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>Time consuming >The only company that gave me any compensation for the interview process was GitPod >Another thing to note is that I ended up not really prep

>Time consuming >The only company that gave me any compensation for the interview process was GitPod >Another thing to note is that I ended up not really preparing for the interviews. I feel like this is a bit of an arrogant move by me And that's how they get you. You invest into what's essentially a second full time job, without any guaranteed compensation, yet somehow you feel you yourself are the arrogant one for not doing more. That's not even highlighting all the other emotional effects the process had on the author, and the author is by no means "average" in their methodology. Let's push back against this, please.

golergka 4y ago
Doesn't the company invest significant amount of money in the process too?
- diatone 4y ago
  Does “the company” need to sleep?
  - golergka 4y ago
    The company is built by investment from VCs from hedge funds from 401k or pensions of real people who not only need to sleep, but on average make less then senior software engineers.
- BlargMcLarg 4y ago
  Wouldn't that be more reason to push back against this? There's an implicit assumption that more sessions -> more security. I've yet to find evidence this session inflation is doing anything beyond making companies feel more secure. Same goes for a lot of other things related to interviewing. If there's no clear evidence, it should be treated as the bread and circuses it is.
  - spyspy 4y ago
    I’ve found that the more people you throw at a candidate the higher the chances that _someone_ is going to find _something_ they don’t like about him/her and burn them in the end, especially when approvals have to be unanimous. I’ve seen engineers give glowing praise for one particular candidate but they got passed on because they made some comment about disliking scrum/agile/jira and that just rubbed the 2nd project manager they interviewed with the wrong way.
    - tough 4y ago
      Right on. Never say anything you've not been asked for. You don't need to create traps for yourself. Interviewing sucks... The best jobs I had I just started on -trial- or whatever doing good work on their GH and from then i'ts pretty easy to know if we're a match or not. (Paid) Trialhires should be a more common thing. Companies should hire and fire more easily. I just don't understand I work mostly as a contractor so they really can fire me with 1, 10, or whatever days in advance... It's not like I'm an employee with protection to being fired or compensation or whatever... Why so much hassle?
      - pph 4y ago
        It's not reasonable to expect a candidate to give up their secure job / salary for a two week trial. It gets more complicated as within the first weeks you're probably mostly ramping up and not very productive yet, so it's both a cost-sink for the company and difficult to judge anyhow. For fresh graduates this might be more viable, but internships are already a thing.
        vsareto 4y ago
        Trials should be an option but not the only route. Multiple interview formats would be good too.
      - NikolaNovak 4y ago
        I think that works great for 1st job. Once you are in your... 30s 40s 50s etc, maybe family and mortgage... You're not going in for a two week trial hire. ANd it may not make sense for companies either. A lot of positions I hire for need 3 months to be productive. The level of business and client knowledge, as well as prices and policy understanding required for tech positions is high. That may not be the vocal HN experience which is a lot about interchangeable tech on modern frameworks but I think actually comprises a lot of enterprise IT. Basically we need to invest a lot in you before you are productive and we can truly judge fairly your actual on the job performance. Heck if you work for public sector, you may not get your laptop and Id in first two weeks at all :-)
- Ozzie_osman 4y ago
  Depends on the company, but they should. This is a big decision for both the company and the candidate. Both should put a little effort into it to avoid a situation where someone who is hired is unhappy or not a fit for whatever reason. The secret is to make sure the time invested on both sides is actually increasing signal, and to make it symmetric (ie at any point in the interview process both sides should have invested roughly the same amount of time).
lbriner 4y ago
I got the idea for the take-home test from the Remote book by Hansson and Fried and I think what they spelled out made sense: 1) Give them a realistic task to work on - this is what you want them to do if you hire them 2) Give them a reasonable amount of time 3) Pay them for it - why wouldn't you? We did this for one candidate and although your gut feel as an employer is sometimes, "is this a waste of £1000"? but if you are already quite far on in the process, you probably think they might be good enough and that £1000 is offset against the Recruiter fee that you incur when a hire doesn't work out or the loss of a good person you don't hire because you are not sure. It also shows good will between employer and applicant. We have done it once so far and didn't take on the person but gave them feedback on the task and because they were paid, they didn't see it as a waste of time.
- throwaway6532 4y ago
  If it were always paid then one could just game the system taking such take home tests as a second job. Since they're relatively small in scope you'd quickly (if you haven't already) build up a code library containing a cache off pre-solved problems allowing you to punch them out relatively quickly. Heck, you could even do it as a full-time job.
PartiallyTyped 4y ago
I have been trying to find a job for the past 2-3 months, and the psychological toll that it has taken on me is enormous. I planned on going for a PhD, but eventually got tired of academia and of practically starving. I am finishing my master's in December. I have sent out my CV for review in r/cscareerquestionsEU, I have received good feedback, I have been told that my CV is strong and that I may be suffering from my own successes. Most of the responses by companies are flat out rejections without any information as to how or why. I have been told that I am overqualified for positions. By others that I was underqualified. I have been given excuses of the form "we are looking for somebody who has more experience with XYZ tech" as if there is some kind of barrier that prevents somebody from learning said tech. At this point I am practically begging for anything to not starve and pay the bills. I am really sorry for venting here, but I am at a breaking point.
- ensan 4y ago
