4 ms·

Best technical interview I had (on the interviewee side) had me do a very simple coding exercise at home - it took maybe 4 to 6 hours max so could easily be don

Best technical interview I had (on the interviewee side) had me do a very simple coding exercise at home - it took maybe 4 to 6 hours max so could easily be done during lunch breaks at your current job. Once you submitted the exercise and went to on-site interview you sat with another engineer and they asked you to make some basic changes there and then. I liked this approach: you could take your time working at home to be sure you understand the assignment and have a chance to think through your implementation, then when it came to the actual on-site interview you were already familiar with the code you'd already written so thwre was less of a deer-in-headlights effect. Bonus is you had to "work" with someone too so they can see if you are a good culture fit/not a jerk as well

mattmanser 7y ago
4-6 hours is a ridiculous amount of time, and certainly not something many people coud fit in a few lunch breaks.
- ltbarcly3 7y ago
  I'm sure they find time to watch 4-6 hours of TV a week. If they can't find the motivation to put in an hour before bed for a week to apply for a better job, then it seems like the process is weeding out the people it's trying to weed out.
- mattlondon 7y ago
  I don't think it is rediculous - from what I understand of FAANG interviews they are full-day 8-10 hour things anyway, so 4-6 plus an hour or two on-site seems comparable.
scarface74 7y ago
I live in a major metropolitan city in the US that is not on the west coast. Most jobs are bog standard software as a service CRUD/bespoked internal system roles. They all pay about the same at the same level of experience - maybe there is a $20K variance but you can usually negotiate that. Also, senior engineers come on the market infrequently and there are many open reqs (I’m speaking pre-Covid). Meaning that historically (over two decades) its never taken me more than a month to go from looking for a job to offer. Most interviews in my pure software engineering roles have involved soft skills questions, explaining past projects, sometimes standard multiple choice prescribing tests and occasionally simple on site at the computer coding tests. All that to say if I both have a job and have two or three companies vying for me at about the same salary - I’m no special snowflake. I’ve just done a lot of targeted resume driven development and have built a strong network - why would I do a take home test? I’ve scheduled six phone screens with different companies in one day. My record for looking for a job, to having an offer is four days. I called an external recruiter on Monday, had a phone screen on Wednesday, in person Thursday morning and offer that evening. It was for a job at a recently acquired subsidiary of what was then a Fortune 10 company.

mattmanser 7y ago

4-6 hours is a ridiculous amount of time, and certainly not something many people coud fit in a few lunch breaks.

ltbarcly3 7y ago
I'm sure they find time to watch 4-6 hours of TV a week. If they can't find the motivation to put in an hour before bed for a week to apply for a better job, then it seems like the process is weeding out the people it's trying to weed out.
mattlondon 7y ago
I don't think it is rediculous - from what I understand of FAANG interviews they are full-day 8-10 hour things anyway, so 4-6 plus an hour or two on-site seems comparable.

scarface74 7y ago

I live in a major metropolitan city in the US that is not on the west coast. Most jobs are bog standard software as a service CRUD/bespoked internal system roles. They all pay about the same at the same level of experience - maybe there is a $20K variance but you can usually negotiate that. Also, senior engineers come on the market infrequently and there are many open reqs (I’m speaking pre-Covid). Meaning that historically (over two decades) its never taken me more than a month to go from looking for a job to offer. Most interviews in my pure software engineering roles have involved soft skills questions, explaining past projects, sometimes standard multiple choice prescribing tests and occasionally simple on site at the computer coding tests. All that to say if I both have a job and have two or three companies vying for me at about the same salary - I’m no special snowflake. I’ve just done a lot of targeted resume driven development and have built a strong network - why would I do a take home test? I’ve scheduled six phone screens with different companies in one day. My record for looking for a job, to having an offer is four days. I called an external recruiter on Monday, had a phone screen on Wednesday, in person Thursday morning and offer that evening. It was for a job at a recently acquired subsidiary of what was then a Fortune 10 company.