4 ms·

I understand the frustration here. I assume Kagi has a lot of candidates and is trying to identify the best ones for handling ambiguity. While I can appreciate

by cebert 1y ago

I understand the frustration here. I assume Kagi has a lot of candidates and is trying to identify the best ones for handling ambiguity. While I can appreciate the interviewee’s desire for more information or a rubric, it might potentially hurt the effectiveness of the take-home assignment. During my college days, I had an on-campus interview with Microsoft that served as an assessment for whether I would be eligible for more in-person interviews in Seattle. The interview question was open-ended: “I would like you to design an alarm clock.” It seemed like an unusual open-ended question that prompted me to consider several critical factors, such as the intended audience, physicality, visibility, and audibility. By considering these factors and not immediately presenting a solution, the interview team informed me that I had passed the test. If they had provided me with more specific instructions or guidelines before the interview, they might have missed a signal that was important to them. Unfortunately, I did not advance to the subsequent rounds at Microsoft. I interviewed during the fall semester. While I made it thru the full process, I was informed that I lacked confidence, but wasn’t a no. I was encouraged to reapply in the spring. The initial experience had left me drained and disheartened, so I decided not to pursue a second attempt. I now deeply regret this decision and wish I had given it another chance. If anyone is in a similar situation during their college years, I strongly advise them to avoid making my mistake. Working at a FAANG company could have changed my entire life and career trajectory.

remram 1y ago
The uncertainty of the assignment and the lack of responsiveness during this week-long unpaid endeavor are inexcusable. Your anecdote strikes me as a totally different process as Kagi's in every possible way. The problem is not the lack of a "rubric", it is the sheer amount of effort expected from the candidate, especially related to the unprofessionalism of the response. This process is set up to waste a maximum amount of time from candidates without any sort of feedback, and no proof that a reward even existed. How many dozens of people completed this assignment and got rejected? How many of those assignments were even reviewed by the manager? Did anyone actually get hired? "Giving details would make this less effective for the manager" doesn't begin to excuse this behavior. Honestly this hiring manager casts a negative light on the entire organization. Do they treat everyone this poorly? Business partners, employees?
stephen_g 1y ago
> I understand the frustration here. I assume Kagi has a lot of candidates and is trying to identify the best ones for handling ambiguity. While I can appreciate the interviewee’s desire for more information or a rubric, it might potentially hurt the effectiveness of the take-home assignment. I mean, potentially they failed the real test by asking all the questions - Kagi specifically say they're looking for people who can deal with an open-ended project, and instead of just deciding to do something cool, they seem to spend a lot of time demonstrating that they can't deal with open-endedness by asking a lot of questions and coming up with a detailed spec and asking for approval before starting. That's not to say what Kagi is doing is good, but it's probably for the best for the candidate that they didn't get the job because it sounds like they wouldn't flourish in that kind of environment (which is better to know before starting a job, instead of starting a job you're going to hate and then burning out or failing probation)
- krackers 1y ago
  * Ask clarifying questions: Get failed for not being able to handle ambiguity * Don't ask clarifying questions: Get failed for making assumptions and not identifying business requirements before implementation
  - theamk 1y ago
    nope, they asked the clarifying question, and got the response that there are no business requirements: "That is part of the assessment itself, see what kind of extra features you can come up if any." They were failed because they could not deal with the answer, they were not failed for act of asking the question itself. Actually happens sometimes in my work... Q: "Are there any requirements on the database used?" A: "Nope, just make sure the final system will be able to handle the required load"
qwerpy 1y ago
> The initial experience had left me drained and disheartened, so I decided not to pursue a second attempt. I now deeply regret this decision and wish I had given it another chance. If anyone is in a similar situation during their college years, I strongly advise them to avoid making my mistake. Working at a FAANG company could have changed my entire life and career trajectory. If this applies to you, this is probably the best advice anyone can give to you. I was granted an in-person interview with Microsoft as a freshman back in the early 2000s on account of my stellar GPA. They were the company to work at back then. Unfortunately, I didn't solve the brain teaser. Disheartened, I refused to try again even when they invited me to try again the next few years, and I went with an old dinosaur company instead. I realized my mistake shortly after starting to work at the dinosaur, and clawed my way tooth and nail into a job at Microsoft. It took me 2 years, but it was the single best thing I have done for my career, and changed the course of my life for the better.
josecodea 1y ago
I built an email client, it sent emails, it also received emails, it had an intuitive and speedy user interface, and it touched on fundamental topics for a web-application with users, quintessential topics for a back-end engineering role. Somehow the only criticism I got is that it was not simple enough. Perhaps the moral of the story is that many managers have no idea what the word "simple" implies in terms of software. This is a classic situation: Engineer gets asked to implement the "do what I mean" button by some manager, this is a magic button that when pressed will do whatever the manager wants at that moment. The manager acts shocked when they are told that this is not a simple request to fulfill. The manager thinks: "I am being tricked! I merely asked for a single button!"

