20 ms·

Show HN: Free, anonymous coding interview practice

604 points by leeny 12y ago

Swizec 12y ago
I love this! Too many of my friends who are great engineers melt down completely when faced with an actual interview for various reasons. But I do wonder if I could put this to use in freelancing as well. Sometimes clients, especially early-stage startups, go for a very normal-technical-interview approach to hiring freelancers
Centigonal 12y ago
Good idea! It leapfrogs the scores of existing "code interview practice tools" that give you a problem and a text editor and do some auto-validation on your answer by providing a human element. Something like this seems like a more relevant kind of practice. How does the business model here work? Are interviewers paid? Are you planning on eventually expanding into recruiting?
- leeny 12y ago
  hey, good question. right now, interviewers aren't paid, but that may change. re business model, ultimately, i'd like to have this platform be something companies can use to find candidates rather than relying on proxies like pedigree (or resume, for that matter!).
  - somerandomness 12y ago
    what do interviewers get out of it if they don't get paid? Are they employees?
columbo 12y ago
This is very interesting. This is one of the few actual disruptions that I've seen in the interviewing/hiring space. One small issue: I don't know what I'm getting into when I join the waiting list. I understand what the site is about, if I join will I suddenly be asked to take an interview next Friday? It would be nice to know a little more about the process.
- leeny 12y ago
  thanks. i really hope it is too! re what you're getting, i'll update the copy, but all that's gonna happen is that you'll get an email with an invite once we're ready for more users. nothing will ever be scheduled without your permission, and of course, no one will ever get your info.
- pbhjpbhj 12y ago
  A walkthrough video would be nice. I've never had a "technical interview" and don't know what it entails, for example. Should there maybe be a pre-testing phase to weed out those who could simply not approach the level that could pass the technical interview?
  - leeny 12y ago
    thanks! video is in the works.
notastartup 12y ago
This is a very promising idea. I always crack when it comes to algorithm type question. I am aware of some of the run of the mill ones like, write a palindrome detector, bubble sort. However, I still can't figure out the crazy hard ones like: In a pyramid of numbers, write an algorithm to find the path to the biggest sum. Write a method to produce pascal's triangle. Given a grid, where X = wall, O = space, write an algorithm to figure how big the room is and so on.... My biggest gripe is knowing that these type of questions will kick my ass and not being able to prepare because you are already supposed to know this from your comp sci courses, which I've never been to as I have been self taught through making my own software, and learning as I went along.
- mquander 12y ago
  If you're a naturally competitive sort of person, you should try doing TopCoder and Google Code Jam. I also skipped formal CS education and when I was roughly at your level of ability I found that doing TopCoder SRMs in particular taught me a nice toolbox of common approaches to algorithmic problems.
- yincrash 12y ago
  tree of numbers -> keep track of the sum as you work your way down the branch. every visit to a node, check if that sum of the parent plus your current node is larger your your current max. if it is, replace your max, keep traversing your tree.
10098 12y ago
I can easily see the benefit it provides for the interviewees, but what's in it for the interviewers?
- ernestipark 12y ago
  I think this site is ignoring the value add for the interviewers as well. Interviewing others is a skill and takes practice and dedication. Many people just take some coding question and ask a candidate without thinking it through much and what they're actually analyzing. It would be good practice for interviewers as well.
  - spyder 12y ago
    You mean like: they could allow a third person to watch/listen the interview and at the end of it, rate the interviewer and give suggestions for improvement?
- ThrustVectoring 12y ago
  Every interview you run has positive expected value - you get better at the process, and it may end up in a positive-value hire. If you've got low opportunity-cost time, this is a great tool for consuming it.
- grogenaut 12y ago
  I can see it as good for practicing for the interviewer. It'd also be good if I could easily make an offer out and use that as a way of sourcing candidates and getting my referral bonus on.
- europa 12y ago
  Interviewer can be the person responsible for hiring in a corporation/startup. He/She can hire the interviewee. This is a win win!
- michaelt 12y ago
  The intellectual challenge is a baited hook for headhunting people who aren't looking for work, so aren't actively applying for jobs or answering cold calls.
lazyant 12y ago
S
- lazyant 12y ago
  Submitted this by mistake, can't delete, funny how downvoters don't see that.
  - jcculb 12y ago
    Right, it was at least more insightful than "This!".
- claus1860 12y ago
  This is a very interesting discussion. Would love to hear your thoughts on our London based startup www.Prehash.com which is going in a similar direction. Companies can host organization specific coding challenges on our website and developers apply by solving them. There is no time limit for developers and no one is looking over your shoulder. The only thing is that each time you run the test we take a snapshot in a github repo. Any feedback is welcome! Cheers.
  - bleak999 12y ago
    I would like to know how it is different from the likes of different website which seemingly do the same thing - HackerRank, Codility, HackerEarth etc., Mind explaining what is it that you are planning to do different?
    - claus1860 12y ago
      Hi bleak, Prehash helps companies to attract and engage with developers through coding challenges. Codility is a pure code testing site IMHO. HackerEarth according to crunchbase provides a SaaS application to do automated assessment of technical and logical skills of candidates HackerRank is going more in our direction with coding challenges to engage with and find candidates as opposed to testing them.
lazyant 12y ago
Silly question, why not chat (which can be saved for review etc) instead of audio?
- leeny 12y ago
  hmm, so audio is closer to what you'd get in the wild, ultimately making for more indicative practice. logging it might be useful down the line, though, in some format (provided users agree to that)!
- myth_buster 12y ago
  I suppose they could do the same with audio. Save it and perhaps also provide transcripts.
tannerc 12y ago
I really wish this had existed a year ago when I panicked during an interview. Having this type of practice is ideal in my mind for any type of technical role. I, too, am curious about sustaining this service though. Have you considered offering tiers for participants?
saganus 12y ago
As minor feedback, it would be great if the "How it works" section actually contained how it works info. I only see 3 steps that look more like facts than actual "how's". Totally free fully anonymous and interviewers from top companies. How does that explain how it works? I would prefer something like: 1) Signup 2) List all available interviewers (or interviews, or subjects or something) 3) Select one, schedule it 4) Have an interview 5) See results! Or something like that. I have found that when you use a question as a webpage, blog or other text, it's really good when you actually answer said question instead of not. Or don't use a question as a section title perhaps? I would be much more interested in this neat idea if I had a better way of evaluating it I had more info. Edit: For example, can I select interviews by subject? or by interviewer ex-employer, or by level (basic, advanced, etc) or is it random? Can I rate the interviewer as well?
- leeny 12y ago
  great feedback, will fix. thank you!
  - saganus 12y ago
    Great! thank you. I'm looking forward for this.
gourneau 12y ago
I have had Aline Lerner reach out to me as a recruiter before. She is one of the best. She worked hard to find great matches.
- leeny 12y ago
  ohai josh! thanks!
callmeed 12y ago
This is awesome. There is a chance I may be looking for work later this year BUT I've been doing my own thing for > 10 years.
cnp 12y ago
