hour coding challenge if you had already been through a phone interview?
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
cryptozeus 7y ago
Yeh exactly...their idea sounds good and all but are they paying these “hidden gems” and 10x engineers 500k packages ? Asking people to do 10ht take home challenge without pay is not fair. They will just go somewhere else. From their own example, are they going to ask the juggler to go home and juggle for 10hr and send a video recording ?
lasereyes136 7y ago
The company I work for does code challenges when interviewing. We also accept code samples from GitHub or something like that. The idea is to talk about your code and the challenges you had creating it. I think you might not have seen many other professional hiring processes if you think spending a few hours doing an coding challenge is out of the question. Most professional occupation hiring practices are long and drawn out. That is part of what being a professional means. That said, our hiring process leaves a lot to be desired and there aren't really great ways to determine if someone really had the skills they claim on their resumes.

by nscalf 7y ago

hdhdbdn 7y ago

$150k is way the fuck under google money. my last fully remote startup of less than 100 people happily paid me more than that to be a sysadmin... Honestly sounds like Gravitational's hiring filter is doing its job...

inimino 7y ago
Compensation and engineering skill aren't as correlated as you seem to think.

tptacek 7y ago

Spending a week doing off-and-on phone screens and then a day on-site doing an interview loop is a bigger hoop to jump through than banging out some code on your couch. But, I mean, people have all sorts of reasons not to apply to a job. Some people don't want to touch Java code. Some people don't want to work for a company in Santa Clara. You don't want to work anywhere that asks you to complete a code challenge. That's totally fine.

bryanrasmussen 7y ago
Every place I've seen over the last couple years (other than where I am right now, and the consulting I do) has on and off phone screens and then several hours interview loop as well as at least 6 hours code that they swore was only 3 hours. So I am currently only accepting interviews that give a 20% raise - and I am already quite high priced for my region.
- tptacek 7y ago
  I don't disagree that there is a cohort of developers who will command their highest compensation packages at companies that either don't hire rigorously, or hire very rigorously and painfully but have their choice among top developers. I'm happy for them! I just don't see why a shop that isn't Google or Facebook would hire that way, or target those developers in particular.
runT1ME 7y ago
If I am doing a phone screen + an all day onsite, sure it sucks but at the very least I know I'm a serious enough candidate that the company is willing to burn one engineer day to evaluate me. With a coding challenge, I have no way of knowing! Maybe they sent the challenge to ten other candidates, maybe twenty, etc? I don't even know if the code will be reviewed. Make me jump through as many in person hoops as you want, I refuse to do take home coding challenges. shrug
- tptacek 7y ago
  That's totally fair, one of a million criteria you can legitimately use to determine whether you want to talk to a potential employer.
- nscalf 7y ago
  I think ultimately the problem I haven’t isn’t that I have been assigned a problem to see my code skill. I think that’s pretty fair. The problem is that it’s not a great indicator if your beyond a staff level, it offloads all of the cost of finding and filtering an employee to the applicant, and like you said, it has no indication of their commitment to the code challenge while demanding an open ended commitment from the applicant.

IshKebab 7y ago

Would you do a 2 hour coding challenge if you had already been through a phone interview?

deleted 7y ago
[deleted]

cryptozeus 7y ago

Yeh exactly...their idea sounds good and all but are they paying these “hidden gems” and 10x engineers 500k packages ? Asking people to do 10ht take home challenge without pay is not fair. They will just go somewhere else. From their own example, are they going to ask the juggler to go home and juggle for 10hr and send a video recording ?

lasereyes136 7y ago

The company I work for does code challenges when interviewing. We also accept code samples from GitHub or something like that. The idea is to talk about your code and the challenges you had creating it. I think you might not have seen many other professional hiring processes if you think spending a few hours doing an coding challenge is out of the question. Most professional occupation hiring practices are long and drawn out. That is part of what being a professional means. That said, our hiring process leaves a lot to be desired and there aren't really great ways to determine if someone really had the skills they claim on their resumes.