  Why not apply to PhD/MSc programs in the US? The PhD stipend is well above starvation levels and you can go to internships during summer to earn more money and accumulate experience. I have seen many, many people in FAANG with PhDs in SDE/DS roles and they can relatively quickly reach senior levels as well.
  - PartiallyTyped 4y ago
    They are too competitive and my odds of getting in one are slim to none ._.
    - ensan 4y ago
      I don't know your situation but I while there are certainly ultra-competitive CS programs (e.g., Stanford, MIT, Berkeley, CMU), there are many research-focused universities in the US (R1) that are totally good-enough for doing research and getting a recognized degree. In a lot of less competitive universities, there is no admission committee per se; you just email the faculty you're interested in and if he wants to recruit you, then it's basically done. There are good research universities in the R2 list as well (RIT, IIT, etc.) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_research_universities_in_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_research_universities_...
VoodooJuJu 4y ago
>Let's push back against this, please. I would love this, but the only reason the bullshit is allowed to happen is because people are ready and willing to put up with it. There are simply too many desperate people, many of them third-worlders [1], who will do anything for a meal ticket. The world would be better if people developed a "fuck you, pay me" attitude, but so many people are inured to their caste. [1] "Then, don't. I want to move from my 2000 USD a month (this is a good salary alre... | Hacker News." 8 May. 2022, news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24446562.
- dominotw 4y ago
  > many of them third-worlders [1], who will do anything for a meal ticket. If your people from 'third world' are your main competition then you fucked up your life by not making something out of your 'first world' privilege and educational opportunities. > The world would be better if people developed a "fuck you, pay me" attitude, but so many people are inured to their caste. wtf.
  - ryandrake 4y ago
    Even disregarding those weird "third world" and "caste" tangents, there are tons of Westerners too who would literally do anything for a software job at a tech company, especially at a prestigious and well-paying FAANG. And, by anything, I mean suffer through any brutal study regimen, inhumane corporate process and any humiliation. Undergrad and advanced degrees, months of leetcode practice, take-home tests and coding challenges, hundreds of phone screens, a dozen rounds of interviews for a single company, staying half-ghosted on a waitlist for months, sending ping after groveling ping to recruiters for updates. There's nothing that's beneath them, and this willingness to endure pain simply raises the level of pain everyone else has to endure.
    - PartiallyTyped 4y ago
      Is that not a testament to how awful the current situation is with respect to the living conditions of the average person and the average salary?
jt2190 4y ago
A senior dev role is an income stream of USD n 000 000 dollars a year, that has certain guarantees about payments. In this context it makes sense to dedicate a considerable amount of personal time and effort to capture one. > … yet somehow you feel you yourself are the arrogant one for not doing more. That's not even highlighting all the other emotional effects the process had on the author, and the author is by no means "average" Learning techniques for managing one’s emotions and stress levels can pay huge dividends here. Part of that is stepping back and realizing that the “rules of the game” of resume/interviews/offer were written by employers, for their benefit first. (One technique for addressing this is to beak out of this process, and reach out to hiring managers directly. Professional sales people do this all the time; I’m not sure why selling labor is somehow magically different.)
- DeathArrow 4y ago
  >A senior dev role is an income stream of USD n 000 000 dollars a year That's true for US. In most parts of the world developer salaries are much lower.
  - jt2190 4y ago
    I suppose that since Jamie is based in Nottingham, U.K. [1] then we should adjust the currency and number of zeros for his particular locale. My understanding is that senior software developer roles in the U.K. are also considered professional-level jobs that pay very well relative to other professional-level jobs in the local labor market, similar to the U.S., and are worth putting in some extra time and effort to get. I think the same is true about senior software developers in many other countries: They are professional-level jobs that pay well relative to other professional-level jobs in the local market, and they're definitely worth taking some time and effort to get. Feel free to provide specific examples of countries where this isn't the case. [1] "README" https://readme.jvt.me/ https://readme.jvt.me/
    - PeterisP 4y ago
      It's not only that the rate is adjusted for locale but that the disparities in USA are much larger. In USA a very senior engineer at a FAANG in California will earn 20x times more than a junior engineer at some small midwest company. In UK a very senior engineer in London will earn perhaps 4x that of a junior engineer in Wales. In USA "pays very well relative to other professional-level jobs in the local labor market" will often mean a compensation that's double or triple of those other jobs; in UK "pays very well relative to other professional-level jobs in the local labor market" would imply a 20% or 30% difference. That makes a meaningful conceptual difference.
snarfy 4y ago
Compensation for an interview for a job that even poorly compensated would put you in the top 5%? Talk about privilege. I'll happily do the interview on my own time for that potential payout. Push back? I'll be taking your job.
- p1esk 4y ago
  Unless you know you’re good and everyone wants you. Otherwise, yeah, good luck with pushing back.
- BlargMcLarg 4y ago
  That's an awful lot of assumptions. These practices are happening outside the very lucrative tech hubs as well. If this was just the hubs, that'd be something else entirely. Nor do I believe constantly encouraging more and more competition is in anyway healthy for society as a whole. Companies are already facilitating burnout cultures as is, and it's not at all evident if this benefits them in the long run.
  - scarface74 4y ago
    Even if you aren’t in the “very lucrative tech hubs” and you’re making about $140K, a salary you can get in any large metro area in the US within 5-7 years and strategic job hopping, it still puts you in the top 10% of earners
    - deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]
    - lotsofpulp 4y ago
      Top 10% does not get you as much as it used to these days.
      - scarface74 4y ago
        Amazingly people aren’t living in their cars and starving on only $140K…
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]

