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Quixey Challenge: $100 for a 1-Minute Coding Puzzle

101 points by Liron 15y ago

tpatke 15y ago
First thing I noticed is that the links at the top of the page don't work (in IE9). ...so, basically, they are looking for developers who "think in algorithms, dream in code, and eat control structures" so they can fix those pesky main navigation links. :-) I think there is something poetic going on here. Sometimes we try so hard to hire people like ourselves we fail to hire the people we need most - those that can fill our blind spots. In this case by doing some boring site maintenance work.
- Tichy 15y ago
  That is essentially a summary of the entire industry. Now I am depressed... (OK, I have been depressed before, but still)
- jonmc12 15y ago
  "we try so hard to hire people like ourselves" Part of this is self-selective in that we communicate well with people that think like us. Perhaps the other side of the coin is that is takes a lot of energy to determine that someone is a good fit unless they think like ourselves.
- dlo 15y ago
  To be fair, it is likely that the developers who "think in algorithms" and so on work on search, their core product, and it is the marketing team that handles the rest of the Web site. So you may be implicating the wrong set of people.
danvideo 15y ago
It sounds like a clever idea to get people's attention and I imagine that investing $100 to populate a list of potential candidates is much much cheaper than headhunters - but I have to wonder if it'll be as successful as the greplin challenge and its ilk, which come across as more "game-y" tests and less transactional.
jneal 15y ago
I gave it a shot, not knowing Python but being familiar with Perl and having a strong base in PHP, but I was unable to complete the challenge. I do think this is an interesting way to come up with some qualified candidates, too bad it wasn't in a language I'm more familiar with.
z0r 15y ago
you need a working microphone to do this. i wanted to do this for fun, but i didn't know that they'd be relying on voice communication (i didn't watch the video they have embedded on the blog) e: also the prize is for US residents only, apparently (since that's where they are trying to recruit, that only makes sense)
- masterzora 15y ago
  Thanks for the microphone warning. Was just about to try it out until I read that.
ajjai 15y ago
Just gave it shot.Could not complete it.Wish it were in PHP, language I am familiar with. Cool idea though..
- suhastech 15y ago
  Ditto!
jheriko 15y ago
Interesting - a debugging challenge in a language where every truly difficult to debug problem is hidden behind performance hungry language features. :) Although I wish I cared enough about Python to know it well enough to have a crack. :P
- KirinDave 15y ago
  This challenge has almost nothing to do with Python. If you can't solve the video-featured challenge, it's because you don't know the quicksort algorithm well.
  - BlackJack 15y ago
    Agreed. I've never written a line of Python in my life and that didn't affect me at all.
  - bermanoid 15y ago
    This challenge has almost nothing to do with Python. That's absolutely not true once you add the time limit. As someone that never touches Python if I don't have to, I'd immediately get derailed for a few seconds (5?) guessing what arr[1:] means, then waste some time worrying about whether "if not arr" properly handles whatever it is that the awkward looking filter-without-using-the-word-filter clause spits back (does it return an empty list? null? does null evaluate to false in Python? how about an empty list? is the one-line fix to change that to "if arr.empty", or whatever is the Python equivalent?), etc. That sort of stuff is not tough to figure out (especially if you make the assumption that this isn't just a Python-gotcha test), but it creates enough mental slowdown to someone that's not familiar with the language that it's at least a big factor.
    - nagrom 15y ago
      I disagree. The failure to consider the case where the target value is equal to the pivot is one of the classic blunders of writing a quicksort (along with not considering type limits and getting involved in a land war in Asia). Almost so much so that I immediately thought that I could have made a pretty good guess at the bug if they had told me the algorithm beforehand :-) You could look at the code and try and figure out what's wrong, or you could have a rough idea of what is likely to be wrong with an implementation of an algorithm and try to see if it's dealt with in the code. They're probably looking for the latter type of problem solving.
losvedir 15y ago
Tried it, but failed. Alas. That said, it was very enlightening to me just how anxious I was! There is really no downside whatsoever to the challenge, and the possibility of a quick $100, yet I was still questioning whether I should do it. So, I encourage you, do it! Failing is not that bad. :-p
- roryokane 15y ago
  I agree. It was thanks to your comment that I tried the challenge. I didn’t win, but the challenge was totally fair and I feel like I could have won had I been more familiar with algorithms. Even though I failed, I did get a quick refresher on the algorithm in question and learned a new Python standard library function. So next time this kind of opportunity appears, people, try it! (I say next time because I think the Quixey Challenge is about to end.)
  - losvedir 15y ago
    Ah, thanks for the comment. I'm glad my comment spurred you to give it a try!
CJefferson 15y ago
Just tried it. Interestingly, I normally consider myself a good debugger, and about 15 seconds after the minute, I figured it out. I think I might have done so in a minute, if I hadn't been under a 1 minute time limit. Overall, an interesting thing to try. Note you can't get money if you aren't in the US (I was told), but you can still get a t-shirt and brief fame.
- sthlm 15y ago
  That seems to be a strange rule; how would they know where I'm from? As far as I know, Paypal doesn't normally release that information. I could see how they might have to adhere to some sort of policy, yet I don't see how it could be enforced.
  - CJefferson 15y ago
    I told them, you could of course lie.
plessthanpoint5 15y ago
cool...all the better it's in python. i'm not a pythonista or anything, but still think it's a great all around language (esp. for something like this where the focus is on the algorithm, not the code per se).
seles 15y ago
I've been told there is currently a queue of 1-2 hours to enter... I am in the queue :)
tluthra 15y ago
Successfully tried it out a few hours ago! It's a little nerve-wracking with the timer, but it's a pretty good marketing/hiring ploy.
deleted 15y ago
[deleted]
krst 15y ago
Be prepared to wait in a queue for a couple hours
- thirdhaf 15y ago
  Another datum: I sent an IM at 2pm PST and haven't received any response yet. (Looks like quixeychallenge offline the whole time) It would have been fun to take part but I think the poor guys are swamped.
kulczak 15y ago
I'm a first year college student, and I relied on my Java experience and the 3 times I've seen Python code to get me through it. Unfortunately, sorting algorithms were the one thing I didn't pay much attention to, so I was clueless. However, I feel that with a little bit of background knowledge, the problem would be relatively easy.
d3fun 15y ago
" Extraordinary software engineering talent. Have written 50,000 good-looking lines of code. Before that, have written 50,000 lines of code that you're embarrassed by. Know all that stuff they teach in college CS that most people forget. Speak and write clear arguments, explanations and proofs. Can write a compiler from scratch. Can write a quine. Can write binary search with no off-by-one errors in under 2 minutes. " getting tired by these requirements
Liron 15y ago
For the record - 265 challengers, 15 winners = 5.7% win rate.

