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I think of the coding challenge as a way to understand what kind of code can I expect from the candidate. Having seen many (from who we hire), helps me determin

I think of the coding challenge as a way to understand what kind of code can I expect from the candidate. Having seen many (from who we hire), helps me determine what kind of training I need for the team, what kind of standards need to be set to prevent some type of code and how can I expect the codebase to evolve. It helps dramatically in determining the level of the person (junior, intermediate, senior, etc.). The level is subjective to the company, that's why it's important: definition of senior at one company is very different from the other. Notice that a coding challenge without a technical chat first is kind of useless though. Various strong developers would just write the shortest code to complete the challenge, instead of trying to show off, so you have to read between the lines. A cool thing about this is that you can have an idea of the level of interest of the candidate. Finally, isn't everything just signal? The entire goal is just to have many conversations so that by the end of it, we have a rough idea if we like each other and can work together.

Aeolun 5y ago
> I think of the coding challenge as a way to understand what kind of code can I expect from the candidate. So giving me that test leads you to believe I don’t produce any code at all.
- Fire-Dragon-DoL 5y ago
  No, just a candidate with low interest in the job. As I said the challenge must come after a chat with a technical person. It's a good way to assess the level and filter out the kind of code you want or don't want to deal with. Or just help identify what you are looking for. In the end every suggestion misses _some_ data points that could be useful in a form or another to hiring. Either way, our process is flexible. The tech screening comes first, so depending on the candidate we might not ask about a coding challenge at all, it would be even embarassing to ask given the seniority of some people (masters).
foxfluff 5y ago
> I think of the coding challenge as a way to understand what kind of code can I expect from the candidate. I think you get the "coding challenge kind of code" with varying degrees of the subject's personal flavor on it. People can and will produce different kind of code in a different setting, or if you just ask them to do so. So it might not tell you as much as you think? EDIT: Virtually every employer / project I've worked on has had completely different requirements for what the code should be like. And my own style(s) for my own projects is again completely different. There's no "here's the kind of code I produce", but "what kind of code would you like?". And it's ok not to get it right in the first sitting, these things are discussed and they evolve internally in reviews, style guidelines, meetings, etc. > A cool thing about this is that you can have an idea of the level of interest of the candidate. Towards what? The coding challenge? The long overdue neo-legacy project you're going to hand them? Just having a job? How does that interest show? > Finally, isn't everything just signal? The signal doesn't necessarily say what you think it says. That's the biggest issue I find in all these hiring threads. If you do such and such, you suck. Good candidates do this and that. I wouldn't hire someone who X. The best candidates Y. Bla bla, yada yada, on and on. I feel like there's an immense amount of assumptions that hold.. in the interviewer's mental image of the ideal candidate / stereotypical poor candidate. In reality it smells like prejudice and "no true scotsman" all over, at least when taken with the limited context we're given. And my anecdote is that the signal is very often wrong. This comes mainly from helping out newbies and/or joining educational groups. Many times the first impressions mislead: I can't help but think "this dude has no clue" and I'm almost ready to write them off as a hopeless case. But give them a few weeks and many of them turn out to be very competent, fast learners, good thinkers. It's easy to underappreciate how diverse people.
- Fire-Dragon-DoL 5y ago
  > I think you get the "coding challenge kind of code" with varying degrees of the subject's personal flavor on it. People can and will produce different kind of code in a different setting, or if you just ask them to do so. So I don't think it helps you as much as you think? Good point. The hiring process I work on is definitely not objective though and I don't expect to be able to have an objective process. I expect to have a subjective process (yes, it's driven by people) but have people on the job we are happy to work with (not necessary excellent). Striving for the best candidate is great, but I have no idea what to do to achieve that, I'm working on it. Referrals are a great way, but that resource is used extensively already, there is a need for also the other funnel (lot of hiring needed), there aren't enough people in just referrals. > How does that interest show? In various ways, as I said, I think being subjective is the only way to manage a coding challenge, is not an objective measurement by any mean. Sometimes it's clearly a showcase (this part is too easy, I don't care, but you should really look at this small snippet), sometimes is "this is way too easy, here is an 80 lines script to do it efficiently, you don't need anything else", sometimes is a widely designed system for the purpose of showing design skill. Sometimes people have no time, but the question needed to answer is "can the person code and do I want to bring them to the next step". Sometimes I can't infer anything aside from the "can code", there are many variables at play. Everything is signal, but I'm not looking for something specific aside from the "can code". Sorry, yes, there are people that can't code at all and do apply and we have to filter for them. Consider the challenge a captcha for developers.
nsxwolf 5y ago
Coding challenges used to sound like a good idea to me. Who wants to go through the whiteboard torture session? The last time I looked for a job I was presented with multiple "take-home" coding challenges. I had to spend hours on them each night after working my regular job. It was exhausting. I would send it off and either receive no feedback at all, a "thanks but no thanks" with no constructive feedback, or an invitation... to come in for a whiteboard algorithms red/black tree interview. Ultimately I got a job that had a traditional (sucky) interview process. These coding assignments are a disrespectful waste of time.
- opportune 5y ago
  Homework interviews are terrible because they cost absolutely nothing for a company to give. You can spend 4 hours on them and perhaps nobody will even take a single look at it, they just gave it to you because why not. They’re also (IMO) pretty low signal because you could cheat on them easily. Meanwhile a phone interview (even if algorithms) takes only 60m or less and shows the company is at least invested enough in you as a candidate to have somebody spend that time with you. Cheating is definitely still possible, but harder and more awkward. It just seems better overall.
  - Fire-Dragon-DoL 5y ago
    I agree with that statement, that's why we put the coding challenge to _after_ the technical chat. The technical chat (which is just a chat, no algorithms involved) is performed by a developer, it's 45 minutes chat. Only after that there is the coding challenge. The company is definitely invested by that time. I also enforce the rule of providing feedback, as well as invest an enormous amount of time reviewing and evaluating the submissions (at least 1 hour + time to write down feedback, points to further dig through during the next interview step). And yes, when applying for a job it's the worst. I also have no solution. Removing it would mean making the "full day with the team" even longer and more stressful (I'd rather do less live coding than more). Yes it can be cheated, but that would come up in the full day interview (it did happen), so it's irrelevant, there are multiple filters on purpose, however each filter is more expensive for the company or the candidate and balancing between the two is important. That's also why I think a chat with a developer is important to have as early as possible.
zoomablemind 5y ago
> ...I think of the coding challenge as a way to understand what kind of code can I expect from the candidate. Sounds reasonable in general and especially if indeed the resulting code will be seen with constructive and qualified eyes, or better yet, a feedback on it will be given back to the candidate. In contrast to that, too often there is too little meaning to creating such a hurdle, when it's just a gauge for discipline and compliance. This is especially true of junior devs, who still have tons of doubts and need direction and good examples to follow. Wastefulness at interview stage may be an indicator of wastefulness of internal culture. Imagine a surprise of a new hire, who would readily jump into the new assignment ... just to later discover that it was shelved, or worse, was given just to keep him/her busy and "get used to the process".