golergka 4y ago

Doesn't the company invest significant amount of money in the process too?

diatone 4y ago
Does “the company” need to sleep?
- golergka 4y ago
  The company is built by investment from VCs from hedge funds from 401k or pensions of real people who not only need to sleep, but on average make less then senior software engineers.
BlargMcLarg 4y ago
Wouldn't that be more reason to push back against this? There's an implicit assumption that more sessions -> more security. I've yet to find evidence this session inflation is doing anything beyond making companies feel more secure. Same goes for a lot of other things related to interviewing. If there's no clear evidence, it should be treated as the bread and circuses it is.
- spyspy 4y ago
  I’ve found that the more people you throw at a candidate the higher the chances that _someone_ is going to find _something_ they don’t like about him/her and burn them in the end, especially when approvals have to be unanimous. I’ve seen engineers give glowing praise for one particular candidate but they got passed on because they made some comment about disliking scrum/agile/jira and that just rubbed the 2nd project manager they interviewed with the wrong way.
  - tough 4y ago
    Right on. Never say anything you've not been asked for. You don't need to create traps for yourself. Interviewing sucks... The best jobs I had I just started on -trial- or whatever doing good work on their GH and from then i'ts pretty easy to know if we're a match or not. (Paid) Trialhires should be a more common thing. Companies should hire and fire more easily. I just don't understand I work mostly as a contractor so they really can fire me with 1, 10, or whatever days in advance... It's not like I'm an employee with protection to being fired or compensation or whatever... Why so much hassle?
    - pph 4y ago
      It's not reasonable to expect a candidate to give up their secure job / salary for a two week trial. It gets more complicated as within the first weeks you're probably mostly ramping up and not very productive yet, so it's both a cost-sink for the company and difficult to judge anyhow. For fresh graduates this might be more viable, but internships are already a thing.
      - vsareto 4y ago
        Trials should be an option but not the only route. Multiple interview formats would be good too.
    - NikolaNovak 4y ago
      I think that works great for 1st job. Once you are in your... 30s 40s 50s etc, maybe family and mortgage... You're not going in for a two week trial hire. ANd it may not make sense for companies either. A lot of positions I hire for need 3 months to be productive. The level of business and client knowledge, as well as prices and policy understanding required for tech positions is high. That may not be the vocal HN experience which is a lot about interchangeable tech on modern frameworks but I think actually comprises a lot of enterprise IT. Basically we need to invest a lot in you before you are productive and we can truly judge fairly your actual on the job performance. Heck if you work for public sector, you may not get your laptop and Id in first two weeks at all :-)
Ozzie_osman 4y ago
Depends on the company, but they should. This is a big decision for both the company and the candidate. Both should put a little effort into it to avoid a situation where someone who is hired is unhappy or not a fit for whatever reason. The secret is to make sure the time invested on both sides is actually increasing signal, and to make it symmetric (ie at any point in the interview process both sides should have invested roughly the same amount of time).

