
Show HN: Tired of doing coding interviews on Skype? We've built this - asadlionpk
http://remoteinterview.io
======
afandian
I've written code in a few job interviews (and been in the opposite position,
asking someone to write code in an interview). In all cases they were more
interested (rightly so) about the conversation around the interpretation of
the question, discussion over the analysis of the problem and logic required
to satisfy the problem. The act of writing the code was very much secondary.
Like "now prove you could implement what you just described". Decontextualised
appraisal of the resultant code written seems somewhat to be missing the
point. Perhaps other places do things differently but this seems to be based
on a shallow analysis of the interview process as I have experienced it.

I can see that there are facilities for discussion in the app, but when the
examples say "this guy's fast" and show up and down-voting based on scores,
and then arriving at a hiring recommendation based on those scores... that
seems to point squarely at a mechanical hiring process. Then again it says
"top coder" rather than "best software engineer" or "most competent
developer". Maybe it's a cultural thing.

~~~
munirusman
I agree with you that "This guy is fast" is not the right way to judge but we
just meant to demonstrate rating feature. Every interviewer can rate and judge
in a subjective way.

Disclaimer: I am part of remoteinterview.io team.

~~~
bradleyland
I once worked with some very, very successful direct marketing people, and
along the way gathered some stellar advice on common advertising tropes. One
of these is, "don't talk down to your audience."

Few people challenge this axiom of marketing, but the real insight lies in
identifying what's "talking down". It's easy to assume that you must _intend_
to talk down to your audience in order to fall in to this trap, but it's just
as easy for down-talking elements to enter your marketing organically.

"This guy is fast" talks down to your audience because it assumes that there
is no more subtle way to illustrate the rating feature, which can also be
understood by your audience.

You should change this ASAP. The people conducting coding interviews are often
programmers, and this overly simplistic means of evaluation will make them
feel objectified in a big way. They will associate that objectification with
this tool, and they will avoid it at all cost.

~~~
asadlionpk
I for one, do take speed as a measure too when interviewing a candidate. This
and how quick he came up with a solution, very much show how good the
candidate is.

~~~
JoeAltmaier
But like any test-taking situation speed depends upon your frame of mind.
Candidate can clutch because they're hyper-aware of the time pressure. Not how
they'd normally behave. SO there's a lot of noise in that measure.

~~~
asadlionpk
I agree, also, as a programmer I don't usually like someone looking at my code
over my shoulder.

------
rguzman
A few similar tools have popped up recently. Like this one, they look pretty
good, and like improvements over skype et. al. However, they seem to solve the
easy part of the problem and not the hard one.

The problem is evaluating a candidate. For that, one likely needs to do some
live-coding in some capacity along with several other things. While the
existing tools are subpar, they are good enough. The hard part is what
questions to ask and how to go about judging the answers as to produce a good
hiring signal without alienating candidates.

You can tell that remoteinterview is trying to address the real problem from
their marketing copy. However, I am highly skeptical that giving team members
the ability to up and down vote with comments on an etherpad + video is a big
chunk of it or even an "in".

If I were working in this space I would only worry about how to produce
evaluation materials given some information about a company and a candidate.
It very well may be that it is not easy enough or possible to do that at scale
or cost-effectively, but that seems to be the thing companies struggle with,
not having to use skype.

~~~
akanet
If you're looking for product that takes a more serious stab at actually being
able to evaluate the candidate during a coding interview, check out
[https://coderpad.io](https://coderpad.io).

