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"Take-home technical assignment (~4h)"<-- This right here is why senior people aren't interested. I've got 20 plus years of tech, I've been out of college sinc

"Take-home technical assignment (~4h)"<-- This right here is why senior people aren't interested. I've got 20 plus years of tech, I've been out of college since 1997 and you want to give a 4 hour homework assignment. If get you want to get a feel for someone's ability but this is more easily done by stating a problem during one of the interviews and asking the person "How would you approach this?" Listing for how they anticipate problems and tradeoffs.

carapace 4y ago
This was my first thought as well. "If you want me to do homework to prove I'm not incompetent that means your interview process is garbage." and it's an automatic pass on that company. My second thought was noticing that OP didn't actually ask for feedback from senior talent, the questions are addressed to other people hiring, so I figured I'd keep quiet. But then I couldn't help myself. ;)
pnathan 4y ago
would you like a take-home or would you like a whiteboard session? I need to have useful information that a candidate is more than a smooth talker.
- capableweb 4y ago
  What do you get from a whiteboard/take home assignment that you can't get from a conversation where you grill them about their answers?
  - pnathan 4y ago
    Conversations allow smooth talkers to run a snow job on you. Having a work sample test provides a best-in-class hiring filter.
    - ShamelessC 4y ago
      Only if you yourself don't know what you're talking about...
    - oaiey 4y ago
      If the hiring manager cannot distinguish a smooth talker for a senior role position, maybe the hiring manager is the problem. There is nothing a work sample can provide what a conversation cannot show for a senior role.
      - TameAntelope 4y ago
        Okay so now we're hiring a hiring manager and a developer, great. ...or maybe people in this thread just don't like having to prove they know things in an industry where a lot of people don't know things.
        ShamelessC 4y ago
        More like we're tired of having to "prove we know something" to people who have no clue what they're talking about (most recruiters). Further, there are probably lots of software engineers that have _never touched_ your framework of choice and will be able to learn and become proficient with it in a manner of weeks.
        TameAntelope 4y ago
        Having just gone through this with yet another developer who couldn't learn the framework in a couple of weeks, I am sick and tired of hiring people I have to coddle for months on end, only to end up having them quit because I didn't screen them correctly.
        ShamelessC 4y ago
        There are definitely a lot of bad candidates out there these days but I still find that I'm able to filter this by ignoring overly-hyped resumes and giving them a chance to talk about something that excites them as an engineer. If the answer is "learning new tech, becoming a better programmer, getting better at continuous integration", or something similarly encouraging, they're probably good to go in a few weeks to a couple of months. particular if they talk specifics and aren't talking out of their ass. If you can't discern that yourself then I don't know what to tell you ha. I'm aware that lying/cheating during interviews can be really common in enterprise. One approach that might work there is to try to meet candidates out at meetups in the area - this acts as a sort of self-filter and you can chat in person before the interview even gets extended.
    - jen20 4y ago
      Perhaps on you. I’ve never encountered someone where a 5 minute technical discussion told me less than a full day of interview would.
    - mrelectric 4y ago
      I'm a "smooth talker" but boy, do I fuck you over on practical project with 3 seniors sitting next to me.
    - scarface74 4y ago
      I’ve interviewed people for the type of role that the submitter is looking for. I can guarantee you that I could see through a “smooth talker”. In fact, I can smell someone who just memorized stuff from ACloudGuru a mile away.
    - peterkelly 4y ago
      Not if you ask the right questions
      - crummy 4y ago
        What kind of questions would you ask?
    - d13 4y ago
      Interview their referees and look at work they’ve done.
    - krageon 4y ago
      If you are not capable of dealing with charisma, you shouldn't be doing the interviews at all.
- Silhouette 4y ago
  would you like a take-home or would you like a whiteboard session? "Not if you'd like me to work for you, no." -- An actually senior developer in this market
no_butterscotch 4y ago
Same I skip these. Same with interview processes that front-load things with an "Online Assessment".
- orblivion 4y ago
  I worked somewhere that had a phone screen with very basic coding exercise just to weed out people who had no business applying, which was well over half. I imagine the online assessment is a similar thing.
porcoda 4y ago
Exactly. 25+ years in tech here too. When a company says "we're going to give you homework", that is a giant flashing sign that basically reads "we assume your resume is a lie, your references are lying for you (or we just aren't going to bother calling them), so we're going to test you". Hard pass. Having been on the hiring side of things, I get far more information out of a conversation where I can ask for details about someone's background and experience.
- devoutsalsa 4y ago
  I got my most recent job offer by talking to the hiring manager & a couple engineers for about two hours. They grilled me on talking points I’d fed them in my CV, along with some questions I couldn’t have prepared for. No coding, no take home exams. It was pretty great.
- jollybean 4y ago
  It's impossible to gather someone's competence from a resume or even in a conversation. A 4hr assignment is generally a really good way to gather competency. That said - it's just 'too much' of a hill for senior devs. to bother with and there are probably some ways to do 'regular interviewing' in order to figure that out. I have hired a ton of Engineers and I've found a lot of senior engineers to be particular, crusty and a bit weird: excelling in some ares, but cantankerous in other ways. But yes, 4hr hr take home is going to be a barrier.
TameAntelope 4y ago
Yeah, but as a counterpoint: your years of experience are not indicative of your skill, just that you can meet some arbitrarily low bar for a long time. The take-home technical assignment is to determine what, if anything, you actually learned in your 20+ years in tech. A depressingly large number of people with that level of experience have not learned anything meaningful.
- LargeWu 4y ago
  We do 2 hour interview. 1 hr of interactive coding with a sr/lead engineer, 1 with the hiring manager. We want to see them solve a problem, sure, but what's even more valuable is seeing how they approach problems, can they explain what they're doing, do they ask good questions, etc. Much more predictive than just looking at the final output and seeing if it passes a few unit tests. I would never hire an engineer without them writing actual code that gets compiled and run. It's the single most predictive thing we do in our hiring process. But, we also want to be respectful of people's time, hence limiting the coding session to an hour.
- reikonomusha 4y ago
  As someone who has been a hiring manager for the last decade, I'm absolutely befuddled by the "tenure => competence" assumption. Tenure doesn't weed out mediocrity by any stretch. In fact, the more tenure someone has, often the more difficult it is to determine from their resume alone whether they know anything.
  - __d 4y ago
    Time in the workforce doesn't indicate competence, but time at known employers can (since we're talking seniors here). When you're hiring, you should know where you want to hire people from. Normally, you'll know someone there, or who used to be there, so you can do the unofficial check: "Hey, do you remember X who used to work in group Y at company Z? Should I hire them?" At worst, you can do a friend-of-a-friend check. Of course, you should call their formal references as well, but their responses are normally going to range only from "yes" to "absolutely yes" (unless the candidate has messed up, and given a reference who will actually say "no"). Also useful: a short stint at a known-bad employer. This shows that the candidate recognized their mistake, and corrected it. I'll normally only interview someone who I can't background if their resume looks super impressive and I've got no better options.

