6 ms·

This is pretty pretty much what I tried to achieve here https://github.com/philbert/take-home-tech-test https://github.com/philbert/take-home-tech-test The poi

This is pretty pretty much what I tried to achieve here https://github.com/philbert/take-home-tech-test https://github.com/philbert/take-home-tech-test The point is to have a conversation about a project that the candidate understands well and is passionate about rather than asking them a bunch of questions that we already know the answers to. Before the interview we review the code base and try to understand what it’s doing by the documentation provided in the readme. During the interview we get the candidate to demo the project and any questions that came up in our code review we ask at the stage of execution in the project demo. The interview lasts for 2 hours and we’ve had several rounds of candidates put through this process. Both we as interviewers and the feedback from candidates has been very positive. The interview ends up being a day-to-day normal experience within the team and this really helps us to gauge the team fit. I think this helps to hire people that compliment and expand our skill set rather than hire people who are basically ourselves.

yvrev 5y ago
I feel like this is a pretty big ask to do for an interview, unless you happen to have it lying around already.
- cutthegrass2 5y ago
  Yep, agree. 95% of the code I write is owned by my employer and is under NDA various other privacy / IP laws. The 5% that isn't, has no place in an interview. It's a bunch of brittle glue code automating and backing up data between my devices. "Passion projects" in my "spare time"... maybe once the kids have grown up and flown the nest... Leetcode is easy... I memorise a bunch of stuff, do the dance and pass the interview. If i'm lucky I get a problem i've not seen before and actually have to use my brain during the interview.
  - soneca 5y ago
    Isn’t the time spent memorizing leetcode similar to the time spent building a side-project? I took a look at leetcode when I was interviewing and decided it was a waste of time for me to learn that dance. I was happy with my chances with the companies that didn’t use it in their interviews. And it worked out fine.
    - nostrebored 5y ago
      No, it’s not, because take home assignments are not typically reusable. Learn leetcode and it is valuable at most companies you will apply to. It’s more respectful of your time.
      - soneca 5y ago
        I was comparing leetcode to sideprojects, not take home assignments. The parent company was also talking about side projects. Side projects will help you learn useful skills and it is the suggestion of OP that it should be used by more companies in place of leetcode interviews. Btw, a lot of companies don’t use leetcode for hiring. In my last job hunting season, I would guess than less than 20% of processes used leetcode. Pretty far from “most” companies.
        cutthegrass2 5y ago
        Completely agree re the value of having side projects. I wish I had the luxury of time right now, maybe in a few years once the kids are older. The leetcode dance is, at least for me at this point, much lower effort than starting a side project on the understanding the code I produce will be reviewed during interviews. It's like Sudoku, once you've done a "few", you get to the point where you're able to solve them quickly.
    - zsmi 5y ago
      > Isn’t the time spent memorizing leetcode similar to the time spent building a side-project? The nice thing about leetcode it is easy to bound the time to what you can handle. I do one puzzle a week and set a timer for 20 minutes. Then I get the answer and browse the forum. It's basically the equivalent of solving the Sunday crossword for me, and it keeps my algorithm skills sharp. Probably no worse than burning a lunch hour on HN.
      - soneca 5y ago
        I do my side projects the same way
  - cj 5y ago
    > 95% of the code I write is owned by my employer and is under NDA various other privacy / IP laws. True, but would your employer care (if they found out) if you copy/pasted a small portion of code that’s not considered critical IP (like util functions, and an integration syncing records from your backend the Salesforce, or something tangential to the business outside the core product) May technically be breaking your employment agreement, but I can’t imagine it would be too hard to pluck out a decent amount of code, and re-write portions of it if necessary to “anonymize” it for interviewing purposes. Or if you happen to be interviewed by someone like me, my approach is simply “if you can’t show me the code, show me the UI and explain how the backend / frontend works, and a discussion ensues.
    - david_allison 5y ago
