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Ask HN: What are some of the best take-home coding tasks you've gotten?

9 points n2d4 | 4 comments | 19 Nov 24 11:40 UTC | HN request time: 0.633s | source

As an applicant, I've personally had a mixed experience with take-homes. We're designing the technical interviews right now, and I thought I'd ask for some stories on exciting take-home tasks. We're looking for something that resembles the actual job, so we'll allow any tool (including AI and debuggers).

Also curious to hear about any bad ones you've done.

1. b20000 ◴[19 Nov 24 16:03 UTC] No.42184947[source]▶
recently i was given 72 hours for a take home. they required me to keep the “challenge” confidential and assign the rights to the code to them. i’m wondering what you all think of that.
replies(3): >>42187377 #>>42190540 #>>42191473 #
2. harryquach ◴[19 Nov 24 19:50 UTC] No.42187377[source]▶
That is a red flag and I would most likely pass on the job. It sounds like they want to potentially use whatever solution you come up with.
3. defrost ◴[20 Nov 24 03:15 UTC] No.42190540[source]▶
How generic was the challenge?

In the sense of would this be a problem that might reasonably come up in the course of working elsewhere ... and how comprised would you be had it done so given you'd seen it before and signed right to your solution elsewhere.

4. stevekemp ◴[20 Nov 24 07:16 UTC] No.42191473[source]▶
How much are they paying for you to do the work? How does that compare to your hourly-rate, or salary? If for free they're clearly taking advantage, so I'd assess based on payment.