carapace 4y ago

This was my first thought as well. "If you want me to do homework to prove I'm not incompetent that means your interview process is garbage." and it's an automatic pass on that company. My second thought was noticing that OP didn't actually ask for feedback from senior talent, the questions are addressed to other people hiring, so I figured I'd keep quiet. But then I couldn't help myself. ;)

pnathan 4y ago

would you like a take-home or would you like a whiteboard session? I need to have useful information that a candidate is more than a smooth talker.

capableweb 4y ago
What do you get from a whiteboard/take home assignment that you can't get from a conversation where you grill them about their answers?
- pnathan 4y ago
  Conversations allow smooth talkers to run a snow job on you. Having a work sample test provides a best-in-class hiring filter.
  - ShamelessC 4y ago
    Only if you yourself don't know what you're talking about...
  - oaiey 4y ago
    If the hiring manager cannot distinguish a smooth talker for a senior role position, maybe the hiring manager is the problem. There is nothing a work sample can provide what a conversation cannot show for a senior role.
    - TameAntelope 4y ago
      Okay so now we're hiring a hiring manager and a developer, great. ...or maybe people in this thread just don't like having to prove they know things in an industry where a lot of people don't know things.
      - ShamelessC 4y ago
        More like we're tired of having to "prove we know something" to people who have no clue what they're talking about (most recruiters). Further, there are probably lots of software engineers that have _never touched_ your framework of choice and will be able to learn and become proficient with it in a manner of weeks.
        TameAntelope 4y ago
        Having just gone through this with yet another developer who couldn't learn the framework in a couple of weeks, I am sick and tired of hiring people I have to coddle for months on end, only to end up having them quit because I didn't screen them correctly.
        ShamelessC 4y ago
        There are definitely a lot of bad candidates out there these days but I still find that I'm able to filter this by ignoring overly-hyped resumes and giving them a chance to talk about something that excites them as an engineer. If the answer is "learning new tech, becoming a better programmer, getting better at continuous integration", or something similarly encouraging, they're probably good to go in a few weeks to a couple of months. particular if they talk specifics and aren't talking out of their ass. If you can't discern that yourself then I don't know what to tell you ha. I'm aware that lying/cheating during interviews can be really common in enterprise. One approach that might work there is to try to meet candidates out at meetups in the area - this acts as a sort of self-filter and you can chat in person before the interview even gets extended.
  - jen20 4y ago
    Perhaps on you. I’ve never encountered someone where a 5 minute technical discussion told me less than a full day of interview would.
  - mrelectric 4y ago
    I'm a "smooth talker" but boy, do I fuck you over on practical project with 3 seniors sitting next to me.
  - scarface74 4y ago
    I’ve interviewed people for the type of role that the submitter is looking for. I can guarantee you that I could see through a “smooth talker”. In fact, I can smell someone who just memorized stuff from ACloudGuru a mile away.
  - peterkelly 4y ago
    Not if you ask the right questions
    - crummy 4y ago
      What kind of questions would you ask?
  - d13 4y ago
    Interview their referees and look at work they’ve done.
  - krageon 4y ago
    If you are not capable of dealing with charisma, you shouldn't be doing the interviews at all.
Silhouette 4y ago
would you like a take-home or would you like a whiteboard session? "Not if you'd like me to work for you, no." -- An actually senior developer in this market