I'm absolutely one of these people who melt down. Give me a task and leave the room and I'm on it, but while being watched I loose all ability to think, which I think has a lot to do with the fact that I never went to college and jumped right into the industry directly after high school essentially bypassing a very important skill you learn there: test taking. Two weeks ago the position of my dreams -- literally, exactly what I wanted to do, and at a totally rad and well-regarded company -- vanished during my second interview after (what I believe) was a killer and detailed coding challenge submission (which we discussed at length) and an excellent first interview. Why? Function.apply -- LOL "Describe event delegation" -- LOL Stuff you learn during DAY ONE of JavaScript coding (I've been programming for over ten years in a number of languages, and have built many, many large-scale applications). It was absolutely humiliating, and I'm still recovering from it in the worst of ways. My brain just froze up completely. Thanks for putting the site up because I'm sure there are many people that will benefit. I've got an interview at Amazon at 3pm and those are notoriously difficult; wish it were already live and running! I'm not looking forward to it.
- hueving 12y ago
  Not to be a downer, but Amazon isn't that great of a company to work for in the grand scheme of tech companies. Very few perks for engineers and penny pinching on workstations, monitors, etc. It really starts to wear on you after a while and you feel like nothing more than a 'necessary cost'.
  - cnp 12y ago
    I most definitely do not want to work at amazon :) This is a contract position till I find something that is right.
- gearoidoc 12y ago
  Dude, if you're that passionate about that job you just described then I'd suggest calling the company up and explaining what happened. Having interviewed many people I'd certainly be open to giving someone a second chance if they explained a situation like yours to me.
general_failure 12y ago
This looks great. These days I skip all interviews which require me to code in the interview. I have plenty of open source code, if they cannot figure how good I am looking at, then they definitely cannot figure how good I am with a 3 hour coding interview. IMO, coding interviews is like public speaking. Many people get nervous in front of a crowd. It's a skill one has to obtain should it be required. Coding interviews are quite irrelevant for a programmer/developer position.
- cnp 12y ago
  Exactly my thinking as well. Dig in, look around, its obvious what I can do, and what I'm capable of learning. Ask me to code a sample app and comment every function with detailed explanations of my thought process. Add me as a collaborator to GitHub and request that I make some pull requests on your product. Live coding interviews are more irrelevant than irrelevant and completely ignore the fact that many people -- and especially introverted technical types -- just don't do well in front of groups.
  - akanet 12y ago
    Coding interviews don't ignore any facts - they are simply often the best signal/time tool available. Many people do not have time to root around in your personal repositories or wait for you to commit pull requests. They have a pipeline of people they need to screen, and you can't wait on everyone in a pool of candidates to take their sweet time before deciding on a winner. Technical screens are synchronous and relatively well understood. If they are not the literally BEST choice of time for figuring out if someone is a good developer, they are at least a very defensible choice.
    - cnp 12y ago
      Your comment is unfortunate but true. Hopefully one day someone will think up a better way to do things.
  - justinpaulson 12y ago
    Maybe doing well in front of groups is a skill that companies want in their employees.
capkutay 12y ago
Great...so when everyone does this and becomes good at technical interviews, SV companies will find some other meaningless, high pressure method to screen job candidates. "Steal a bone from this agitated rottweiler while you recite every other fibonacci number up to 20"
- akanet 12y ago
  I think this is an extremely pessimistic view of what is likely to happen. Being good at interviewing (on both the candidate and interviewer side) doesn't mean that you get jobs you aren't qualified for, it means presenting a more accurate picture of your skills or what the job is. Anything that moves us in that direction is probably good.
xtrumanx 12y ago
Pretty cool idea; instantly signed up. I was thinking about posting "Ask HN: Interview me" since I don't have many interview opportunities in my corner of the world and wanted to find out how good you guys think I am. If anyone wants to test out their interview skills with me, we could set up a meet over at talky.io and discuss some C# or js. Mail address is in my profile.
adamredwoods 12y ago
I'd also be interested in a "faux" simulation, perhaps where it is pre-recorded video interviewer with a countdown timer. The video could occasionally say "Are you sure you want to do that?".
nawitus 12y ago
>First and foremost, if you're trying to get better at technical interviews, the best way to do that is to actually do it. So to fix problems with signaling there should more signaling and even more wasted hours?
danielweber 12y ago
I pressed the "sign up" button and . . . nothing happened.
- owenversteeg 12y ago
  For me a popup appeared with a Github auth window. It's possible that your browser blocked the popup.
  - danielweber 12y ago
    I did email, not Github. I no more want to log in with Github than I want to log in with Facebook. EDIT It seems to crash in the background if you have a "+" in your email address.
    - leeny 12y ago
      thanks, will fix!
      - danielweber 12y ago
        Also, if you don't email me immediately, I probably won't ever think to check my spam folder later.
thomasmann 12y ago
I'm very scared of interviewing. I'm 29 and actually never got a job by interviewing and only had 1 interview in my life. It was kinda awful and the lady that interviewed me explained me how I was failing, which I understood but can't improve just by will alone. I also have big troubles on how oral communication implies a deadline (answer quickly or look bad)... I enjoy emails much more than the phone She said I had to sell my skills much more, instead of strictly answering questions and then waiting for the next one in silence. I felt like a sociopath with no people skills.. I'm kinda shy guy that doesn't do well with strangers, or bigger groups. From my readings online, this is very common with anxious people or introverts. In the interview there wasn't a group but there was the "this person can control my destiny" pressure, which is also irrational (you can always get another job). Another things that affects me is impostor syndrome: selling myself feels like lying. Also the crap unanswerable questions like "What's your biggest flaw?" So this could actually be very good for me :)
drhayes9 12y ago
Kinda off-topic: where'd you get the batman icon?
ankit84 12y ago
Their oAuth application URL is localhost :P (check at the time of Github authorize)
dreamdu5t 12y ago
I've been using https://www.interviewcake.com https://www.interviewcake.com and highly recommend it. It's just a series of problems you work through combined with advice.
- nmrm 12y ago
  There's a lot to an interview besides just coding questions. Interacting with an actual interviewer lets you get all of the human interactions, talk in-between problems, using problems to showcase talent, etc... all this stuff I'm told I should do but have no idea how to actually do, basically.
- domluna 12y ago
  Haha thanks for this, I actually signed up for this a while back and completely forgot the name of the site.
stangeek 12y ago
I love the footnote on the homepage ;)
mVChr 12y ago
I like this in concept. It's like how major symphony orchestras hire, put a curtain up between the performer and the judges so that the performer is never seen and is assessed solely on the merits of their performance. Interesting to see how it might play out in practice through this site.
grdvnl 12y ago
It would also be great to have some sort of feedback mechanism also given in anonymity.
FallDead 12y ago
This is a great idea, I can keep my skills up to date and be employable, if my Canadian startup fails.
johnward 12y ago
It's like Chatroulette[1] for technical interviews. [1] But without the dicks I laughed at this...
- Link- 12y ago
  I came here to say just that! :D
  - tiler 12y ago
    me too.
deleted 12y ago
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benologist 12y ago
Brilliant way to connect companies that are hiring to developers without the pressure of a 'real' interview.
zcase 12y ago
Why would this be free?
zcase 12y ago
Why would this be free?
mathattack 12y ago
I wonder where the interviewers will come from. That said, this is a great idea, and also along the lines of the "Show me a million new jobs" RFS [0]. [0] http://blog.ycombinator.com/new-rfs-one-million-jobs http://blog.ycombinator.com/new-rfs-one-million-jobs
dkitchener 12y ago
Simply Awesome!
Estragon 12y ago
Is there a business model here? Why are the talented engineers running the practice interviews devoting time to this?
