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@asgs I don’t have full details. But (not joking) they seem to love anything that’s complicated. They don’t seem to ever think about real world situations, even with their own code. I’m constantly arguing with them about their work being so excessive. I genuinely think they thought it was cool that he built a complex system and made it work. But again, why do that
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@irene because I’ve pissed off a higher power and they won’t accept my deepest apology. Believe me, I’ve tried
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@irene changing how they work? Been trying since day 1 (11 months ago). Been told today I can finally hire new staff, but that I will never have all the staff on my side. So I will never be rid of all of them.
Change where I’m working? Actively working on it lol -
Been through a similar interview process. Personally, I don't see any value in it: it requires a certain amount of time and dedication to build something for free
and for a company that you don't know whether you want to work for or not. Plus, this is an exercise, so whatever you spend your free time in will be thrown in the trash.
This felt like a very narcissist interview process to me overall ("we're the only company in the world, everyone wants to work for us").
As a candidate, I wondered: how much effort should I spend into this? I want to give a good impression but at the same time I don't want to waste so much time on something that is useless by definition. I'm a busy man dude! Probably what your guy did was a compromise between "good" and "not requiring too much time".
I'd say the interview process is highly flawed and you don't have any reliable data to judge. -
@stacked so i wasn't involved in this interview, but I'm very opposed to testing candidates for a frontend role without having them show me they know how to build a frontend.
I always give them a phonecall first, answer their questions and make sure they are up for the next round. I don't just dive right into it, but yes I do give take home challenges. I keep it short, last guy I hired completed the challenge in 2 hours, and I gave him a week to return it, so he had plenty of time.
I've seen companies hire dozens of people who can answer questions in theory, and draw some lovely pictures on a whiteboard. Then when they are hired they start building a framework per screen and preaching this as the future.
A take home challenge where you are free to choose any libraries or do it anyway you want, is the most natural and close-to-real-life assessment that I can give. -
@stacked If someone wants a job from me, but says they are not willing to spend 2 hours showing me they are capable of doing the job ... I tell them thank you and good bye. I don't know the person, I have no way of knowing their skill. I'm willing to extend the duration further, or hold off until they have more free time etc. i'm flexible. But if they so no and refuse, I see it as an attitude problem and i'm not interested in wasting my time with them.
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@practiseSafeHex if that's a 2 hour challenge, then I'm with you. What you were describing however seems very different: I don't think anyone can come up with a brand new framework + a frontend with many views and API endpoints in just 2 hours... or maybe I'm misunderstanding the word "framework" in this context
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@stacked that’s the issue. He wasn’t asked too. He was asked to build an app with 4 screens and connect to an open API online. He took it upon himself to reinvent multiple wheels, come up with a new way to build it and over-engineer the shit out of it.
To me this is a failure on his challenge because a senior should no that’s ridiculous. But the other team loved it and hired him
Debate (with rant-ish overtones):
FYI, while it is a debate, its a practiseSafeHex debate, which means there is a correct answer, i'm just interested in your responses/thoughts.
Ok lets kick off. So the remote team I work with had an opening for a new iOS developer (unrelated to anything to do with me). They interviewed and hired a guy based off his "amazing" take home challenge.
The challenge consists of 4 screens and was for a senior level position. For the challenge the interviewee created a framework (a iOS library) for each screen, included all the business logic for each screen inside, each one needs to be built separately, exposed some API/functions from each one and then created a main project to stitch it all together.
Now, my opinion is, this is highly unscalable and a ridiculous approach to take as it would add so much unnecessary overhead, for no benefit (I am correct btw).
The interviewee said he did it like this to "show off his skills and to stand out". The remote team loved it and hired him. The challenge said "show us the code standard you would be happy to release to production". I would argue that he has only demonstrated 1 extra skill, and in exchange delivered something that is unscalable, going to be a nightmare to automate and require huge on-boarding and a paradigm shift, for no reason. To me thats a fail for a senior to not realise what he's doing. This person will be required to work alone (in part), make architecture decisions, set the foundation for others etc. Having someone who is willing to just do mad shit to show off, is really not the type of person suited to this role.
Debate!
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