no_butterscotch 4y ago

Same I skip these. Same with interview processes that front-load things with an "Online Assessment".

orblivion 4y ago
I worked somewhere that had a phone screen with very basic coding exercise just to weed out people who had no business applying, which was well over half. I imagine the online assessment is a similar thing.

porcoda 4y ago

Exactly. 25+ years in tech here too. When a company says "we're going to give you homework", that is a giant flashing sign that basically reads "we assume your resume is a lie, your references are lying for you (or we just aren't going to bother calling them), so we're going to test you". Hard pass. Having been on the hiring side of things, I get far more information out of a conversation where I can ask for details about someone's background and experience.

devoutsalsa 4y ago
I got my most recent job offer by talking to the hiring manager & a couple engineers for about two hours. They grilled me on talking points I’d fed them in my CV, along with some questions I couldn’t have prepared for. No coding, no take home exams. It was pretty great.
jollybean 4y ago
It's impossible to gather someone's competence from a resume or even in a conversation. A 4hr assignment is generally a really good way to gather competency. That said - it's just 'too much' of a hill for senior devs. to bother with and there are probably some ways to do 'regular interviewing' in order to figure that out. I have hired a ton of Engineers and I've found a lot of senior engineers to be particular, crusty and a bit weird: excelling in some ares, but cantankerous in other ways. But yes, 4hr hr take home is going to be a barrier.

TameAntelope 4y ago

Yeah, but as a counterpoint: your years of experience are not indicative of your skill, just that you can meet some arbitrarily low bar for a long time. The take-home technical assignment is to determine what, if anything, you actually learned in your 20+ years in tech. A depressingly large number of people with that level of experience have not learned anything meaningful.

LargeWu 4y ago
We do 2 hour interview. 1 hr of interactive coding with a sr/lead engineer, 1 with the hiring manager. We want to see them solve a problem, sure, but what's even more valuable is seeing how they approach problems, can they explain what they're doing, do they ask good questions, etc. Much more predictive than just looking at the final output and seeing if it passes a few unit tests. I would never hire an engineer without them writing actual code that gets compiled and run. It's the single most predictive thing we do in our hiring process. But, we also want to be respectful of people's time, hence limiting the coding session to an hour.
reikonomusha 4y ago
As someone who has been a hiring manager for the last decade, I'm absolutely befuddled by the "tenure => competence" assumption. Tenure doesn't weed out mediocrity by any stretch. In fact, the more tenure someone has, often the more difficult it is to determine from their resume alone whether they know anything.
- __d 4y ago
  Time in the workforce doesn't indicate competence, but time at known employers can (since we're talking seniors here). When you're hiring, you should know where you want to hire people from. Normally, you'll know someone there, or who used to be there, so you can do the unofficial check: "Hey, do you remember X who used to work in group Y at company Z? Should I hire them?" At worst, you can do a friend-of-a-friend check. Of course, you should call their formal references as well, but their responses are normally going to range only from "yes" to "absolutely yes" (unless the candidate has messed up, and given a reference who will actually say "no"). Also useful: a short stint at a known-bad employer. This shows that the candidate recognized their mistake, and corrected it. I'll normally only interview someone who I can't background if their resume looks super impressive and I've got no better options.