- fecak 12y ago
  I'm guessing because there is potential they could find a hire. Even though you can choose to be anonymous, if two people hit it off there is nothing preventing them from exchanging contact info. Seems like somewhat long odds unless the candidate is willing to relocate anywhere.
lightblade 12y ago
This is not only good for the interviewee, but also a great practice ground for interviewers. Interviewing candidates also takes skills. :)
prezjordan 12y ago
Congrats, Aline! This is too awesome. Be sure to check out her blog as well, "making technical recruiting suck less." Tons of fantastic content. http://blog.alinelerner.com/ http://blog.alinelerner.com/
onislandtime 12y ago
Dear software professional: if you have been rejected because of a coding interview, don't feel bad or discouraged. It has little to do with how smart you are. Unfortunately, this style of interviews is likely ineffective and leads to hiring people who look alike and have similar skills. Solving a problem with someone looking over your shoulder and forcing you to talk to explain what you are thinking is a skill that I've never seen used in the real world. I'm sure new grads spend a lot of time in classes training for this. Many great people don't function like this and still they may come up with brilliant ideas after a day or a week. Some people have breath of knowledge and study specific topics as needed. Some people can write very well and may not be super fast in tests. I know many brilliant engineers who have been rejected and are doing just fine, building amazing products, and leading teams. If corporations really wanted a cookie cutter method to evaluate CS knowledge, then they should require a scientifically validated standardized test conducted by a third party. It would be cheaper than using engineers' time. So why don't they do that? The reality is that they think they are doing more than that but there is no scientific proof that the interview method works. They don't want false positives but they cannot measure efficacy. If you are one of the guys who know how to perform, then you can get hired faster. In some cases if you are an outsider (older, female, different), then your chances of knowing the "secret interview code" is much lower.
- akanet 12y ago
  "Solving a problem with someone looking over your shoulder and forcing you to talk to explain what you are thinking" is actually how problems are generally solved in most fields. Software engineering is perhaps one of the lone exceptions, and I think the pair programming movement has a bone or two to pick with your premise.
  - onislandtime 12y ago
    People are very diverse, some are fast and chatty, others are quiet and slow. Usually I perceive the fast and chatty types a bit arrogant. Personality and cultural background is probably an influence. Best teams have a great mix. Often caring about the work is more important than having a genius. (Of course people should be competent).
eric_bullington 12y ago
I find code interviewing so nerve-wracking that I'm delaying my transition from another profession into a much-desired full-time programming job. I'm 40 and always aced interviews before I did my first coding interview last year. In my prior career, I literally never had an interview that failed to result in an offer. But I blew my first coding interview both in the interview itself -- in which I repeatedly blanked out and froze -- and in my failure to show the company my best work (they asked what I was hacking on and so I showed them a half-assed blog engine I was rolling using the remnants of another project when I should have shown my more polished work.). This interview was so bad that I cannot yet bring myself to try it again, despite spending lots of time polishing up on algorithms and data structures. Up to now, I had never experienced performance anxiety of any type -- I did very well on interviews and standardized tests like the GRE. Yet now I'm petrified of programming interviews. By local standards, I'm a pretty good programmer (by HN standards I'm probably average). And what I lack in knowledge I made up for with enthusiasm and persistence. I've got a bunch of code of varying quality on Github, including small contributions to several very large open source projects and a moderately popular open source project that I created and maintain myself. I'm also limited by the fact that due to my family situation, I can only consider remote jobs at the moment. But by far my main hurdle is this fear of programming interviews. I'll definitely be taking a look at this. Maybe this will help be break through my mental block.
- chrissnell 12y ago
  I'm right there with you. 39 years old and I've been doing Linux systems administration and writing code since college in the mid 90s. Aced every interview I ever went to up until a couple of years ago. These Google-style coding interviews for systems/operations roles are the death of me and it's a shame. I have deep systems experience and I spend a lot of my spare time coding in Go [1] but I have little formal CS education and my full-time gig does not involve writing code all day, errrr' day. It's so frustrating, these interviews. You want to tell them, "Look, hire me and I will make your infrastructure scaling issues disappear and I'll save you money doing it" but that never happens because they see me get hung up on a sorting algorithm and immediately lose interest. I'm not looking for a new gig but I'll give their site a shot when I am. [1] https://github.com/chrissnell?tab=repositories https://github.com/chrissnell?tab=repositories
lukasm 12y ago
I had the same idea a year ago :) Simply, Google and other companies do CV, 2 phone screens and on-site. Someone could handle for them CV and 1st phone screen. They would not only save 45mins for recruiters and devs, but will get extra productivity. No distraction for hackers. Charge a little to filter out people that clicked, but don't care. I'd pay.
domluna 12y ago
Is it just me or shouldn't we be moving towards projects rather than code interviews? I think you can recover far more about a person in a project setting than by asking them a couple of random questions to solve in X time.
- mahyarm 12y ago
  Time wise it costs too much for the candidate.
Jemaclus 12y ago
Nice. Aline is pretty sharp for a recruiter, and this just makes it even better. Great idea!
chipgap98 12y ago
As someone who is going into my senior year of college, this looks fantastic. I don't have a ton of experience with technical interviews and I would love to get some more. I've had 3-4 so far and even for similar jobs I feel like the interviewers are looking for totally different things. Some want me to spit definitions back at them and others are looking for me solve problems. It is hard to know what to expect, especially when interviewing at startups.
jheriko 12y ago
yeah... there is a big problem with interviews and best practices already. if you are good enough at an interview you can con your employer into giving you lots of money for not very much... can we have a service that goes the other way? identifying that brilliant junior who is worth 5x his years or the dirty rat who has 30 years of experience working out how to not do his job and get away with it.... that's hard. interviews are already easy to win for the prospective employee...
logfromblammo 12y ago
This is especially useful when you consider that companies that actually interview you absolutely will not tell you why you failed their process, or they will offer diplomatic deceptions instead.
yeureka 12y ago
This looks very interesting. I have been through a lot of interviews in the past, with small and large companies and now being in charge of hiring developers I try to make the experience as friendly and as efficient as possible. I hate white-board coding interviews because of the pressure of doing it in front of a stranger, and I choose not to have that in our company. But I do ask technical questions related to the job and I give as much time as the candidate needs to complete a very simple coding test ( fizzbuzz type ) on his/her own in a private office free of distractions and other people. Unfortunately there are people with amazing cv's who can't solve simple problems or who can't explain what they have done in previous projects. Interviewing is hard and there are a lot of biases at play but it needs to be done.
Phlow 12y ago