We let you execute pretty much any code as you write it in real-time, letting
you observe how a candidate approaches a problem much more holistically.

~~~
epochwolf
What sold me on coderpad.io was the README_IF_YOU_ARE_HACKING_ME file in the
working directory. Contents below:

Hello! Hope you are enjoying CoderPad. I've added this file because a lot of
people have emailed me voicing security concerns. Usually these concerns are
to the tune of "programming language X lets me run Y system call."

They're not wrong, you can run any system call! Security in CoderPad happens
at the LXC sandbox layer. You are currently in an ephemeral container that
will be destroyed upon your departure. You are welcome to run any privileged
operation you can get your hands on. CoderPad is, after all, the highest
fidelity programming interview tool there is.

That said, if you do manage to uncover something like privilege escalation or
data created by other users, I want to hear about it. You can email me at
vincent@coderpad.io, and I look forward to hearing from you.

------
onion2k
_Tired of doing coding interviews on Skype?_

No.

\--------

This is the problem with question based marketing messages. You'd be better
off going with something like "Skype isn't the most effective solution for
technical interviews." or "Everything Skype brings to coding interviews and
more." That way, even if I'm completely happy with Skype, I'll probably still
have a look.

~~~
asadlionpk
I agree, we are developers mostly. But I guess you should visit the site
(which was our main intention with posting to this awesome place)

Please do have a look, it would be great if you tell us what do you think of
our idea :)

------
drivingmenuts
Seriously? Commenting _while_ the sausage is being made?

I'd prefer you tell me what sausage you want, then you can comment on the
taste. But commenting on the way I turn the casing machine handle to the left,
rather than the standard right, is going a bit too far.

~~~
elliottcarlson
Yes and no - part of a coding interview shouldn't just be can they get to the
answer, but how do they get to the answer. If the solution to someones
FizzBuzz is simply pre-coding the answers and printing them to the screen line
by line, checking that you haven't reached the X limit in the request, then
yes - you made it output everything correctly, but seriously, that's not
someone who I would want working for me. In this case, you should also be
judging how someone makes the sausage, and how they use the casing machine.

On the other hand, another part of a good interview should be the conversation
surrounding the coding exercise. Seeing if someone can come up with a better
solution, or even explaining their thought process. Just because they cranked
the casing machine to the left doesn't mean it is wrong either.

Either way you should definitely be reserving your thoughts and evaluation
until the end, since people can easily make mistakes and quickly turn around
and impress you.

------
benjamincharity
My biggest problem with coding interviews is not the actual communication tool
(Skype/etc) but rather that the developer is pulled completely out of their
environment. Take away my vim/snippets/custom key bindings/ide plugins/etc and
then ask me to code? Feels like you're cutting off one of my arms right before
you measure my performance.

~~~
why-el
If you are asked a question that you think you can't reasonably answer without
your environment, then either you are too dependent on it or the question was
unreasonable. In both scenarios just tell the interviewer that and I am sure
there will be other ways.

~~~
Bluestrike2
It's more an issue of comfort through familiarity for me, and I'd imagine, for
most programmers in general.

Sit me down in front of Visual Studio and I can write code just fine. It's
just I do so while consciously thinking about the editor and how I'm using it
more than I would in my preferred vim environment, where things are largely
subconscious through familiarity.

------
quarterwave
I'm guessing it will take a bit of work to support multiple
languages/frameworks/platforms. A simpler solution may be to allow an
interviewer to spin up a machine with the image/environment of choice (AWS,
DigitalOcean etc) and do some kind of screen sharing with markup - easy to
circle some code on a touch screen tablet. Interviewers typically specialize
in languages and platforms, so every interviewer can maintain their favorite
"interview machine image".

The feature I like best is the group comments - I would recommend restricting
read access by all interviewers until everyone's feedback has been read by the
interview co-ordinator, and the everyone gets to see all the comments during
the hire/not group discussion among a possibly distributed team.

Also, I'm wondering why take on (what I assume is) the rather onerous task of
supporting voice chat? Wouldn't it be simpler to adopt Skype (thru an API?)
rather than fight it? My humble two cents: focus on where you're adding value,
not call quality, security etc.

~~~
asadlionpk
Hey, Skype API hmmmm that's a nice idea, since WebRTC is in early stages. And
it is actually helpful for others to see each others comments. This helps them
not make redundant votes and each comment is a unique comment. I understand
why you suggest that though.