Aeolun 5y ago

> I think of the coding challenge as a way to understand what kind of code can I expect from the candidate. So giving me that test leads you to believe I don’t produce any code at all.

Fire-Dragon-DoL 5y ago
No, just a candidate with low interest in the job. As I said the challenge must come after a chat with a technical person. It's a good way to assess the level and filter out the kind of code you want or don't want to deal with. Or just help identify what you are looking for. In the end every suggestion misses _some_ data points that could be useful in a form or another to hiring. Either way, our process is flexible. The tech screening comes first, so depending on the candidate we might not ask about a coding challenge at all, it would be even embarassing to ask given the seniority of some people (masters).

foxfluff 5y ago

> I think of the coding challenge as a way to understand what kind of code can I expect from the candidate. I think you get the "coding challenge kind of code" with varying degrees of the subject's personal flavor on it. People can and will produce different kind of code in a different setting, or if you just ask them to do so. So it might not tell you as much as you think? EDIT: Virtually every employer / project I've worked on has had completely different requirements for what the code should be like. And my own style(s) for my own projects is again completely different. There's no "here's the kind of code I produce", but "what kind of code would you like?". And it's ok not to get it right in the first sitting, these things are discussed and they evolve internally in reviews, style guidelines, meetings, etc. > A cool thing about this is that you can have an idea of the level of interest of the candidate. Towards what? The coding challenge? The long overdue neo-legacy project you're going to hand them? Just having a job? How does that interest show? > Finally, isn't everything just signal? The signal doesn't necessarily say what you think it says. That's the biggest issue I find in all these hiring threads. If you do such and such, you suck. Good candidates do this and that. I wouldn't hire someone who X. The best candidates Y. Bla bla, yada yada, on and on. I feel like there's an immense amount of assumptions that hold.. in the interviewer's mental image of the ideal candidate / stereotypical poor candidate. In reality it smells like prejudice and "no true scotsman" all over, at least when taken with the limited context we're given. And my anecdote is that the signal is very often wrong. This comes mainly from helping out newbies and/or joining educational groups. Many times the first impressions mislead: I can't help but think "this dude has no clue" and I'm almost ready to write them off as a hopeless case. But give them a few weeks and many of them turn out to be very competent, fast learners, good thinkers. It's easy to underappreciate how diverse people.