Whiteboard coding problems are absolute garbage. I recently had a remote code problem where I was given a Visual Studio IDE (albeit minus Resharper) and absolutely killed it. If I'm going to be challenged to write code in front of you, give me the tools I use every day, let me use the resources I use to solve problems efficiently (which btw can include StackOverflow) and you will get a much better picture of me. I don't write perfect code the moment it's written. Often I will mentally acknowledge something needs further thought and my brain will revisit it, sometimes days later, sometimes after multiple iterations. I'm fastidious about those types of things, and as a result I can realistically say I write some of the best and least buggy code in my company. I'm also very good at theorizing about problems and debugging, which is never looked at in an interview. I guarantee you should hire me, but how can I show you that, and how can you gain confidence in that?
gejjaxxita 12y ago
Coding interview practice is absolutely key. I recently began interviewing for the first time with a number of companies (I'm about to graduate). I noticed that over the course of a month and 3 interviews with 3 separate companies my interviewing skills had increased hugely. The 4th company I interviewed at had a very different perception of me than the 1st because of the month's practice, even though I had essentially the same technical skills. Coding interviews test "coding interview ability" rather than "coding ability", unfortunately the other ways (Github, aptitude tests etc..) have their own problems.
lifeisstillgood 12y ago
A friend of mine surprised me recently - he is starting a "new kind of job board". Which struck me as "meh" till he explained - it's more of a "Developer Relationship Management" system. The idea is if you have developers they will interact with other developers - so track those interactions and you get a good idea of where and how to fish
jbcurtin2 12y ago
> Hi, my name is Aline. I used to code for a living. Now I hire engineers. One of the things I've done that I'm most proud of is Lessons from a year's worth of hiring data, where I showed that, in an engineering resume, pedigree isn't a particularly valuable signal (whereas typos and grammatical errors are) So what happens if you're lystdexic?
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]
- jacalata 12y ago
  You learn to use a word processor with spellcheck and get someone else to proofread your resume before sending it out, just like someone who isn't dyslexic should do.
jacalata 12y ago
How does it manage not to connect me with someone that I work with based on just my github profile? I work with plenty of people who don't have a github profile, or if they do I'm not connected to it. I'm probably not connected to most of them on LinkedIn either.
rgawdzik 12y ago
This is a great resource for first year CS co-op students at Waterloo. Even though Waterloo grads end up with at least a hundred interviews under their belts, the first few are really difficult. Great job, keep up the work!
minusSeven 12y ago
Any ideas how the whole thing will be implemented. The site only contains very generic information about it. How are the interviews going to be conducted ? What will be the different forms of interviews (as most companies have different forms and phases of interviews) ? How will the feedbacks be given ? Hope this just doesn't turn out to be just meeting place for anonymous interviewers and interviewees .
deleted 12y ago
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learc83 12y ago
None of my engineer friends have ever had a Google style technical interview. What makes software so different? You don't ask an electrical engineer to layout a complicated PCB on a whiteboard, you don't have a civil engineer build a bridge out of popsicle sticks. Surely hiring an incompetent electrical engineer is just as bad as hiring an incompetent software engineer, but from talking to the EEs I know, they just get asked basic questions or go over past projects--nothing nearly as stressful as a coding interview. If other industries can get by without them, whiteboard technical interviews must not be as necessary as they're made out to be. It seems to me they are just a damaging fad. I think the high stress technical interview could even be one of the factors contributing to the software monoculture.
- keppy 12y ago
  Well if your job resembles writing on a whiteboard, solving problems, then they should make sure you can do that in the interview. Try going through some problems on a white board you'll probably enjoy it more than you assume!
  - learc83 12y ago
    Software engineering doesn't resemble anything like solving brain teasers on a white board while your boss watches over your shoulder. No other engineering discipline does this, and software didn't do this until everyone started copying Google. In fact an HR guy from Google basically said that interviews were useless. [1] >Years ago, we did a study to determine whether anyone at Google is particularly good at hiring. We looked at tens of thousands of interviews, and everyone who had done the interviews and what they scored the candidate, and how that person ultimately performed in their job. We found zero relationship. It’s a complete random mess, except for one guy who was highly predictive because he only interviewed people for a very specialized area, where he happened to be the world’s leading expert. Everyone else is copying Google assuming they are doing it right, but they're not. Once Google selects potential candidates and weeds out the people who lied on their resumes with basic questions, they'd probably do just as well hiring a random selection. [1] http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/20/business/in-head-hunting-big-data-may-not-be-such-a-big-deal.html?pagewanted=2&_r=0&smid=tw-nytimesbusiness&partner=socialflow http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/20/business/in-head-hunting-b...
user1408 12y ago
There is voice but no video! How awesome is that! You invented the telephone, I guess. Seriously, I have no idea what kind of service you are trying to describe on interviewing.io. There is only the usual BS like "totally free" and no actual answers.
gtani 12y ago
(if you have to submit to a memorization-based screen) I didn't see source materials to review for canonical algos/data structures questions. The 2 books by McDowell and Guiness ("Ace the interview" and "Crack the interview" ) are good, along with http://algorithmsandme.blogspot.com/p/blog-page_27.html http://algorithmsandme.blogspot.com/p/blog-page_27.html https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7477095 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7477095 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7827048 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7827048 http://www.quora.com/Which-are-the-frequently-asked-interview-questions-for-Java-Engineers http://www.quora.com/Which-are-the-frequently-asked-intervie... I could put up alist for math for ML/data science as well)
sequoia 12y ago
If one of the goals is encouraging meritocracy, I cannot imagine why it was decided to add voice to the interview. From someone's voice I can frequently tell their gender & maybe their socioeconomic background, sometimes their race (or what I think their race is)... Basically I don't really buy the "meritocracy" argument if you still have to say "I'm a woman" or "I'm a man" at the start of a technical interview.
justicezyx 12y ago
I only have 1 sentence: “Coding interview (democracy) is the worst form of interview (government), except for all the others”
- onislandtime 12y ago
  Not a good analogy. You can design interviews and measure outcomes. The goal is not to eliminate coding if it is relevant for the position, you need to do it right. There are people who spend their life designing and validating tests, don't ask a busy engineer to wing it. Companies could use an unbiased computer-based test as a first pass. This way, candidates can prepare and feel they are getting a fair chance. In the second pass the interviewer can focus on higher level problems and soft skills.
keppy 12y ago
Reflections on whiteboarding: Lately I have realized that I use google a lot less than I did in the past. I don't have to look things up as much, thus I have seen gains in speed when working on some functionality. The interesting part is that coding/reasoning without google feels a lot like whiteboarding. In fact I get into the same 'mental patterns' when solving a problem I don't need google for that I feel when brushing up on algorithm problems at the white board. I don't come from long history of math rigor. I don't have a mathy degree at all and have hardly used a whiteboard in front of any professors or math nerds. But I'm also not an imbecile; computer science is built upon a foundation of mathematics and if you aren't willing to play ball then get off the fucking field.
uberwach 12y ago
Great idea! Being Berlin based I am really curious on how tough the interviews are gonna be. The interviews I have had here were not challenging at all. The technical problems did not even reach the difficulty of qualification round problems in Google's Code Jam.
mellisarob 12y ago
this wont workout i suppose

