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This article was interesting to read from my standpoint. I'm currently unemployed and am currently looking for a jr. dev position as well. Background: Received

This article was interesting to read from my standpoint. I'm currently unemployed and am currently looking for a jr. dev position as well. Background: Received CS degree, have worked for 3 years as a full-stack developer internationally with lots of code written, and am now looking in the Bay Area for front-end developer position. > Red Flag 1: Asking me to dedicate over ten hours to a code challenge before meeting anyone on the team. Relatedly, the code challenge not having anything to do with the role for which I am applying or the skills I would be using on the job. Along the same lines, I've now worked on around 6 coding challenges (2 of which I would say had nothing to do with front-end development) and after spending somewhere between 4-10+ of my time, I've gone from the mentality of "coding challenges are good because I can learn from them" to "... another one? I need money, not more work." While coding challenges are a good way of gauging one's skill level, asking for a coding challenge that will take longer than a 2-3 hours should not be required, mainly with regard to the respect of the developer looking for the job, as well as to the company and their time to check it. I've received (and completed) challenges that took over a day to complete. Worst of all is when you submit it and you receive a "Sorry, we have decided to pursue other candidates response" without working with you to understand where your code could be strengthened. > Green Flag 3: Tailoring the interview process to the candidate. When I feel that there is an attempt to ensure that there is a good mutual fit for a role in a company, I have a much more positive view on the company and their hiring practices. I just wanted to emphasize this Green Flag. The other important item I found surprisingly relatable was this: > And of course, as they always say, it's really about who you know and using those connections. Start-ups aside, I've found it incredible difficult to get on the radar of bigger companies, when it comes to applying from their site. I can understand hundreds or more are applying and they may not be able to get back to everyone and that's understandable, I just didn't realize how emphasized connections were. The only interviews I've had with bigger companies (i.e. Facebook/Google, etc.) have been through connections. Other companies w/o connections... well I didn't get past the coding challenge to have that interview.

trentmb 12y ago
I don't know how to get on the radar of any companies. I'd love to be given a coding challenge. Background: Received Math degree this past summer, 0 years as a full-stack developer. I had supporting coursework in CS, so I'm not completely unfamiliar with programming. All I want is an entry level job...
- nobodyshere 12y ago
  From my experience freelance at that stage is not an option at all, and the best option would be a beefed up github profile to show off your capabilities.
- peteretep 12y ago
  What about getting on to something like IBM or Microsoft's Graduate Developer schemes?
- chaoxu 12y ago
  You could have taken a algorithms class. Since you are from Uiuc, ask people around you for a referral, which would land you a phone interview or coding challenge. Certain companies send out coding challenges. I think Dropbox do.
- gedrap 12y ago
  You should change your attitude a bit. it sounds like you are desperate for a job, while you should be thinking that you need a job which would be mutually beneficial for both sides. The attitude helps a lot in various stages. You can start by writing some toy application. Simple blog platform is a classic example. Push it to github. Bonus points if you have multiple applications using different languages/frameworks, that shows that you are not one of the devs that learn one thing and use it for the rest of the life. Good luck.
- Bahamut 12y ago
  If you're in the Bay area (or any major city), go to the meetups, talk to people, and eventually you'll find someone able to help you as long as you're personable. Most of all though, you need to teach yourself the programming used in practice though - web development is probably the fastest ticket to a job. This means some Git, HTML, CSS, JavaScript, and a backend language (PHP, Ruby, Python, Java/Scala are good choices) & framework (WordPress, Symfony, Ruby on Rails, Django, Node.js, Play framework are examples) or few. Try going through courses offered on sites like Code School or Treehouse. Scour the web for online tutorials, and try to veer from them to get yourself more comfortable with working with the technologies. An aside, if you live in the Bay area, I've run into plenty of fellow Illini here - I am one myself. I am a math PhD dropout from U of I ('06 - '10). Good luck - I started my career 2 years ago after 2 1/2 years of searching, so I understand the pain of the first search. A recruiter I met at a meetup helped me land my first job in 2 months - I spent a half a year attending several meetups a week before I ran into him.
cheepin 12y ago
I hate the coding challenges because they are hugely asymmetric in effort required between interviewer and interviewee. They usually come as the first or second step (after the phone interview), which means you aren't even really being seriously considered yet. You have to spend several hours working on it while they just have to send the email to whatever their challenge link is. Best case scenario, you wasted those hours because you were qualified to do what they assigned you to, and you simply move to the 'next round'. Worst case, you get rejected for any reason or even no reason. I have seen a few done maybe correctly. They really have to either be short, or otherwise compensated. One company is paying a few hundred dollars for the result of the coding challenge if they like your result, and are using it to entirely replace the first rounds of interview (coding challenge => skip directly to onsite and collect $500). These cases seem to be outliers rather than the norm though. Thanks Jeff Atwood.
- jarek 12y ago
  My favourite is when the company rejects you with no feedback then asks that you do not post your code for the challenge in your portfolio
  - gedrap 12y ago
    Feedback, as discussed a lot, is a dangerous thing. May start endless discussions, trying to see things as racist/sexist/whatnot, and it's meaningless as decision is already made. Most of the challenges take an hour or two, so not sure how that would benefit your portfolio. In case challenge was longer than that, well, that's a different question (accept it or not).
    - jarek 12y ago
      I've seen a YC company give a challenge that took a weekend to complete. (Relatively late in the hiring process.) It was interesting and relevant to career goals. I understand the rejection and the lack of feedback, but the do-not-publish request is infuriating. Supposedly the reason is to not give code to other candidates but the companies should be able to detect that trivially by diffing or talking about the code with the candidate. I've routinely seen coding tasks designed to take a Saturday. edit: sorry to see your post downvoted, I upvoted it
anullptr 12y ago
Speaking as an interviewer at a corporation, referrals put your name higher on a list of people to interview, and they get you absolutely nothing else. Internal recruiters/HR are also terrible. I've lost count of how many times we'll receive a CV from someone that applied online and then when we call them they tell us they applied months ago and aren't interested anymore. So don't feel too disheartened. I can't get my head around coding challenges. When I was looking for a job when I wanted to leave my graduate position I encountered a few of these. Either it was homework that they reviewed (and printed out the wrong source code when interviewing me) or it was a C# written test when I'd never done any C# in my life. I'm not really a fan of super technical show-me-you-know-angulars-implementation-detail interviews, I think it's just an opprtubity for the interviewer to act like they're shit hot. If they've got (even a tiny amount of) programming experience, show they're interested, can work through simple problems and describe what they're doing they can probably pick up whatever the fashionable programmibg language/library is now. On the topic of tailoring an interview, I think its nice to keep some common questions across candidates so there's some useful reference point and bechmark.

