
Ask HN: Really hard take home interview, what to do? - concurrent_eng
I got offered an interview at the research division of a tech company. They sent a take home test that am supposed to work on.<p>It involves building a backend with some sort of machine learning&#x2F;AI, basically pretty advanced stuff.<p>I only have a weekend to do it, since I have a job and can&#x27;t work on it on a week day. I would love to work in a research division but don&#x27;t think I can deliver sth meaningful within such a short time span. I&#x27;ve also been brushing up my algo skills in readiness for a gruelling on-site interview so that&#x27;s another time sink.<p>I am very comfortable with interviews but I don&#x27;t feel confident about this one.<p>What should I do?
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davelnewton
I'm not sure I understand the question. What do you think the options are? I
only see a few:

* Give it your best shot

* Bail and tell them you can't/won't do it

* Tell them you need more time to show you what you're capable of

Not knowing what the test actually involves it's difficult to provide any
meaningful advice. There are a lot of packaged solutions for ML these days,
and many of them are relatively easy to get started with. There are even books
that walk you through the process.

If I were doing it I'd just resign myself to the fact that a weekend, even
assuming you could be productive for 48h straight, is only 48h.

If I really wanted the job I'd take a good portion of those to giving it my
best shot, but I'd sleep and take breaks to avoid the burnout and poor quality
that would come through.

If, on Monday morning, I felt comfortable enough with my result, I'd send it
to them and say "this is what I had time to do". If I didn't feel like it was
at the caliber I believed they'd accept, I'd tell them I took my best shot,
but it wasn't up to my _own_ standards, and ask what they thought the next
steps should be.

I'd be honest about wanting the job, I'd be honest about the holes in my
knowledge, and I'd ask for advice.

~~~
concurrent_eng
My options are:

* Give it my best shot (but is it worth it? I could as well spend so much time on it and still get declined).

* Bail on it (am not desperate for the job).

The task is up to me to settle on sth, what's being looked for is extraction
of meaningful insight from things like images, audio etc, and an illustration
of the extracted info.

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koolba
You can either be honest, try your best, and submit whatever you're able to
produce. At that point it'd be up to them to decide if it makes sense for you
to join their team.

Or, you can be like everyone else and enlist help from others to complete it.
On paper you'll look better (initially) as you'll have passed whatever test
they've got but it could balloon into problems down the road as you're
exposed. Essentially you'd be in a "fake it till you make it" situation.

I suggest being honest.

~~~
concurrent_eng
I barely have any machine learning experience, I would need hours of research
to come up with sth good enough to show.

~~~
smt88
Is it possible you're not qualified for this job, and you'd be more successful
(and happier) at a job with better fit?

~~~
concurrent_eng
From my own estimation, and my current boss, I'd say am a competent Software
Engineer, so with time I would be very productive in this job. I've also been
curious about machine learning and this could be a potentially good
opportunity.

~~~
smt88
That makes sense if the employer is OK with you learning ML at the company. It
doesn't make much sense if they want to hire someone already experienced in
ML.