------
voidlogic
Great implementation for a bad practice, idea. This tool IMHO encourages the
worst interviewing practices.

    
    
      I'd prefer to hire like this:
      1. Collect resumes/recommendations
      2. Ask candidates to implement a simple project (~8 hours)
      3. Ask remaining candidates with reasonable/better solutions to come on-site.
      4. See how behave during code review of their project
      5. Give them a small simple problem to solve
      6. Ask them to tell you their solutions time and space complexity
      7. Ask them to write a unit test for their solution
      8. Ask them to code review your solution to the same simple problem and contrast it to theirs
      9. Ask them 1 or 2 simple theory questions that demonstrate their understanding depth. Maybe "How does virtual memory work and why was it invented".
      10. Buy them lunch/supper.
    

This focus of this is 1. Can they produce 2. Can the work on a team 3. Do they
grok computer, with 1 and 2 being weighted more.

~~~
Forplax
> 2\. Ask candidates to implement a simple project (~8 hours)

I've never understood why employers seem to think asking for 8+ hours free
work before even possibly getting an interview is fair to the applicant.

~~~
voidlogic
Its more fair then the "what can I make you code under pressure, without
references, while I stare at you" tests, and its more like what you are hiring
them to do. Its also good for figuring out who you don't want to fly across
the country to interview with you. It also lets people self select and go- I
don't know how to do this- maybe this isn't the right job for me. I'm assuming
these tasks are toy tasks and the company isn't getting IP value from them-
I'd let your candidates open-source what they build, so long as they don't say
why they (really) built it.

------
colmmacc
There's a large community of musicians who supplement their income with Skype
lessons these days. For $45 I can have an hour with some of the best musicians
in world and folk music for example - heroes whose CDs I listened to as a
teenager. Whether they're in Florida, Dublin, Germany or here in Seattle,
location has stopped being a barrier. It's awesome.

But Skype and Google talk are both terrible for it; there's no easy place to
show notes (of the wordy kind or the musical kind), a mock instrument would be
great too, to show learners new chord shapes, for example. And the audio
encoding on the video streams are optimized for speech, making music a bit
warbley at times.

It'd be great to see tools like this adapted to music lessons, and I bet it's
more sustainable business with more opportunities to create real value (store
lesson plans for example).

~~~
asadlionpk
This and remote teaching (of code etc) are few of the things tools like these
can adapt to.

------
Seldaek
CSS nitpick: check it out on a large/wide screen, the header is messed up due
to (I assume) percentage-based font-sizing + the fact that the logo is not
scaling accordingly.

~~~
asadlionpk
Let me look into it :)

------
eadlam
If this was a website where I could practice solving algorithm problems and
people could comment at points during the playback, I would totally sign up.

~~~
asadlionpk
ooh, that is a nice idea! But not within our scope :)

------
rootuid
Looks promising until I say this 404:

[http://remoteinterview.io/notBrandedandUgly](http://remoteinterview.io/notBrandedandUgly)

Brand your 404, it's part of your site and this generic hosting 404 template
with references to WordPress doesn't do you any favors !

~~~
dewey
You are judging a landing page for a product beta by the looks of the 404
page?

~~~
rootuid
I judge a book by it's cover.

------
coledubz
His string manipulation is very good!

~~~
devwebee
I noticed this too. Plus they're using a bad example. Looping an array with
"for..in" in JavaScript is one of the most known antipatterns.

------
JoeAltmaier
Try Sococo for this - share docs, desktop, apps, webpages, or all at once. Use
the web app or download the full-featured one. Sign up or participate as a
guest.

My point is, there are full-featured collaborative tools that an interviewer
can use already. {I work at Sococo}

~~~
asadlionpk
Sococo is nice :)

People use Hangouts + Docs usually for this type of work. Hence, our interests
in making this tool.

~~~
JoeAltmaier
Yeah plenty of room in the product space right now. Not sure which will win -
purpose-built apps for situations, or general-purpose integrated apps.