by cebert 1y ago

remram 1y ago

The uncertainty of the assignment and the lack of responsiveness during this week-long unpaid endeavor are inexcusable. Your anecdote strikes me as a totally different process as Kagi's in every possible way. The problem is not the lack of a "rubric", it is the sheer amount of effort expected from the candidate, especially related to the unprofessionalism of the response. This process is set up to waste a maximum amount of time from candidates without any sort of feedback, and no proof that a reward even existed. How many dozens of people completed this assignment and got rejected? How many of those assignments were even reviewed by the manager? Did anyone actually get hired? "Giving details would make this less effective for the manager" doesn't begin to excuse this behavior. Honestly this hiring manager casts a negative light on the entire organization. Do they treat everyone this poorly? Business partners, employees?

stephen_g 1y ago

> I understand the frustration here. I assume Kagi has a lot of candidates and is trying to identify the best ones for handling ambiguity. While I can appreciate the interviewee’s desire for more information or a rubric, it might potentially hurt the effectiveness of the take-home assignment. I mean, potentially they failed the real test by asking all the questions - Kagi specifically say they're looking for people who can deal with an open-ended project, and instead of just deciding to do something cool, they seem to spend a lot of time demonstrating that they can't deal with open-endedness by asking a lot of questions and coming up with a detailed spec and asking for approval before starting. That's not to say what Kagi is doing is good, but it's probably for the best for the candidate that they didn't get the job because it sounds like they wouldn't flourish in that kind of environment (which is better to know before starting a job, instead of starting a job you're going to hate and then burning out or failing probation)

krackers 1y ago
* Ask clarifying questions: Get failed for not being able to handle ambiguity * Don't ask clarifying questions: Get failed for making assumptions and not identifying business requirements before implementation
- theamk 1y ago
  nope, they asked the clarifying question, and got the response that there are no business requirements: "That is part of the assessment itself, see what kind of extra features you can come up if any." They were failed because they could not deal with the answer, they were not failed for act of asking the question itself. Actually happens sometimes in my work... Q: "Are there any requirements on the database used?" A: "Nope, just make sure the final system will be able to handle the required load"

qwerpy 1y ago

> The initial experience had left me drained and disheartened, so I decided not to pursue a second attempt. I now deeply regret this decision and wish I had given it another chance. If anyone is in a similar situation during their college years, I strongly advise them to avoid making my mistake. Working at a FAANG company could have changed my entire life and career trajectory. If this applies to you, this is probably the best advice anyone can give to you. I was granted an in-person interview with Microsoft as a freshman back in the early 2000s on account of my stellar GPA. They were the company to work at back then. Unfortunately, I didn't solve the brain teaser. Disheartened, I refused to try again even when they invited me to try again the next few years, and I went with an old dinosaur company instead. I realized my mistake shortly after starting to work at the dinosaur, and clawed my way tooth and nail into a job at Microsoft. It took me 2 years, but it was the single best thing I have done for my career, and changed the course of my life for the better.

josecodea 1y ago

I built an email client, it sent emails, it also received emails, it had an intuitive and speedy user interface, and it touched on fundamental topics for a web-application with users, quintessential topics for a back-end engineering role. Somehow the only criticism I got is that it was not simple enough. Perhaps the moral of the story is that many managers have no idea what the word "simple" implies in terms of software. This is a classic situation: Engineer gets asked to implement the "do what I mean" button by some manager, this is a magic button that when pressed will do whatever the manager wants at that moment. The manager acts shocked when they are told that this is not a simple request to fulfill. The manager thinks: "I am being tricked! I merely asked for a single button!"