101 points by Liron 15y ago

First thing I noticed is that the links at the top of the page don't work (in IE9). ...so, basically, they are looking for developers who "think in algorithms, dream in code, and eat control structures" so they can fix those pesky main navigation links. :-) I think there is something poetic going on here. Sometimes we try so hard to hire people like ourselves we fail to hire the people we need most - those that can fill our blind spots. In this case by doing some boring site maintenance work.

Tichy 15y ago
That is essentially a summary of the entire industry. Now I am depressed... (OK, I have been depressed before, but still)
jonmc12 15y ago
"we try so hard to hire people like ourselves" Part of this is self-selective in that we communicate well with people that think like us. Perhaps the other side of the coin is that is takes a lot of energy to determine that someone is a good fit unless they think like ourselves.
dlo 15y ago
To be fair, it is likely that the developers who "think in algorithms" and so on work on search, their core product, and it is the marketing team that handles the rest of the Web site. So you may be implicating the wrong set of people.

danvideo 15y ago

It sounds like a clever idea to get people's attention and I imagine that investing $100 to populate a list of potential candidates is much much cheaper than headhunters - but I have to wonder if it'll be as successful as the greplin challenge and its ilk, which come across as more "game-y" tests and less transactional.

jneal 15y ago

I gave it a shot, not knowing Python but being familiar with Perl and having a strong base in PHP, but I was unable to complete the challenge. I do think this is an interesting way to come up with some qualified candidates, too bad it wasn't in a language I'm more familiar with.

z0r 15y ago

you need a working microphone to do this. i wanted to do this for fun, but i didn't know that they'd be relying on voice communication (i didn't watch the video they have embedded on the blog) e: also the prize is for US residents only, apparently (since that's where they are trying to recruit, that only makes sense)

masterzora 15y ago
Thanks for the microphone warning. Was just about to try it out until I read that.

ajjai 15y ago

Just gave it shot.Could not complete it.Wish it were in PHP, language I am familiar with. Cool idea though..

suhastech 15y ago
Ditto!

jheriko 15y ago

Interesting - a debugging challenge in a language where every truly difficult to debug problem is hidden behind performance hungry language features. :) Although I wish I cared enough about Python to know it well enough to have a crack. :P

