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My first though on looking at the code, and then on demo video was: wow, it took that person a solid week to write a web app with two pages.. all while missing

by theamk 1y ago

My first though on looking at the code, and then on demo video was: wow, it took that person a solid week to write a web app with two pages.. all while missing the most basic email features, like an ability to opening a message (and not just show full text of mail bodies on one page). Later on I read the requirements... This person applied to a position named "Email Backend Engineer" but they actually used a third-party product (postmark + turso) for email backend! They also clearly don't think about email too much - the basic stuff, like plaintext email formatting, viewing, and folders (at least inbox + outbox) are simply missing; while there are optional features, like login screen, admin page and backend framework. And backend database does not even containing a email headers map! That person might be a great engineer, but I don't think they would be a good fit for that specific position. I'd reject them as well. (A separate question is that hiring manager's second response... We don't do take-home interviews, but I imagine I'd be stumped by a proposal like that, it seems so irregular in a take-home assignment. Still, I can see how the candidate took that response for an approval... perhaps a next candidate would get an extra sentence perhaps something like "actual problem grading would depend on the code quality, number of features implemented, and how close those are to requirements and job description") Update: read original job description and not just the except from the blog. That person surely omitted some stuff in their blog! the original title was: "The project is to build a minimal, terminal-inspired email client" it gave examples: "Your implementation should take inspiration from existing terminal email tools like aerc, mutt, or even something like himalaya." wow! that's 100% no hire, serious inability to read the requirements.

MeetingsBrowser 1y ago
> serious inability to read the requirements. Which requirements were not met? - Email client can either be in the terminal (i.e. a TUI) or a web app - Should have basic email viewing + sending functionality Seems like both were more than met to me. Inspiration from existing tools is subjective. I would have assumed that spending time on the UI for a backend position was not the best way to show off my skills in a take home test.
- theamk 1y ago
  The 2nd line of assignment, "The project is to build a minimal, terminal-inspired email client". I agree that "inspiration" can be subjective, but in this particular case the solution was so much off that it'd be hard to argue otherwise. There is nothing terminal-like in it, and the tool is not usable as an email client either. Instead of doing login screens and user management, author should have made a page to view individual email or added folder (just 3, inbox/sent/trash, would already be a great improvement) And if you want to ignore the requirements and work off position description... the position is titled "Email Backend Engineer", and the candidate's solution offloads actual email operations (storage, transfer) to third-party services. I suspect that even if candidate provided the same UX, but would have backed it with SMTP, IMAP, TCP/IP (not via http library), DNS MX lookup, resilient storage etc... then they might have passed. But author failed to do either serious front-end work (required by question) or serious back-end work (required by job posting), so result was entirely predictable.
  - MeetingsBrowser 1y ago
    For every comment in this thread that says the author did too much, there is another saying the author clearly did not do enough. Plenty of comments here have strong, but conflicting, opinions about which set of features are obviously in or out of scope. That alone indicates to me that this is a badly worded take home test. Even ignoring that, the author told Kagi exactly what they were going to do in advance. Applicant: I'm going to spend a week building X Kagi: Sounds great! Applicant: After a week, I have built X Kagi: Not at all what we are looking for. Rejected. I don't see any way to interpret this interaction positively.
    - rsynnott 1y ago
      > For every comment in this thread that says the author did too much, there is another saying the author clearly did not do enough. Both can be true (they arguably did too much extraneous stuff, but didn't do what they were actually asked for). Mind you, this is a pretty ridiculous take-home question, and I'm sure they lose plenty of good candidates to "life is too short" at this point.
zzyzxd 1y ago
Still, as a candidate, it sucks that they worked for hours and only got a rejection with a templated message. At least tell me the reason why you don't like my work, so I can learn something from it! I get it that it's not always realistic to do, especially if the hiring manage reviews hundreds of applications for a hot role. But that's why take home assignment sucks. Some candidates may waste hours of their lives for nothing. Both sides need to be respectful of other people's time.
GoToRO 1y ago
"Email client can either be in the terminal (i.e. a TUI) or a web app"

by theamk 1y ago

MeetingsBrowser 1y ago

> serious inability to read the requirements. Which requirements were not met? - Email client can either be in the terminal (i.e. a TUI) or a web app - Should have basic email viewing + sending functionality Seems like both were more than met to me. Inspiration from existing tools is subjective. I would have assumed that spending time on the UI for a backend position was not the best way to show off my skills in a take home test.

theamk 1y ago
The 2nd line of assignment, "The project is to build a minimal, terminal-inspired email client". I agree that "inspiration" can be subjective, but in this particular case the solution was so much off that it'd be hard to argue otherwise. There is nothing terminal-like in it, and the tool is not usable as an email client either. Instead of doing login screens and user management, author should have made a page to view individual email or added folder (just 3, inbox/sent/trash, would already be a great improvement) And if you want to ignore the requirements and work off position description... the position is titled "Email Backend Engineer", and the candidate's solution offloads actual email operations (storage, transfer) to third-party services. I suspect that even if candidate provided the same UX, but would have backed it with SMTP, IMAP, TCP/IP (not via http library), DNS MX lookup, resilient storage etc... then they might have passed. But author failed to do either serious front-end work (required by question) or serious back-end work (required by job posting), so result was entirely predictable.
- MeetingsBrowser 1y ago
  For every comment in this thread that says the author did too much, there is another saying the author clearly did not do enough. Plenty of comments here have strong, but conflicting, opinions about which set of features are obviously in or out of scope. That alone indicates to me that this is a badly worded take home test. Even ignoring that, the author told Kagi exactly what they were going to do in advance. Applicant: I'm going to spend a week building X Kagi: Sounds great! Applicant: After a week, I have built X Kagi: Not at all what we are looking for. Rejected. I don't see any way to interpret this interaction positively.
  - rsynnott 1y ago
    > For every comment in this thread that says the author did too much, there is another saying the author clearly did not do enough. Both can be true (they arguably did too much extraneous stuff, but didn't do what they were actually asked for). Mind you, this is a pretty ridiculous take-home question, and I'm sure they lose plenty of good candidates to "life is too short" at this point.

zzyzxd 1y ago

Still, as a candidate, it sucks that they worked for hours and only got a rejection with a templated message. At least tell me the reason why you don't like my work, so I can learn something from it! I get it that it's not always realistic to do, especially if the hiring manage reviews hundreds of applications for a hot role. But that's why take home assignment sucks. Some candidates may waste hours of their lives for nothing. Both sides need to be respectful of other people's time.

GoToRO 1y ago

"Email client can either be in the terminal (i.e. a TUI) or a web app"