alexyang21

6 ms·

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by alexyang21 4y ago
You'll see DevOps as one of the options in the 'Roles' filter with 13 examples in the library.
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by alexyang21 4y ago
From talking to many hiring managers who use take-homes and using 3 ATSs myself, most engineering take-home processes don't run through the ATS. I agree with you that it's disrespectful to candidates. My point is that it's no
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by alexyang21 4y ago
Yeah I think #1 and #2 are valid criticisms. My issue with the parent comment's line of reasoning is that it doesn't apply the same level of rigor to evaluating whiteboarding as it does to work sample tests. Our goal should be to
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by alexyang21 4y ago
Yes! I spoke to Andy (the author of the article you linked) when he posted this. I'm a big fan of this approach. And the software we're building is quite similar to the interview-bot one that GitHub uses internally. Why shouldn&#x
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by alexyang21 4y ago
Hey Bill! Rating aside, I'm a big fan of Ad Hoc's homework assignments. Here's what I love about them: 1. Your team has made them public for others to use. This is HUGE. 2. The library is organized and the prompts are general
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by alexyang21 4y ago
Sorry, looks like we didn't tag this one sufficiently! We're updating this now. There was a TON of content to filter through - we're doing our best :) I also think there's a surprising number of edge cases that need to b
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by alexyang21 4y ago
I agree! It's great when companies take the time to do this. Though it's tough when it's been a few months/years and the code hasn't been maintained. You'll see some repos in the library that are up to 8 years
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by alexyang21 4y ago
You've given me a great idea for a future post - thank you! I'll see if I can do a more detailed teardown of a "great" take-home vs. a "bad" one.
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by alexyang21 4y ago
I think most 2-4 hour take-homes can be condensed to 1-2 hours with some thoughtful choices. A few ideas I've used: - Provide starter code and setup instructions so candidates don't waste time on boilerplate. - Abbreviate requirem
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by alexyang21 4y ago
Did the companies tell you no when you asked them if you could share a previous project instead of completing theirs? From talking to many hiring managers, they also don't want to waste your time, and most will be happy to accept an al
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by alexyang21 4y ago
I blame the legal teams at large companies who are worried that a well-meaning hiring manager will give feedback that could be used in a lawsuit. Love that your approach focuses on understanding thought process! IMO many companies focus too
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by alexyang21 4y ago
Haha yeah we implement 'soft time-boxing' by tracking git commit timestamps. It's not as stressful as having a visible timer and we won't block a submission that exceeds the recommended time, but reviewers can clearly se
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by alexyang21 4y ago
I spoke to a head of engineering yesterday who asked candidates pick from 3 options: 1. Bring some work that you did previously (>4 hrs) and we'll discuss it. 2. Complete a 1-hour take-home. 3. Complete the 1-hour take-home live wit
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by alexyang21 4y ago
How would a take-home compare to a hybrid format? For example, if you were given a 1-hour take-home followed by a live session asking about your thought process and then pairing to extend what you previously worked on.
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by alexyang21 4y ago
I'm a big fan of live exercises too, mainly because it's a great way to see how candidates think and how they collaborate with others. There are only a couple tradeoffs with this format (every approach has them): live exercises ca
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by alexyang21 4y ago
The reason why there aren't any 1-star projects isn't because they don't exist, but because we didn't think anyone would want to see them. Cataloguing these was a ton of work (we sifted through hundreds of tests). Includ
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by alexyang21 4y ago
That's awful! I'm sorry you had to go through that. The intent isn't usually malicious, but some teams (esp larger ones) are really disorganized and don't value candidates' time enough. My team is doing our best to
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by alexyang21 4y ago
As a candidate, it's an awful feeling to spend time only to get ghosted. It's usually not malicious, just disorganization. From a hiring manager's perspective, it's too easy for things to slip through the cracks. When th
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by alexyang21 4y ago
Thank you! I appreciate this because I think I'm terrible at marketing. I happen to be an Applied Math major and spent years teaching competition math classes, though this was a while ago. If I can be helpful, shoot me an email: alex@t
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by alexyang21 4y ago
I couldn't agree more. While it's not compilable, I did reach out to a few of the 5-star test designers and asked them this question. How teams use their tests (both in weight and stage) varies a lot, but the well-designed tests u
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by alexyang21 4y ago
Yeah I agree that a test that's super long is awful for candidates. We did our best to be objective in grading, so we didn't want to dock more stars based on our subjective opinion on what's considered reasonable. FWIW my tea
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by alexyang21 4y ago
Studies [1] show that a work sample test is the best predictor of candidate performance on the job, which is why many software engineering teams use take-home tests as one step in their hiring process. But designing an effective test is dif
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We compiled a library of realistic engineering take-home tests and ranked them(trytapioca.com)
223 points by alexyang21 4y ago|188 comments
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by alexyang21 5y ago
Sounds similar to Hiring Without Whiteboards. I'd love to learn more - you can reach me at alex@trytapioca.com
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by alexyang21 5y ago
Any test that: 1) is similar to the work in the day-to-day role 2) doesn't require more than a 1-2 hour time commitment from a candidate 3) is interesting HackerRank questions typically don't meet criteria 1 or 3. The best tests a
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by alexyang21 5y ago
I think you mean that poorly designed take-home tests aren't fair. Do you think a well-designed, hourlong one could be fair?
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by alexyang21 5y ago
Love this! Jacob's posts on work sample tests are the most comprehensive I've seen on the topic.
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by alexyang21 5y ago
The principles below are specifically for take-home tests, though some will still apply to technical interviews conducted live: 1. Design tests to be open-ended and demonstrate how a candidate thinks, rather than ones that drive toward a bi
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by alexyang21 11y ago
Pretty cool analysis! Scrapy is great but if you're looking to extend this further, I recommend checking out the 3taps API. 3taps is the only API I've seen that breaks down the different components of a Craigslist post (e.g. headi
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by alexyang21 12y ago
Hey I'm Alex, one of the cofounders of BaseRails. There's a lot of great advice in this thread already, but here are my two cents. Learning the fundamentals of coding is somewhat different from learning to code to build X. If you&

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