KirinDave 15y ago
This challenge has almost nothing to do with Python. If you can't solve the video-featured challenge, it's because you don't know the quicksort algorithm well.
- BlackJack 15y ago
  Agreed. I've never written a line of Python in my life and that didn't affect me at all.
- bermanoid 15y ago
  This challenge has almost nothing to do with Python. That's absolutely not true once you add the time limit. As someone that never touches Python if I don't have to, I'd immediately get derailed for a few seconds (5?) guessing what arr[1:] means, then waste some time worrying about whether "if not arr" properly handles whatever it is that the awkward looking filter-without-using-the-word-filter clause spits back (does it return an empty list? null? does null evaluate to false in Python? how about an empty list? is the one-line fix to change that to "if arr.empty", or whatever is the Python equivalent?), etc. That sort of stuff is not tough to figure out (especially if you make the assumption that this isn't just a Python-gotcha test), but it creates enough mental slowdown to someone that's not familiar with the language that it's at least a big factor.
  - nagrom 15y ago
    I disagree. The failure to consider the case where the target value is equal to the pivot is one of the classic blunders of writing a quicksort (along with not considering type limits and getting involved in a land war in Asia). Almost so much so that I immediately thought that I could have made a pretty good guess at the bug if they had told me the algorithm beforehand :-) You could look at the code and try and figure out what's wrong, or you could have a rough idea of what is likely to be wrong with an implementation of an algorithm and try to see if it's dealt with in the code. They're probably looking for the latter type of problem solving.

losvedir 15y ago

Tried it, but failed. Alas. That said, it was very enlightening to me just how anxious I was! There is really no downside whatsoever to the challenge, and the possibility of a quick $100, yet I was still questioning whether I should do it. So, I encourage you, do it! Failing is not that bad. :-p

roryokane 15y ago
I agree. It was thanks to your comment that I tried the challenge. I didn’t win, but the challenge was totally fair and I feel like I could have won had I been more familiar with algorithms. Even though I failed, I did get a quick refresher on the algorithm in question and learned a new Python standard library function. So next time this kind of opportunity appears, people, try it! (I say next time because I think the Quixey Challenge is about to end.)
- losvedir 15y ago
  Ah, thanks for the comment. I'm glad my comment spurred you to give it a try!

CJefferson 15y ago

Just tried it. Interestingly, I normally consider myself a good debugger, and about 15 seconds after the minute, I figured it out. I think I might have done so in a minute, if I hadn't been under a 1 minute time limit. Overall, an interesting thing to try. Note you can't get money if you aren't in the US (I was told), but you can still get a t-shirt and brief fame.

sthlm 15y ago
That seems to be a strange rule; how would they know where I'm from? As far as I know, Paypal doesn't normally release that information. I could see how they might have to adhere to some sort of policy, yet I don't see how it could be enforced.
- CJefferson 15y ago
  I told them, you could of course lie.

plessthanpoint5 15y ago

cool...all the better it's in python. i'm not a pythonista or anything, but still think it's a great all around language (esp. for something like this where the focus is on the algorithm, not the code per se).

seles 15y ago

I've been told there is currently a queue of 1-2 hours to enter... I am in the queue :)

tluthra 15y ago

Successfully tried it out a few hours ago! It's a little nerve-wracking with the timer, but it's a pretty good marketing/hiring ploy.

deleted 15y ago

[deleted]

krst 15y ago

Be prepared to wait in a queue for a couple hours

thirdhaf 15y ago
Another datum: I sent an IM at 2pm PST and haven't received any response yet. (Looks like quixeychallenge offline the whole time) It would have been fun to take part but I think the poor guys are swamped.

kulczak 15y ago

I'm a first year college student, and I relied on my Java experience and the 3 times I've seen Python code to get me through it. Unfortunately, sorting algorithms were the one thing I didn't pay much attention to, so I was clueless. However, I feel that with a little bit of background knowledge, the problem would be relatively easy.

d3fun 15y ago

" Extraordinary software engineering talent. Have written 50,000 good-looking lines of code. Before that, have written 50,000 lines of code that you're embarrassed by. Know all that stuff they teach in college CS that most people forget. Speak and write clear arguments, explanations and proofs. Can write a compiler from scratch. Can write a quine. Can write binary search with no off-by-one errors in under 2 minutes. " getting tired by these requirements

Liron 15y ago

For the record - 265 challengers, 15 winners = 5.7% win rate.