Interviewer : So what frameworks and library you usually use?
Me : i use volley for networking, gson for parsing, livedata/architecture components for architecture and observability , room for database and java for app development

I : ok so make this sample app using retrofit for networking, moshi for parsing, mvrx for architecture , rx for observability , sqldelight for db, dagger2 and kotlin for app dev. You have 8 hours

Me :(wtf?) But i never used those libs or language!
I : we just want to check how easily you adapt to different surroundings.

Me : -_-

Honestly i don't know of it was a great experience or a bad one . I was stressed the whole time but was able to adapt to almost all of those libraries and frameworks.
At the end i got selected but decided not to go for those ppl. That was just a lucrative opening of a venus fly trap, they would have stressed the hell out of me

I had a similar challenge on one interview but it was only two libraries and it was a half finished super simple site I was asked to complete according to some specifications.

Also I had more time, i could use as much as I wanted over a week.

And it was very obvious that it was just a trial project for the libraries hey where actively using.

I found it quite interesting but on the other hand, I was in no hurry as I already had a steady job and this was just me looking for opportunities, which I found ;)

Yeah stuff like this isn't too uncommon. It's half a test, half a hazing process.

If you succeed, they see you as a universal tool who hopefully won't complain that their lifespan is shortening through stress.

Dodged a bullet there.

"You have 8 hours"

I would've been out the door at that point. You're absolutely not throwing me in at the deep end *and* demanding when it has to be done. Red flag of the size of a small country.

As it was already said, you dodged a bullet there.

My dean always said: "We prepare our students for the world of tomorrow. That means that we give you strong fundamentals, allowing you to adapt to any language and anything the real world throws at you, and preferably by yesterday, meaning quickly. That's the difference between an amateur and a Bachelor".

And so, this must hold true that as generalists we should be able to take on any technology and adapt to it quickly. The business world doesn't stand still.

@CaptainRant I don't have an issue with requiring to learn new technologies in general. However, to put it in perspective:
* Specified unknown technologies/libraries/languages point by point
* Specified a deadline instead of asking for an estimate
* In an interview setting

Sounds completely over the top to me.

Now, let's assume a candidate doesn't make it. What can you reasonably say about them? Nothing, because too many variables. Depending on how the interviewer pulled his specifications out of their ass, the libraries might not even work well together.

Wow,never knew this would blow up. Well let me tell you what happened next.
The next day i got a mail from the company telling me that i am selected, and all the company rules . "Telling", as in straight enforcement and no discussion or my agreement upon this. The rules were :
- i will be given x amount as stipend (the company had posted the stipend to be between [x,y] and i had already worked with y as salary so was expecting the y or something lesser than y but not x)

- the timings will be 11am -8 pm , mon-sat ( i am college student so was expecting a Saturday off for exams and personal studies but nope. Also that place is like 2 hrs farther from my home, so its effectively 9am to 10 pm ie 13 hour job)

- the best thing : they will be starting my employment after 1 week of acceptance, because in 1 week i have to prepare and become a master of all the tools and frameworks their company use on my own time, by my ownself, in home (given as an attached pdf) . Why i said master? ...

... because it was written that if i couldn't complete those modules or caused delay due to lack of good knowledge in those topics, company is liable to deduct my salary even if i am dedicating my fucking 13 hrs/24 to them.

But the ice on this shit mountain for me was that they were quoting the fucking bezos for me. If you ever wanna employ me, NEVER QUOTE THE FUCKING BEZOS AMAZON RUNS ON LABOR BLOOD.

I don't get why they wanted me to be already trained in professional frameworks and architectures. I am a full time student with just a good laptop and interest in building apps. I use simple liberies to make useful little apps. But i want to make a career in it that's why i am coming to your company to train me. Don't i know how to google docker and mvrx? I never needed that so never learned that.

Maybe their are sprinter people out there faster than me but i was not build for a torture like this. I guess this would be the methodology of FAANG companies but nah, not my cup of tea

Fuck em. You're a student so plenty of opportunities in the future. Take the job, do what you can, fuck off when you can. Take their money for beer and rent. Then get fired or quit after you've milked $5k out of em. Don't put on resume. Rinse/repeat..

@StopWastingTime ditch them, they are not looking for good developers but good idiots.

@StopWastingTime holy shit.

Well, companies like that forget that employment is a *mutual* relationship. They will, undoubtedly, still find some poor souls working for them, but it ain't gonna be pretty.

I'll repeat, you dodged a bullet. Well done.

@CaptainRant as a student at a pretty good uni and self-taught dev, I would never agree with your dean. For me, it sounds more like a piss poor excuse for teaching a lot of useless shit and old tech. I know many people who your dean would probably call amateurs that are much better than 90% of people who finish their bachelors...