604 points by leeny 12y ago

I love this! Too many of my friends who are great engineers melt down completely when faced with an actual interview for various reasons. But I do wonder if I could put this to use in freelancing as well. Sometimes clients, especially early-stage startups, go for a very normal-technical-interview approach to hiring freelancers

Centigonal 12y ago

Good idea! It leapfrogs the scores of existing "code interview practice tools" that give you a problem and a text editor and do some auto-validation on your answer by providing a human element. Something like this seems like a more relevant kind of practice. How does the business model here work? Are interviewers paid? Are you planning on eventually expanding into recruiting?

leeny 12y ago
hey, good question. right now, interviewers aren't paid, but that may change. re business model, ultimately, i'd like to have this platform be something companies can use to find candidates rather than relying on proxies like pedigree (or resume, for that matter!).
- somerandomness 12y ago
  what do interviewers get out of it if they don't get paid? Are they employees?

columbo 12y ago

This is very interesting. This is one of the few actual disruptions that I've seen in the interviewing/hiring space. One small issue: I don't know what I'm getting into when I join the waiting list. I understand what the site is about, if I join will I suddenly be asked to take an interview next Friday? It would be nice to know a little more about the process.

leeny 12y ago
thanks. i really hope it is too! re what you're getting, i'll update the copy, but all that's gonna happen is that you'll get an email with an invite once we're ready for more users. nothing will ever be scheduled without your permission, and of course, no one will ever get your info.
pbhjpbhj 12y ago
A walkthrough video would be nice. I've never had a "technical interview" and don't know what it entails, for example. Should there maybe be a pre-testing phase to weed out those who could simply not approach the level that could pass the technical interview?
- leeny 12y ago
  thanks! video is in the works.

notastartup 12y ago

This is a very promising idea. I always crack when it comes to algorithm type question. I am aware of some of the run of the mill ones like, write a palindrome detector, bubble sort. However, I still can't figure out the crazy hard ones like: In a pyramid of numbers, write an algorithm to find the path to the biggest sum. Write a method to produce pascal's triangle. Given a grid, where X = wall, O = space, write an algorithm to figure how big the room is and so on.... My biggest gripe is knowing that these type of questions will kick my ass and not being able to prepare because you are already supposed to know this from your comp sci courses, which I've never been to as I have been self taught through making my own software, and learning as I went along.

mquander 12y ago
If you're a naturally competitive sort of person, you should try doing TopCoder and Google Code Jam. I also skipped formal CS education and when I was roughly at your level of ability I found that doing TopCoder SRMs in particular taught me a nice toolbox of common approaches to algorithmic problems.
yincrash 12y ago
tree of numbers -> keep track of the sum as you work your way down the branch. every visit to a node, check if that sum of the parent plus your current node is larger your your current max. if it is, replace your max, keep traversing your tree.

10098 12y ago

I can easily see the benefit it provides for the interviewees, but what's in it for the interviewers?

ernestipark 12y ago
I think this site is ignoring the value add for the interviewers as well. Interviewing others is a skill and takes practice and dedication. Many people just take some coding question and ask a candidate without thinking it through much and what they're actually analyzing. It would be good practice for interviewers as well.
- spyder 12y ago
  You mean like: they could allow a third person to watch/listen the interview and at the end of it, rate the interviewer and give suggestions for improvement?
ThrustVectoring 12y ago
Every interview you run has positive expected value - you get better at the process, and it may end up in a positive-value hire. If you've got low opportunity-cost time, this is a great tool for consuming it.
grogenaut 12y ago
I can see it as good for practicing for the interviewer. It'd also be good if I could easily make an offer out and use that as a way of sourcing candidates and getting my referral bonus on.
europa 12y ago
Interviewer can be the person responsible for hiring in a corporation/startup. He/She can hire the interviewee. This is a win win!
michaelt 12y ago
The intellectual challenge is a baited hook for headhunting people who aren't looking for work, so aren't actively applying for jobs or answering cold calls.

lazyant 12y ago

lazyant 12y ago
Submitted this by mistake, can't delete, funny how downvoters don't see that.
- jcculb 12y ago
  Right, it was at least more insightful than "This!".
claus1860 12y ago
This is a very interesting discussion. Would love to hear your thoughts on our London based startup www.Prehash.com which is going in a similar direction. Companies can host organization specific coding challenges on our website and developers apply by solving them. There is no time limit for developers and no one is looking over your shoulder. The only thing is that each time you run the test we take a snapshot in a github repo. Any feedback is welcome! Cheers.
- bleak999 12y ago
  I would like to know how it is different from the likes of different website which seemingly do the same thing - HackerRank, Codility, HackerEarth etc., Mind explaining what is it that you are planning to do different?
  - claus1860 12y ago
    Hi bleak, Prehash helps companies to attract and engage with developers through coding challenges. Codility is a pure code testing site IMHO. HackerEarth according to crunchbase provides a SaaS application to do automated assessment of technical and logical skills of candidates HackerRank is going more in our direction with coding challenges to engage with and find candidates as opposed to testing them.

lazyant 12y ago

Silly question, why not chat (which can be saved for review etc) instead of audio?

leeny 12y ago
hmm, so audio is closer to what you'd get in the wild, ultimately making for more indicative practice. logging it might be useful down the line, though, in some format (provided users agree to that)!
myth_buster 12y ago
I suppose they could do the same with audio. Save it and perhaps also provide transcripts.

tannerc 12y ago

I really wish this had existed a year ago when I panicked during an interview. Having this type of practice is ideal in my mind for any type of technical role. I, too, am curious about sustaining this service though. Have you considered offering tiers for participants?

saganus 12y ago

As minor feedback, it would be great if the "How it works" section actually contained how it works info. I only see 3 steps that look more like facts than actual "how's". Totally free fully anonymous and interviewers from top companies. How does that explain how it works? I would prefer something like: 1) Signup 2) List all available interviewers (or interviews, or subjects or something) 3) Select one, schedule it 4) Have an interview 5) See results! Or something like that. I have found that when you use a question as a webpage, blog or other text, it's really good when you actually answer said question instead of not. Or don't use a question as a section title perhaps? I would be much more interested in this neat idea if I had a better way of evaluating it I had more info. Edit: For example, can I select interviews by subject? or by interviewer ex-employer, or by level (basic, advanced, etc) or is it random? Can I rate the interviewer as well?

leeny 12y ago
great feedback, will fix. thank you!
- saganus 12y ago
  Great! thank you. I'm looking forward for this.

gourneau 12y ago

I have had Aline Lerner reach out to me as a recruiter before. She is one of the best. She worked hard to find great matches.

leeny 12y ago
ohai josh! thanks!

callmeed 12y ago

This is awesome. There is a chance I may be looking for work later this year BUT I've been doing my own thing for > 10 years.