lbriner 4y ago

I got the idea for the take-home test from the Remote book by Hansson and Fried and I think what they spelled out made sense: 1) Give them a realistic task to work on - this is what you want them to do if you hire them 2) Give them a reasonable amount of time 3) Pay them for it - why wouldn't you? We did this for one candidate and although your gut feel as an employer is sometimes, "is this a waste of £1000"? but if you are already quite far on in the process, you probably think they might be good enough and that £1000 is offset against the Recruiter fee that you incur when a hire doesn't work out or the loss of a good person you don't hire because you are not sure. It also shows good will between employer and applicant. We have done it once so far and didn't take on the person but gave them feedback on the task and because they were paid, they didn't see it as a waste of time.

throwaway6532 4y ago
If it were always paid then one could just game the system taking such take home tests as a second job. Since they're relatively small in scope you'd quickly (if you haven't already) build up a code library containing a cache off pre-solved problems allowing you to punch them out relatively quickly. Heck, you could even do it as a full-time job.

PartiallyTyped 4y ago

I have been trying to find a job for the past 2-3 months, and the psychological toll that it has taken on me is enormous. I planned on going for a PhD, but eventually got tired of academia and of practically starving. I am finishing my master's in December. I have sent out my CV for review in r/cscareerquestionsEU, I have received good feedback, I have been told that my CV is strong and that I may be suffering from my own successes. Most of the responses by companies are flat out rejections without any information as to how or why. I have been told that I am overqualified for positions. By others that I was underqualified. I have been given excuses of the form "we are looking for somebody who has more experience with XYZ tech" as if there is some kind of barrier that prevents somebody from learning said tech. At this point I am practically begging for anything to not starve and pay the bills. I am really sorry for venting here, but I am at a breaking point.

ensan 4y ago
Why not apply to PhD/MSc programs in the US? The PhD stipend is well above starvation levels and you can go to internships during summer to earn more money and accumulate experience. I have seen many, many people in FAANG with PhDs in SDE/DS roles and they can relatively quickly reach senior levels as well.
- PartiallyTyped 4y ago
  They are too competitive and my odds of getting in one are slim to none ._.
  - ensan 4y ago
    I don't know your situation but I while there are certainly ultra-competitive CS programs (e.g., Stanford, MIT, Berkeley, CMU), there are many research-focused universities in the US (R1) that are totally good-enough for doing research and getting a recognized degree. In a lot of less competitive universities, there is no admission committee per se; you just email the faculty you're interested in and if he wants to recruit you, then it's basically done. There are good research universities in the R2 list as well (RIT, IIT, etc.) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_research_universities_in_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_research_universities_...