      > True, but would your employer care (if they found out) if you copy/pasted a small portion of code that’s not considered critical IP What? Yes. I expect I'd be in prison for a few years. Your interview approach selects for people who don't follow their NDAs Sergey Aleynikov went to prison over copying GPL code.
      - cj 5y ago
        As mentioned in my original comment, if someone isn’t comfortable showing me the source code I simply ask for them to describe how it works, challenges in building it, how they built it, etc.
        cutthegrass2 5y ago
        I could do this and would welcome this type of interview experience. I'd be able to talk in general terms about the problems I work on and their solutions but not the low level specifics. To add some context, my work is in Financial Services, trading systems and whatnot.
    - haspok 5y ago
      > would your employer care (if they found out) if you copy/pasted a small portion of code that’s not considered critical IP Who decides what is "critical IP" and what is not? This is a terrible advice, and no, you should never copy code from a work project without being pre-authorized to do it. It's not just common sense, but you also might trip up over unexpected legal issues (licences etc) that you may not even be aware of.
dataengineer56 5y ago
I would immediately end my interest in a company if I was asked to do this. This is far too general a problem, which will harm the interviewer as much as it will harm the interviewee. Contrast it to giving a candidate some slightly broken code in a framework related to the role and then asking them to a)fix it and b)implement a new feature of their choosing and document it. The advantages of the latter approach: * The interviewer doesn't need to prep beforehand as they already know both the problem and the codebase. This means they can ask much more interesting questions and don't have to invest significant time in reviewing a project that might be in a field in which they have no experience. This in turn leads to better discussions which in turn leads to better interviews. * The candidate is given a much tighter problem definition and isn't required to come up with something a)novel, b)not covered by their current employer's NDAs. * The candidate's time is respected because they can be told how long it should take them up front. * Each candidate gets a standardised problem and so it's easier to compare between them. When I give take-home assignments, I'm just looking to quickly confirm that someone has a working home dev environment (i.e. they don't just code inside environments that other people give to them) and that they can understand a small codebase and write clean code and document it. Everything beyond that I can find out by talking to them during the interview. When I actually used this technique in interviews it was interesting to see how many supposed senior engineers would reply with things like "I'm getting a %JAVA_HOME NOT FOUND error, please can you fix the repo and let me know when it's ready for me to work on?".
- philbert101 5y ago
  We've been using it for DevOps roles which are not highly specialised in any particular technologies and require ability to solve problems at a general level. The test is intentionally designed to filter out candidates who cannot meet or do not want to meet the technical requirements.
  - dataengineer56 5y ago
    Fair enough, maybe that works better in devops, but it seems like it will filter out candidates who have a good work/life balance.
fidesomnes 5y ago
oh for fucks sake its a job of messing around with digital files for a paycheck.
saithir 5y ago
> You do not have to start a new project from scratch. It’s perfectly fine to submit something you have previously created yourself. Maybe it’s something you work on in your spare time, just for yourself! Yeah, no, nobody is or should be giving you their own personal work. It's offensive and probably illegal that you'd even ask. > The novelty and creativity of your submission Yeah, no.
haspok 5y ago
This is a really bad take-home exercise, because it is way too vague. This vagueness makes it very hard for me to decide how much time to devote to it, and what task is complex enough so that you will consider it, but not too small so that you don't throw it away. Instead of giving me a bar to jump over, you make the bar invisible, then expect me to jump just above it. So I hope you do have a default project for those who are not "creative"... at least not for the purposes of a job interview...
chresko 5y ago
Red flag test. Vague, no guidance around how much time to spend, no guidance around where to focus from a technical perspective (i.e. build anything/everything), bias towards someone who already has some related code completed. Given the lack of clarity, accurately assessing one candidate vs another would be difficult. It also comes off as lazy.