cnp 12y ago

I'm absolutely one of these people who melt down. Give me a task and leave the room and I'm on it, but while being watched I loose all ability to think, which I think has a lot to do with the fact that I never went to college and jumped right into the industry directly after high school essentially bypassing a very important skill you learn there: test taking. Two weeks ago the position of my dreams -- literally, exactly what I wanted to do, and at a totally rad and well-regarded company -- vanished during my second interview after (what I believe) was a killer and detailed coding challenge submission (which we discussed at length) and an excellent first interview. Why? Function.apply -- LOL "Describe event delegation" -- LOL Stuff you learn during DAY ONE of JavaScript coding (I've been programming for over ten years in a number of languages, and have built many, many large-scale applications). It was absolutely humiliating, and I'm still recovering from it in the worst of ways. My brain just froze up completely. Thanks for putting the site up because I'm sure there are many people that will benefit. I've got an interview at Amazon at 3pm and those are notoriously difficult; wish it were already live and running! I'm not looking forward to it.

hueving 12y ago
Not to be a downer, but Amazon isn't that great of a company to work for in the grand scheme of tech companies. Very few perks for engineers and penny pinching on workstations, monitors, etc. It really starts to wear on you after a while and you feel like nothing more than a 'necessary cost'.
- cnp 12y ago
  I most definitely do not want to work at amazon :) This is a contract position till I find something that is right.
gearoidoc 12y ago
Dude, if you're that passionate about that job you just described then I'd suggest calling the company up and explaining what happened. Having interviewed many people I'd certainly be open to giving someone a second chance if they explained a situation like yours to me.

general_failure 12y ago

This looks great. These days I skip all interviews which require me to code in the interview. I have plenty of open source code, if they cannot figure how good I am looking at, then they definitely cannot figure how good I am with a 3 hour coding interview. IMO, coding interviews is like public speaking. Many people get nervous in front of a crowd. It's a skill one has to obtain should it be required. Coding interviews are quite irrelevant for a programmer/developer position.

cnp 12y ago
Exactly my thinking as well. Dig in, look around, its obvious what I can do, and what I'm capable of learning. Ask me to code a sample app and comment every function with detailed explanations of my thought process. Add me as a collaborator to GitHub and request that I make some pull requests on your product. Live coding interviews are more irrelevant than irrelevant and completely ignore the fact that many people -- and especially introverted technical types -- just don't do well in front of groups.
- akanet 12y ago
  Coding interviews don't ignore any facts - they are simply often the best signal/time tool available. Many people do not have time to root around in your personal repositories or wait for you to commit pull requests. They have a pipeline of people they need to screen, and you can't wait on everyone in a pool of candidates to take their sweet time before deciding on a winner. Technical screens are synchronous and relatively well understood. If they are not the literally BEST choice of time for figuring out if someone is a good developer, they are at least a very defensible choice.
  - cnp 12y ago
    Your comment is unfortunate but true. Hopefully one day someone will think up a better way to do things.
- justinpaulson 12y ago
  Maybe doing well in front of groups is a skill that companies want in their employees.

capkutay 12y ago

Great...so when everyone does this and becomes good at technical interviews, SV companies will find some other meaningless, high pressure method to screen job candidates. "Steal a bone from this agitated rottweiler while you recite every other fibonacci number up to 20"

akanet 12y ago
I think this is an extremely pessimistic view of what is likely to happen. Being good at interviewing (on both the candidate and interviewer side) doesn't mean that you get jobs you aren't qualified for, it means presenting a more accurate picture of your skills or what the job is. Anything that moves us in that direction is probably good.

xtrumanx 12y ago

Pretty cool idea; instantly signed up. I was thinking about posting "Ask HN: Interview me" since I don't have many interview opportunities in my corner of the world and wanted to find out how good you guys think I am. If anyone wants to test out their interview skills with me, we could set up a meet over at talky.io and discuss some C# or js. Mail address is in my profile.

adamredwoods 12y ago

I'd also be interested in a "faux" simulation, perhaps where it is pre-recorded video interviewer with a countdown timer. The video could occasionally say "Are you sure you want to do that?".

nawitus 12y ago

>First and foremost, if you're trying to get better at technical interviews, the best way to do that is to actually do it. So to fix problems with signaling there should more signaling and even more wasted hours?

danielweber 12y ago

I pressed the "sign up" button and . . . nothing happened.

owenversteeg 12y ago
For me a popup appeared with a Github auth window. It's possible that your browser blocked the popup.
- danielweber 12y ago
  I did email, not Github. I no more want to log in with Github than I want to log in with Facebook. EDIT It seems to crash in the background if you have a "+" in your email address.
  - leeny 12y ago
    thanks, will fix!
    - danielweber 12y ago
      Also, if you don't email me immediately, I probably won't ever think to check my spam folder later.

thomasmann 12y ago

I'm very scared of interviewing. I'm 29 and actually never got a job by interviewing and only had 1 interview in my life. It was kinda awful and the lady that interviewed me explained me how I was failing, which I understood but can't improve just by will alone. I also have big troubles on how oral communication implies a deadline (answer quickly or look bad)... I enjoy emails much more than the phone She said I had to sell my skills much more, instead of strictly answering questions and then waiting for the next one in silence. I felt like a sociopath with no people skills.. I'm kinda shy guy that doesn't do well with strangers, or bigger groups. From my readings online, this is very common with anxious people or introverts. In the interview there wasn't a group but there was the "this person can control my destiny" pressure, which is also irrational (you can always get another job). Another things that affects me is impostor syndrome: selling myself feels like lying. Also the crap unanswerable questions like "What's your biggest flaw?" So this could actually be very good for me :)

drhayes9 12y ago

Kinda off-topic: where'd you get the batman icon?

ankit84 12y ago

Their oAuth application URL is localhost :P (check at the time of Github authorize)

dreamdu5t 12y ago

I've been using https://www.interviewcake.com https://www.interviewcake.com and highly recommend it. It's just a series of problems you work through combined with advice.

nmrm 12y ago
There's a lot to an interview besides just coding questions. Interacting with an actual interviewer lets you get all of the human interactions, talk in-between problems, using problems to showcase talent, etc... all this stuff I'm told I should do but have no idea how to actually do, basically.
domluna 12y ago
Haha thanks for this, I actually signed up for this a while back and completely forgot the name of the site.

stangeek 12y ago

I love the footnote on the homepage ;)

mVChr 12y ago

I like this in concept. It's like how major symphony orchestras hire, put a curtain up between the performer and the judges so that the performer is never seen and is assessed solely on the merits of their performance. Interesting to see how it might play out in practice through this site.

grdvnl 12y ago

It would also be great to have some sort of feedback mechanism also given in anonymity.

FallDead 12y ago

This is a great idea, I can keep my skills up to date and be employable, if my Canadian startup fails.

johnward 12y ago

It's like Chatroulette[1] for technical interviews. [1] But without the dicks I laughed at this...

Link- 12y ago
I came here to say just that! :D
- tiler 12y ago
  me too.

deleted 12y ago

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benologist 12y ago

Brilliant way to connect companies that are hiring to developers without the pressure of a 'real' interview.

zcase 12y ago

Why would this be free?

zcase 12y ago

Why would this be free?

mathattack 12y ago

I wonder where the interviewers will come from. That said, this is a great idea, and also along the lines of the "Show me a million new jobs" RFS [0]. [0] http://blog.ycombinator.com/new-rfs-one-million-jobs http://blog.ycombinator.com/new-rfs-one-million-jobs

dkitchener 12y ago

Simply Awesome!