trentmb 12y ago

I don't know how to get on the radar of any companies. I'd love to be given a coding challenge. Background: Received Math degree this past summer, 0 years as a full-stack developer. I had supporting coursework in CS, so I'm not completely unfamiliar with programming. All I want is an entry level job...

nobodyshere 12y ago
From my experience freelance at that stage is not an option at all, and the best option would be a beefed up github profile to show off your capabilities.
peteretep 12y ago
What about getting on to something like IBM or Microsoft's Graduate Developer schemes?
chaoxu 12y ago
You could have taken a algorithms class. Since you are from Uiuc, ask people around you for a referral, which would land you a phone interview or coding challenge. Certain companies send out coding challenges. I think Dropbox do.
gedrap 12y ago
You should change your attitude a bit. it sounds like you are desperate for a job, while you should be thinking that you need a job which would be mutually beneficial for both sides. The attitude helps a lot in various stages. You can start by writing some toy application. Simple blog platform is a classic example. Push it to github. Bonus points if you have multiple applications using different languages/frameworks, that shows that you are not one of the devs that learn one thing and use it for the rest of the life. Good luck.
Bahamut 12y ago
If you're in the Bay area (or any major city), go to the meetups, talk to people, and eventually you'll find someone able to help you as long as you're personable. Most of all though, you need to teach yourself the programming used in practice though - web development is probably the fastest ticket to a job. This means some Git, HTML, CSS, JavaScript, and a backend language (PHP, Ruby, Python, Java/Scala are good choices) & framework (WordPress, Symfony, Ruby on Rails, Django, Node.js, Play framework are examples) or few. Try going through courses offered on sites like Code School or Treehouse. Scour the web for online tutorials, and try to veer from them to get yourself more comfortable with working with the technologies. An aside, if you live in the Bay area, I've run into plenty of fellow Illini here - I am one myself. I am a math PhD dropout from U of I ('06 - '10). Good luck - I started my career 2 years ago after 2 1/2 years of searching, so I understand the pain of the first search. A recruiter I met at a meetup helped me land my first job in 2 months - I spent a half a year attending several meetups a week before I ran into him.

cheepin 12y ago

I hate the coding challenges because they are hugely asymmetric in effort required between interviewer and interviewee. They usually come as the first or second step (after the phone interview), which means you aren't even really being seriously considered yet. You have to spend several hours working on it while they just have to send the email to whatever their challenge link is. Best case scenario, you wasted those hours because you were qualified to do what they assigned you to, and you simply move to the 'next round'. Worst case, you get rejected for any reason or even no reason. I have seen a few done maybe correctly. They really have to either be short, or otherwise compensated. One company is paying a few hundred dollars for the result of the coding challenge if they like your result, and are using it to entirely replace the first rounds of interview (coding challenge => skip directly to onsite and collect $500). These cases seem to be outliers rather than the norm though. Thanks Jeff Atwood.

jarek 12y ago
My favourite is when the company rejects you with no feedback then asks that you do not post your code for the challenge in your portfolio
- gedrap 12y ago
  Feedback, as discussed a lot, is a dangerous thing. May start endless discussions, trying to see things as racist/sexist/whatnot, and it's meaningless as decision is already made. Most of the challenges take an hour or two, so not sure how that would benefit your portfolio. In case challenge was longer than that, well, that's a different question (accept it or not).
  - jarek 12y ago
    I've seen a YC company give a challenge that took a weekend to complete. (Relatively late in the hiring process.) It was interesting and relevant to career goals. I understand the rejection and the lack of feedback, but the do-not-publish request is infuriating. Supposedly the reason is to not give code to other candidates but the companies should be able to detect that trivially by diffing or talking about the code with the candidate. I've routinely seen coding tasks designed to take a Saturday. edit: sorry to see your post downvoted, I upvoted it

anullptr 12y ago

Speaking as an interviewer at a corporation, referrals put your name higher on a list of people to interview, and they get you absolutely nothing else. Internal recruiters/HR are also terrible. I've lost count of how many times we'll receive a CV from someone that applied online and then when we call them they tell us they applied months ago and aren't interested anymore. So don't feel too disheartened. I can't get my head around coding challenges. When I was looking for a job when I wanted to leave my graduate position I encountered a few of these. Either it was homework that they reviewed (and printed out the wrong source code when interviewing me) or it was a C# written test when I'd never done any C# in my life. I'm not really a fan of super technical show-me-you-know-angulars-implementation-detail interviews, I think it's just an opprtubity for the interviewer to act like they're shit hot. If they've got (even a tiny amount of) programming experience, show they're interested, can work through simple problems and describe what they're doing they can probably pick up whatever the fashionable programmibg language/library is now. On the topic of tailoring an interview, I think its nice to keep some common questions across candidates so there's some useful reference point and bechmark.