VoodooJuJu 4y ago

>Let's push back against this, please. I would love this, but the only reason the bullshit is allowed to happen is because people are ready and willing to put up with it. There are simply too many desperate people, many of them third-worlders [1], who will do anything for a meal ticket. The world would be better if people developed a "fuck you, pay me" attitude, but so many people are inured to their caste. [1] "Then, don't. I want to move from my 2000 USD a month (this is a good salary alre... | Hacker News." 8 May. 2022, news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24446562.

dominotw 4y ago
> many of them third-worlders [1], who will do anything for a meal ticket. If your people from 'third world' are your main competition then you fucked up your life by not making something out of your 'first world' privilege and educational opportunities. > The world would be better if people developed a "fuck you, pay me" attitude, but so many people are inured to their caste. wtf.
- ryandrake 4y ago
  Even disregarding those weird "third world" and "caste" tangents, there are tons of Westerners too who would literally do anything for a software job at a tech company, especially at a prestigious and well-paying FAANG. And, by anything, I mean suffer through any brutal study regimen, inhumane corporate process and any humiliation. Undergrad and advanced degrees, months of leetcode practice, take-home tests and coding challenges, hundreds of phone screens, a dozen rounds of interviews for a single company, staying half-ghosted on a waitlist for months, sending ping after groveling ping to recruiters for updates. There's nothing that's beneath them, and this willingness to endure pain simply raises the level of pain everyone else has to endure.
  - PartiallyTyped 4y ago
    Is that not a testament to how awful the current situation is with respect to the living conditions of the average person and the average salary?

jt2190 4y ago

A senior dev role is an income stream of USD n 000 000 dollars a year, that has certain guarantees about payments. In this context it makes sense to dedicate a considerable amount of personal time and effort to capture one. > … yet somehow you feel you yourself are the arrogant one for not doing more. That's not even highlighting all the other emotional effects the process had on the author, and the author is by no means "average" Learning techniques for managing one’s emotions and stress levels can pay huge dividends here. Part of that is stepping back and realizing that the “rules of the game” of resume/interviews/offer were written by employers, for their benefit first. (One technique for addressing this is to beak out of this process, and reach out to hiring managers directly. Professional sales people do this all the time; I’m not sure why selling labor is somehow magically different.)

DeathArrow 4y ago
>A senior dev role is an income stream of USD n 000 000 dollars a year That's true for US. In most parts of the world developer salaries are much lower.
- jt2190 4y ago
  I suppose that since Jamie is based in Nottingham, U.K. [1] then we should adjust the currency and number of zeros for his particular locale. My understanding is that senior software developer roles in the U.K. are also considered professional-level jobs that pay very well relative to other professional-level jobs in the local labor market, similar to the U.S., and are worth putting in some extra time and effort to get. I think the same is true about senior software developers in many other countries: They are professional-level jobs that pay well relative to other professional-level jobs in the local market, and they're definitely worth taking some time and effort to get. Feel free to provide specific examples of countries where this isn't the case. [1] "README" https://readme.jvt.me/ https://readme.jvt.me/
  - PeterisP 4y ago
    It's not only that the rate is adjusted for locale but that the disparities in USA are much larger. In USA a very senior engineer at a FAANG in California will earn 20x times more than a junior engineer at some small midwest company. In UK a very senior engineer in London will earn perhaps 4x that of a junior engineer in Wales. In USA "pays very well relative to other professional-level jobs in the local labor market" will often mean a compensation that's double or triple of those other jobs; in UK "pays very well relative to other professional-level jobs in the local labor market" would imply a 20% or 30% difference. That makes a meaningful conceptual difference.

snarfy 4y ago

Compensation for an interview for a job that even poorly compensated would put you in the top 5%? Talk about privilege. I'll happily do the interview on my own time for that potential payout. Push back? I'll be taking your job.

p1esk 4y ago
Unless you know you’re good and everyone wants you. Otherwise, yeah, good luck with pushing back.
BlargMcLarg 4y ago
That's an awful lot of assumptions. These practices are happening outside the very lucrative tech hubs as well. If this was just the hubs, that'd be something else entirely. Nor do I believe constantly encouraging more and more competition is in anyway healthy for society as a whole. Companies are already facilitating burnout cultures as is, and it's not at all evident if this benefits them in the long run.
- scarface74 4y ago
  Even if you aren’t in the “very lucrative tech hubs” and you’re making about $140K, a salary you can get in any large metro area in the US within 5-7 years and strategic job hopping, it still puts you in the top 10% of earners
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  - lotsofpulp 4y ago
    Top 10% does not get you as much as it used to these days.
    - scarface74 4y ago
      Amazingly people aren’t living in their cars and starving on only $140K…

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]