Estragon 12y ago

Is there a business model here? Why are the talented engineers running the practice interviews devoting time to this?

fecak 12y ago
I'm guessing because there is potential they could find a hire. Even though you can choose to be anonymous, if two people hit it off there is nothing preventing them from exchanging contact info. Seems like somewhat long odds unless the candidate is willing to relocate anywhere.

lightblade 12y ago

This is not only good for the interviewee, but also a great practice ground for interviewers. Interviewing candidates also takes skills. :)

prezjordan 12y ago

Congrats, Aline! This is too awesome. Be sure to check out her blog as well, "making technical recruiting suck less." Tons of fantastic content. http://blog.alinelerner.com/ http://blog.alinelerner.com/

onislandtime 12y ago

Dear software professional: if you have been rejected because of a coding interview, don't feel bad or discouraged. It has little to do with how smart you are. Unfortunately, this style of interviews is likely ineffective and leads to hiring people who look alike and have similar skills. Solving a problem with someone looking over your shoulder and forcing you to talk to explain what you are thinking is a skill that I've never seen used in the real world. I'm sure new grads spend a lot of time in classes training for this. Many great people don't function like this and still they may come up with brilliant ideas after a day or a week. Some people have breath of knowledge and study specific topics as needed. Some people can write very well and may not be super fast in tests. I know many brilliant engineers who have been rejected and are doing just fine, building amazing products, and leading teams. If corporations really wanted a cookie cutter method to evaluate CS knowledge, then they should require a scientifically validated standardized test conducted by a third party. It would be cheaper than using engineers' time. So why don't they do that? The reality is that they think they are doing more than that but there is no scientific proof that the interview method works. They don't want false positives but they cannot measure efficacy. If you are one of the guys who know how to perform, then you can get hired faster. In some cases if you are an outsider (older, female, different), then your chances of knowing the "secret interview code" is much lower.

akanet 12y ago
"Solving a problem with someone looking over your shoulder and forcing you to talk to explain what you are thinking" is actually how problems are generally solved in most fields. Software engineering is perhaps one of the lone exceptions, and I think the pair programming movement has a bone or two to pick with your premise.
- onislandtime 12y ago
  People are very diverse, some are fast and chatty, others are quiet and slow. Usually I perceive the fast and chatty types a bit arrogant. Personality and cultural background is probably an influence. Best teams have a great mix. Often caring about the work is more important than having a genius. (Of course people should be competent).

eric_bullington 12y ago

I find code interviewing so nerve-wracking that I'm delaying my transition from another profession into a much-desired full-time programming job. I'm 40 and always aced interviews before I did my first coding interview last year. In my prior career, I literally never had an interview that failed to result in an offer. But I blew my first coding interview both in the interview itself -- in which I repeatedly blanked out and froze -- and in my failure to show the company my best work (they asked what I was hacking on and so I showed them a half-assed blog engine I was rolling using the remnants of another project when I should have shown my more polished work.). This interview was so bad that I cannot yet bring myself to try it again, despite spending lots of time polishing up on algorithms and data structures. Up to now, I had never experienced performance anxiety of any type -- I did very well on interviews and standardized tests like the GRE. Yet now I'm petrified of programming interviews. By local standards, I'm a pretty good programmer (by HN standards I'm probably average). And what I lack in knowledge I made up for with enthusiasm and persistence. I've got a bunch of code of varying quality on Github, including small contributions to several very large open source projects and a moderately popular open source project that I created and maintain myself. I'm also limited by the fact that due to my family situation, I can only consider remote jobs at the moment. But by far my main hurdle is this fear of programming interviews. I'll definitely be taking a look at this. Maybe this will help be break through my mental block.

chrissnell 12y ago
I'm right there with you. 39 years old and I've been doing Linux systems administration and writing code since college in the mid 90s. Aced every interview I ever went to up until a couple of years ago. These Google-style coding interviews for systems/operations roles are the death of me and it's a shame. I have deep systems experience and I spend a lot of my spare time coding in Go [1] but I have little formal CS education and my full-time gig does not involve writing code all day, errrr' day. It's so frustrating, these interviews. You want to tell them, "Look, hire me and I will make your infrastructure scaling issues disappear and I'll save you money doing it" but that never happens because they see me get hung up on a sorting algorithm and immediately lose interest. I'm not looking for a new gig but I'll give their site a shot when I am. [1] https://github.com/chrissnell?tab=repositories https://github.com/chrissnell?tab=repositories

lukasm 12y ago

I had the same idea a year ago :) Simply, Google and other companies do CV, 2 phone screens and on-site. Someone could handle for them CV and 1st phone screen. They would not only save 45mins for recruiters and devs, but will get extra productivity. No distraction for hackers. Charge a little to filter out people that clicked, but don't care. I'd pay.

domluna 12y ago

Is it just me or shouldn't we be moving towards projects rather than code interviews? I think you can recover far more about a person in a project setting than by asking them a couple of random questions to solve in X time.

mahyarm 12y ago
Time wise it costs too much for the candidate.

Jemaclus 12y ago

Nice. Aline is pretty sharp for a recruiter, and this just makes it even better. Great idea!

chipgap98 12y ago

As someone who is going into my senior year of college, this looks fantastic. I don't have a ton of experience with technical interviews and I would love to get some more. I've had 3-4 so far and even for similar jobs I feel like the interviewers are looking for totally different things. Some want me to spit definitions back at them and others are looking for me solve problems. It is hard to know what to expect, especially when interviewing at startups.

jheriko 12y ago

yeah... there is a big problem with interviews and best practices already. if you are good enough at an interview you can con your employer into giving you lots of money for not very much... can we have a service that goes the other way? identifying that brilliant junior who is worth 5x his years or the dirty rat who has 30 years of experience working out how to not do his job and get away with it.... that's hard. interviews are already easy to win for the prospective employee...

logfromblammo 12y ago

This is especially useful when you consider that companies that actually interview you absolutely will not tell you why you failed their process, or they will offer diplomatic deceptions instead.

yeureka 12y ago

This looks very interesting. I have been through a lot of interviews in the past, with small and large companies and now being in charge of hiring developers I try to make the experience as friendly and as efficient as possible. I hate white-board coding interviews because of the pressure of doing it in front of a stranger, and I choose not to have that in our company. But I do ask technical questions related to the job and I give as much time as the candidate needs to complete a very simple coding test ( fizzbuzz type ) on his/her own in a private office free of distractions and other people. Unfortunately there are people with amazing cv's who can't solve simple problems or who can't explain what they have done in previous projects. Interviewing is hard and there are a lot of biases at play but it needs to be done.

