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Please stop the coding challenges

(blackentropy.bearblog.dev)
261 points CrazyEmi | 4 comments | 15 Nov 24 15:32 UTC | HN request time: 0s | source
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fishtoaster ◴[15 Nov 24 18:07 UTC] No.42149357[source]▶
I recently ran an interview process for a relatively senior eng role at a tiny startup. Because I believe different interview methods work better for different people, I offered everyone a choice:

1. Do a takehome test, targeted to take about 4 hours but with no actual time limit. This was a non-algorithmic project that was just a stripped-down version of what I'd spent the last month on in actual work.

2. Do an onsite pairing exercise in 2 hours. This would be a version of #1, but more of "see how far we get in 2 hours."

3. Submit a code sample of pre-existing work.

Based on the ire I've seen takehome tests get, I figured we'd get a good spread between all three, but amazingly, ~90-95% of candidates chose the takehome test. That matches my preference as a candidate as well.

I don't know if this generalizes beyond this company/role, but it was an interesting datapoint - I was very surprised to find that most people preferred it!

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bhhaskin ◴[15 Nov 24 18:17 UTC] No.42149441[source]▶
Why would you even do any of that for a senior role? I wouldn't waste my time with it, and it shows you don't know how to interview/evaluate for a senior position.
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stickfigure ◴[15 Nov 24 18:30 UTC] No.42149540[source]▶
What would you waste your time with?

I exclusively give pairing interviews, usually just 1 hr. The variance between good and bad candidates is amazing, and you wouldn't guess at all from resumes or casual conversations. Most candidates have given me very positive feedback. Why wouldn't you want to be interviewed like this?

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1. bhhaskin ◴[15 Nov 24 18:59 UTC] No.42149773[source]▶
I'm a senior developer. Of course I know how to code. Do you know how many code challenges I've done over the course of my career? 99% of them where terrible at evaluating my ability to code. They are a waste of time at the senior level. You are much better off with a conversation, looking at past work and experience and references than you are doing code challenges.
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2. stickfigure ◴[15 Nov 24 19:14 UTC] No.42149905[source]▶
After interviewing ~50 people using this technique - I'm sorry but there's no "of course". I cannot tell by looking at your past work experience or talking to you whether you know how to code.

I know this, because I used to look at resumes and have long conversations before I ran my pairing interview. And I found the results almost uncorrelated. Now I save the fun conversations for people who make it through the screening. But by then I already know if I want to hire them.

My pairing interview (it's a pairing session, not a code challenge) covers aspects of engineering that I specifically care about. It's not terribly hard. But at the end I'll have a pretty good idea if I want to turn this person loose in my codebase.

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3. sophacles ◴[15 Nov 24 21:00 UTC] No.42150972[source]▶
Based on my interviewing, there's a ~25% likelihood that you're flat out lying, and a ~75% likelihood that you're overstating your skills.

The number of people with impressive looking resumes, and good command of the jargon, but who still can't successfully code hello world is shocking.

I don't believe you (general you, not just the parent) can even code until you demonstrate that to me, or until the industry comes up with a reputable way to tell me that you can code. Until then I'll be making sure you can at least write code that compiles and finishes a brain-dead simple task.

4. kstrauser ◴[15 Nov 24 21:42 UTC] No.42151470[source]▶
I second all of that heartily. Of course the senior eng with 10 years hands-on experience at a household name tech company knows how to code... except that they don't. At all, apparently. That seems so ludicrously unlikely unless you've actually interviewed a lot of people, then it's just the sad fact.

To others reading along, I'm not talking about someone not being able to write a multitasking OS on their own. I mean, I'm not sure how these people possibly graduated college not knowing how to write a trivial program in the language of their choosing. Turns out you can get surprisingly far into a software engineering degree without every writing code. I wouldn't have believed it. Evidence proves it though.