Fire-Dragon-DoL 5y ago
> I think you get the "coding challenge kind of code" with varying degrees of the subject's personal flavor on it. People can and will produce different kind of code in a different setting, or if you just ask them to do so. So I don't think it helps you as much as you think? Good point. The hiring process I work on is definitely not objective though and I don't expect to be able to have an objective process. I expect to have a subjective process (yes, it's driven by people) but have people on the job we are happy to work with (not necessary excellent). Striving for the best candidate is great, but I have no idea what to do to achieve that, I'm working on it. Referrals are a great way, but that resource is used extensively already, there is a need for also the other funnel (lot of hiring needed), there aren't enough people in just referrals. > How does that interest show? In various ways, as I said, I think being subjective is the only way to manage a coding challenge, is not an objective measurement by any mean. Sometimes it's clearly a showcase (this part is too easy, I don't care, but you should really look at this small snippet), sometimes is "this is way too easy, here is an 80 lines script to do it efficiently, you don't need anything else", sometimes is a widely designed system for the purpose of showing design skill. Sometimes people have no time, but the question needed to answer is "can the person code and do I want to bring them to the next step". Sometimes I can't infer anything aside from the "can code", there are many variables at play. Everything is signal, but I'm not looking for something specific aside from the "can code". Sorry, yes, there are people that can't code at all and do apply and we have to filter for them. Consider the challenge a captcha for developers.

nsxwolf 5y ago

Coding challenges used to sound like a good idea to me. Who wants to go through the whiteboard torture session? The last time I looked for a job I was presented with multiple "take-home" coding challenges. I had to spend hours on them each night after working my regular job. It was exhausting. I would send it off and either receive no feedback at all, a "thanks but no thanks" with no constructive feedback, or an invitation... to come in for a whiteboard algorithms red/black tree interview. Ultimately I got a job that had a traditional (sucky) interview process. These coding assignments are a disrespectful waste of time.

opportune 5y ago
Homework interviews are terrible because they cost absolutely nothing for a company to give. You can spend 4 hours on them and perhaps nobody will even take a single look at it, they just gave it to you because why not. They’re also (IMO) pretty low signal because you could cheat on them easily. Meanwhile a phone interview (even if algorithms) takes only 60m or less and shows the company is at least invested enough in you as a candidate to have somebody spend that time with you. Cheating is definitely still possible, but harder and more awkward. It just seems better overall.
- Fire-Dragon-DoL 5y ago
  I agree with that statement, that's why we put the coding challenge to _after_ the technical chat. The technical chat (which is just a chat, no algorithms involved) is performed by a developer, it's 45 minutes chat. Only after that there is the coding challenge. The company is definitely invested by that time. I also enforce the rule of providing feedback, as well as invest an enormous amount of time reviewing and evaluating the submissions (at least 1 hour + time to write down feedback, points to further dig through during the next interview step). And yes, when applying for a job it's the worst. I also have no solution. Removing it would mean making the "full day with the team" even longer and more stressful (I'd rather do less live coding than more). Yes it can be cheated, but that would come up in the full day interview (it did happen), so it's irrelevant, there are multiple filters on purpose, however each filter is more expensive for the company or the candidate and balancing between the two is important. That's also why I think a chat with a developer is important to have as early as possible.

zoomablemind 5y ago

> ...I think of the coding challenge as a way to understand what kind of code can I expect from the candidate. Sounds reasonable in general and especially if indeed the resulting code will be seen with constructive and qualified eyes, or better yet, a feedback on it will be given back to the candidate. In contrast to that, too often there is too little meaning to creating such a hurdle, when it's just a gauge for discipline and compliance. This is especially true of junior devs, who still have tons of doubts and need direction and good examples to follow. Wastefulness at interview stage may be an indicator of wastefulness of internal culture. Imagine a surprise of a new hire, who would readily jump into the new assignment ... just to later discover that it was shelved, or worse, was given just to keep him/her busy and "get used to the process".