Phlow 12y ago

Whiteboard coding problems are absolute garbage. I recently had a remote code problem where I was given a Visual Studio IDE (albeit minus Resharper) and absolutely killed it. If I'm going to be challenged to write code in front of you, give me the tools I use every day, let me use the resources I use to solve problems efficiently (which btw can include StackOverflow) and you will get a much better picture of me. I don't write perfect code the moment it's written. Often I will mentally acknowledge something needs further thought and my brain will revisit it, sometimes days later, sometimes after multiple iterations. I'm fastidious about those types of things, and as a result I can realistically say I write some of the best and least buggy code in my company. I'm also very good at theorizing about problems and debugging, which is never looked at in an interview. I guarantee you should hire me, but how can I show you that, and how can you gain confidence in that?

gejjaxxita 12y ago

Coding interview practice is absolutely key. I recently began interviewing for the first time with a number of companies (I'm about to graduate). I noticed that over the course of a month and 3 interviews with 3 separate companies my interviewing skills had increased hugely. The 4th company I interviewed at had a very different perception of me than the 1st because of the month's practice, even though I had essentially the same technical skills. Coding interviews test "coding interview ability" rather than "coding ability", unfortunately the other ways (Github, aptitude tests etc..) have their own problems.

lifeisstillgood 12y ago

A friend of mine surprised me recently - he is starting a "new kind of job board". Which struck me as "meh" till he explained - it's more of a "Developer Relationship Management" system. The idea is if you have developers they will interact with other developers - so track those interactions and you get a good idea of where and how to fish

jbcurtin2 12y ago

> Hi, my name is Aline. I used to code for a living. Now I hire engineers. One of the things I've done that I'm most proud of is Lessons from a year's worth of hiring data, where I showed that, in an engineering resume, pedigree isn't a particularly valuable signal (whereas typos and grammatical errors are) So what happens if you're lystdexic?

deleted 12y ago
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jacalata 12y ago
You learn to use a word processor with spellcheck and get someone else to proofread your resume before sending it out, just like someone who isn't dyslexic should do.

jacalata 12y ago

How does it manage not to connect me with someone that I work with based on just my github profile? I work with plenty of people who don't have a github profile, or if they do I'm not connected to it. I'm probably not connected to most of them on LinkedIn either.

rgawdzik 12y ago

This is a great resource for first year CS co-op students at Waterloo. Even though Waterloo grads end up with at least a hundred interviews under their belts, the first few are really difficult. Great job, keep up the work!

minusSeven 12y ago

Any ideas how the whole thing will be implemented. The site only contains very generic information about it. How are the interviews going to be conducted ? What will be the different forms of interviews (as most companies have different forms and phases of interviews) ? How will the feedbacks be given ? Hope this just doesn't turn out to be just meeting place for anonymous interviewers and interviewees .

deleted 12y ago

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learc83 12y ago

None of my engineer friends have ever had a Google style technical interview. What makes software so different? You don't ask an electrical engineer to layout a complicated PCB on a whiteboard, you don't have a civil engineer build a bridge out of popsicle sticks. Surely hiring an incompetent electrical engineer is just as bad as hiring an incompetent software engineer, but from talking to the EEs I know, they just get asked basic questions or go over past projects--nothing nearly as stressful as a coding interview. If other industries can get by without them, whiteboard technical interviews must not be as necessary as they're made out to be. It seems to me they are just a damaging fad. I think the high stress technical interview could even be one of the factors contributing to the software monoculture.

keppy 12y ago
Well if your job resembles writing on a whiteboard, solving problems, then they should make sure you can do that in the interview. Try going through some problems on a white board you'll probably enjoy it more than you assume!
- learc83 12y ago
  Software engineering doesn't resemble anything like solving brain teasers on a white board while your boss watches over your shoulder. No other engineering discipline does this, and software didn't do this until everyone started copying Google. In fact an HR guy from Google basically said that interviews were useless. [1] >Years ago, we did a study to determine whether anyone at Google is particularly good at hiring. We looked at tens of thousands of interviews, and everyone who had done the interviews and what they scored the candidate, and how that person ultimately performed in their job. We found zero relationship. It’s a complete random mess, except for one guy who was highly predictive because he only interviewed people for a very specialized area, where he happened to be the world’s leading expert. Everyone else is copying Google assuming they are doing it right, but they're not. Once Google selects potential candidates and weeds out the people who lied on their resumes with basic questions, they'd probably do just as well hiring a random selection. [1] http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/20/business/in-head-hunting-big-data-may-not-be-such-a-big-deal.html?pagewanted=2&_r=0&smid=tw-nytimesbusiness&partner=socialflow http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/20/business/in-head-hunting-b...

user1408 12y ago

There is voice but no video! How awesome is that! You invented the telephone, I guess. Seriously, I have no idea what kind of service you are trying to describe on interviewing.io. There is only the usual BS like "totally free" and no actual answers.

gtani 12y ago

(if you have to submit to a memorization-based screen) I didn't see source materials to review for canonical algos/data structures questions. The 2 books by McDowell and Guiness ("Ace the interview" and "Crack the interview" ) are good, along with http://algorithmsandme.blogspot.com/p/blog-page_27.html http://algorithmsandme.blogspot.com/p/blog-page_27.html https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7477095 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7477095 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7827048 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7827048 http://www.quora.com/Which-are-the-frequently-asked-interview-questions-for-Java-Engineers http://www.quora.com/Which-are-the-frequently-asked-intervie... I could put up alist for math for ML/data science as well)

sequoia 12y ago

If one of the goals is encouraging meritocracy, I cannot imagine why it was decided to add voice to the interview. From someone's voice I can frequently tell their gender & maybe their socioeconomic background, sometimes their race (or what I think their race is)... Basically I don't really buy the "meritocracy" argument if you still have to say "I'm a woman" or "I'm a man" at the start of a technical interview.

justicezyx 12y ago

I only have 1 sentence: “Coding interview (democracy) is the worst form of interview (government), except for all the others”

onislandtime 12y ago
Not a good analogy. You can design interviews and measure outcomes. The goal is not to eliminate coding if it is relevant for the position, you need to do it right. There are people who spend their life designing and validating tests, don't ask a busy engineer to wing it. Companies could use an unbiased computer-based test as a first pass. This way, candidates can prepare and feel they are getting a fair chance. In the second pass the interviewer can focus on higher level problems and soft skills.

keppy 12y ago

Reflections on whiteboarding: Lately I have realized that I use google a lot less than I did in the past. I don't have to look things up as much, thus I have seen gains in speed when working on some functionality. The interesting part is that coding/reasoning without google feels a lot like whiteboarding. In fact I get into the same 'mental patterns' when solving a problem I don't need google for that I feel when brushing up on algorithm problems at the white board. I don't come from long history of math rigor. I don't have a mathy degree at all and have hardly used a whiteboard in front of any professors or math nerds. But I'm also not an imbecile; computer science is built upon a foundation of mathematics and if you aren't willing to play ball then get off the fucking field.

uberwach 12y ago

Great idea! Being Berlin based I am really curious on how tough the interviews are gonna be. The interviews I have had here were not challenging at all. The technical problems did not even reach the difficulty of qualification round problems in Google's Code Jam.

mellisarob 12y ago

this wont workout i suppose