yvrev 5y ago

I feel like this is a pretty big ask to do for an interview, unless you happen to have it lying around already.

cutthegrass2 5y ago
Yep, agree. 95% of the code I write is owned by my employer and is under NDA various other privacy / IP laws. The 5% that isn't, has no place in an interview. It's a bunch of brittle glue code automating and backing up data between my devices. "Passion projects" in my "spare time"... maybe once the kids have grown up and flown the nest... Leetcode is easy... I memorise a bunch of stuff, do the dance and pass the interview. If i'm lucky I get a problem i've not seen before and actually have to use my brain during the interview.
- soneca 5y ago
  Isn’t the time spent memorizing leetcode similar to the time spent building a side-project? I took a look at leetcode when I was interviewing and decided it was a waste of time for me to learn that dance. I was happy with my chances with the companies that didn’t use it in their interviews. And it worked out fine.
  - nostrebored 5y ago
    No, it’s not, because take home assignments are not typically reusable. Learn leetcode and it is valuable at most companies you will apply to. It’s more respectful of your time.
    - soneca 5y ago
      I was comparing leetcode to sideprojects, not take home assignments. The parent company was also talking about side projects. Side projects will help you learn useful skills and it is the suggestion of OP that it should be used by more companies in place of leetcode interviews. Btw, a lot of companies don’t use leetcode for hiring. In my last job hunting season, I would guess than less than 20% of processes used leetcode. Pretty far from “most” companies.
      - cutthegrass2 5y ago
        Completely agree re the value of having side projects. I wish I had the luxury of time right now, maybe in a few years once the kids are older. The leetcode dance is, at least for me at this point, much lower effort than starting a side project on the understanding the code I produce will be reviewed during interviews. It's like Sudoku, once you've done a "few", you get to the point where you're able to solve them quickly.
  - zsmi 5y ago
    > Isn’t the time spent memorizing leetcode similar to the time spent building a side-project? The nice thing about leetcode it is easy to bound the time to what you can handle. I do one puzzle a week and set a timer for 20 minutes. Then I get the answer and browse the forum. It's basically the equivalent of solving the Sunday crossword for me, and it keeps my algorithm skills sharp. Probably no worse than burning a lunch hour on HN.
    - soneca 5y ago
      I do my side projects the same way
- cj 5y ago
  > 95% of the code I write is owned by my employer and is under NDA various other privacy / IP laws. True, but would your employer care (if they found out) if you copy/pasted a small portion of code that’s not considered critical IP (like util functions, and an integration syncing records from your backend the Salesforce, or something tangential to the business outside the core product) May technically be breaking your employment agreement, but I can’t imagine it would be too hard to pluck out a decent amount of code, and re-write portions of it if necessary to “anonymize” it for interviewing purposes. Or if you happen to be interviewed by someone like me, my approach is simply “if you can’t show me the code, show me the UI and explain how the backend / frontend works, and a discussion ensues.
  - david_allison 5y ago
    > True, but would your employer care (if they found out) if you copy/pasted a small portion of code that’s not considered critical IP What? Yes. I expect I'd be in prison for a few years. Your interview approach selects for people who don't follow their NDAs Sergey Aleynikov went to prison over copying GPL code.
    - cj 5y ago
      As mentioned in my original comment, if someone isn’t comfortable showing me the source code I simply ask for them to describe how it works, challenges in building it, how they built it, etc.
      - cutthegrass2 5y ago
        I could do this and would welcome this type of interview experience. I'd be able to talk in general terms about the problems I work on and their solutions but not the low level specifics. To add some context, my work is in Financial Services, trading systems and whatnot.
  - haspok 5y ago
    > would your employer care (if they found out) if you copy/pasted a small portion of code that’s not considered critical IP Who decides what is "critical IP" and what is not? This is a terrible advice, and no, you should never copy code from a work project without being pre-authorized to do it. It's not just common sense, but you also might trip up over unexpected legal issues (licences etc) that you may not even be aware of.

dataengineer56 5y ago

I would immediately end my interest in a company if I was asked to do this. This is far too general a problem, which will harm the interviewer as much as it will harm the interviewee. Contrast it to giving a candidate some slightly broken code in a framework related to the role and then asking them to a)fix it and b)implement a new feature of their choosing and document it. The advantages of the latter approach: * The interviewer doesn't need to prep beforehand as they already know both the problem and the codebase. This means they can ask much more interesting questions and don't have to invest significant time in reviewing a project that might be in a field in which they have no experience. This in turn leads to better discussions which in turn leads to better interviews. * The candidate is given a much tighter problem definition and isn't required to come up with something a)novel, b)not covered by their current employer's NDAs. * The candidate's time is respected because they can be told how long it should take them up front. * Each candidate gets a standardised problem and so it's easier to compare between them. When I give take-home assignments, I'm just looking to quickly confirm that someone has a working home dev environment (i.e. they don't just code inside environments that other people give to them) and that they can understand a small codebase and write clean code and document it. Everything beyond that I can find out by talking to them during the interview. When I actually used this technique in interviews it was interesting to see how many supposed senior engineers would reply with things like "I'm getting a %JAVA_HOME NOT FOUND error, please can you fix the repo and let me know when it's ready for me to work on?".

philbert101 5y ago
We've been using it for DevOps roles which are not highly specialised in any particular technologies and require ability to solve problems at a general level. The test is intentionally designed to filter out candidates who cannot meet or do not want to meet the technical requirements.
- dataengineer56 5y ago
  Fair enough, maybe that works better in devops, but it seems like it will filter out candidates who have a good work/life balance.

fidesomnes 5y ago

oh for fucks sake its a job of messing around with digital files for a paycheck.

saithir 5y ago

> You do not have to start a new project from scratch. It’s perfectly fine to submit something you have previously created yourself. Maybe it’s something you work on in your spare time, just for yourself! Yeah, no, nobody is or should be giving you their own personal work. It's offensive and probably illegal that you'd even ask. > The novelty and creativity of your submission Yeah, no.

haspok 5y ago

This is a really bad take-home exercise, because it is way too vague. This vagueness makes it very hard for me to decide how much time to devote to it, and what task is complex enough so that you will consider it, but not too small so that you don't throw it away. Instead of giving me a bar to jump over, you make the bar invisible, then expect me to jump just above it. So I hope you do have a default project for those who are not "creative"... at least not for the purposes of a job interview...

chresko 5y ago

Red flag test. Vague, no guidance around how much time to spend, no guidance around where to focus from a technical perspective (i.e. build anything/everything), bias towards someone who already has some related code completed. Given the lack of clarity, accurately assessing one candidate vs another would be difficult. It also comes off as lazy.