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Unless that engineer gets them to write some code in that 15 minutes, you're fundamentally wrong. An hours long leetcode assessment is not the answer, but you

Unless that engineer gets them to write some code in that 15 minutes, you're fundamentally wrong. An hours long leetcode assessment is not the answer, but you need the candidate to have provide proof that they can actually code, and "having a chat about it" doesn't prove it. You need them to write some code AND have a chat about stuff.

adwww 5y ago
I'm yet to meet anyone that can talk at a high technical level for 45 minutes about any subject, without actually knowing something about that subject. I couldn't bluff my way through an interview with a senior C sharp developer, and if I'm interviewing a Go or Typescript dev I can tell within about 2 minutes if they actually know the language, and within about 10 how well they know it. I'm not sure what else the practical code test tells me, apart from how much spare time they have.
- jollybean 5y ago
  "yet to meet anyone that can talk at a high technical level for 45 minutes about any subject, without actually knowing something about that subject." You're not getting the point. There are plenty of people with years of developer experience who can talk about things for 45 minutes, quite thoughtfully - and are still terrible developers. Talking about music is not making music. Nobody has the ability to judge the quality of a developer after only 10 minutes of talking to them about Typescript. Knowing some arcane things about Typescript is not a measure of problem solving or coding ability. "I'm not sure what else the practical code test tells me, " It tells you something more important than how much they've read up about Typescript. Typescript is simple / accessible enough, that I wouldn't even care if someone was familiar with it. I wouldn't even make it a requirement for the job even it was a TS focused job. I would take a 'great all around dev.' any day over someone I knew to be very knowledgeable about TS but otherwise big question marks about their development ability. Of course, the same holds true for memorizing algorithms - it's a nice signal that someone can do some fancy B-Tree stuff off the top of their head, but not really what you are looking for so interviews shouldn't be focused on that. Typescript and most of it's best practices (most of the odd corners of TS are not important), can be taught very quickly to any decent dev.
  - adwww 5y ago
    > I would take a 'great all around dev.' any day over someone I knew to be very knowledgeable about TS Well that's what I don't think you get much in a tech test. Not many tech tests probe your ability to understand business requirements, nail the acceptance criteria, work with others to develop test cases, or even demonstrate ability to integrate with other services. Those sorts of skills are what set experienced devs apart from bootcamp graduates IMO. And those sort of skills are easier to talk about than to demonstrate in a single time limited test.
    - bennyelv 5y ago
      You test those things with your other interview questions. No sensible interview process is exclusively an algorithmic coding assessment. I'm not aware of any company that does that, but I may be corrected...

adwww 5y ago

I'm yet to meet anyone that can talk at a high technical level for 45 minutes about any subject, without actually knowing something about that subject. I couldn't bluff my way through an interview with a senior C sharp developer, and if I'm interviewing a Go or Typescript dev I can tell within about 2 minutes if they actually know the language, and within about 10 how well they know it. I'm not sure what else the practical code test tells me, apart from how much spare time they have.

jollybean 5y ago
"yet to meet anyone that can talk at a high technical level for 45 minutes about any subject, without actually knowing something about that subject." You're not getting the point. There are plenty of people with years of developer experience who can talk about things for 45 minutes, quite thoughtfully - and are still terrible developers. Talking about music is not making music. Nobody has the ability to judge the quality of a developer after only 10 minutes of talking to them about Typescript. Knowing some arcane things about Typescript is not a measure of problem solving or coding ability. "I'm not sure what else the practical code test tells me, " It tells you something more important than how much they've read up about Typescript. Typescript is simple / accessible enough, that I wouldn't even care if someone was familiar with it. I wouldn't even make it a requirement for the job even it was a TS focused job. I would take a 'great all around dev.' any day over someone I knew to be very knowledgeable about TS but otherwise big question marks about their development ability. Of course, the same holds true for memorizing algorithms - it's a nice signal that someone can do some fancy B-Tree stuff off the top of their head, but not really what you are looking for so interviews shouldn't be focused on that. Typescript and most of it's best practices (most of the odd corners of TS are not important), can be taught very quickly to any decent dev.
- adwww 5y ago
  > I would take a 'great all around dev.' any day over someone I knew to be very knowledgeable about TS Well that's what I don't think you get much in a tech test. Not many tech tests probe your ability to understand business requirements, nail the acceptance criteria, work with others to develop test cases, or even demonstrate ability to integrate with other services. Those sorts of skills are what set experienced devs apart from bootcamp graduates IMO. And those sort of skills are easier to talk about than to demonstrate in a single time limited test.
  - bennyelv 5y ago
    You test those things with your other interview questions. No sensible interview process is exclusively an algorithmic coding assessment. I'm not aware of any company that does that, but I may be corrected...