------
aneelkkhatri
Looks promising! Surely gonna lessen the hassle of conducting a remote coding
interview.

~~~
faisalali
I have used this tool as an Alpha user and I am pretty much satisfied with it.

------
shibbowhat
I recognize Stephen Merchant's face used as 'Tim Burke' in the 'Hire the Best
Candidate' section. Are these all famous mugs, or is that the only one? I
don't think I recognize any others.

------
northisup
You built it! awesome! I can't tell by the survey monkey landing page you set
up. Looks like some awesome graphic design work though. Post to HN when you
are ready to launch, not just to gather emails.

~~~
asadlionpk
We are gathering emails to see how much signups to expect at the launch time.
And then prepare our app/server for that type of traffic. As a HNer, I know it
sucks not being able to directly try the app. But we figured this was a
necessary step to take :)

------
higherpurpose
Is it using WebRTC or some proprietary plugin?

~~~
asadlionpk
Hello, yes we used SimpleWebRTC as our base plugin (highly recommended). Some
minor modifications though. Other than that, we setup a TURN server as STUN
doesn't work at many times. That was it I guess.

~~~
dm2
I've had good results with OpenTok
([http://tokbox.com/opentok](http://tokbox.com/opentok)).

We used that after halfway successfully setting up our own TURN server but not
trusting its current reliability, security, and ability to work in the future
and not wanting to spend any more time and resources on it.

[http://www.tokbox.com/blog/webrtc-and-signaling-what-two-
yea...](http://www.tokbox.com/blog/webrtc-and-signaling-what-two-years-has-
taught-us/)

~~~
asadlionpk
tokbox was our backup plan :) WebRTC is very unreliable as of now. So we will
still test how current solution works for the beta users.

------
asattarmd
I see you have used Firebase. I am very interested to see how you have
achieved this without a solid backend.

~~~
asadlionpk
Good eye :) We have a thin nodejs server too, we use it mainly for the
linkedIn login system (since Firebase doesn't do linkedin by itself yet).
Firebase is highly recommended. We didn't have to deal with creating our own
REST server and handling the security of the thing. That too when you want to
build a MVP to test the idea quickly.

------
icemelt8
You should mention that I won't be able to access the app instantly and will
be notified later.

~~~
munirusman
Thanks for the suggestion. We will modify.

------
vtvs
[https://codility.com/](https://codility.com/) ?

~~~
asadlionpk
codility,interviewstreet etc are mainly used to filter out the noise. The
usual action after shortlisting from codility is to have a real-time/one-to-
one conversation and to analyze the thought process of the candidate. Our tool
comes in handy at this point. To have a discussion based test.

------
xerophtye
Looks nice, but how is it efficient than screen sharing and watching him code?

~~~
munirusman
This tool combines code editor, compiler and Audio/Video/Text chat with
powerful rating system. All in web without installing anything.

Disclaimer: I am part of remoteinterview.io team.

~~~
chii
How well does it deal with java maven projects (if it does deal with it at
all)?

~~~
asadlionpk
We are currently using ideone's api.

------
ndgandhi
something similar
[https://www.hackerrank.com/x/codepair](https://www.hackerrank.com/x/codepair)

~~~
asadlionpk
Yes. But I guess there is still room in this space. The problem with
hackerrank is that they are trying to get their hands in all of the hiring
process.

The fact that most people still use Hangouts + Docs shows that the problem is
far from solved.

------
dkersten
What languages does it support?

~~~
munirusman
More than 10 languages so far including JS, C++, Java, ObjC, PHP, Python and
Ruby.

------
antocv
And so the commodityfication of "the coder" begins.

Imagine if you wanted to hire an electrician, but before you let them into
your house, you ask to follow around to see them connect and cut wires? Then
you would judge their skills by how fast they can cut and put back together a
wire. Thats the level that this "screen sharing, watch him code" does.

Is this field that much hammered by pretends?

"Top coder" is repulsive.

~~~
netcan
I would argue that electricians are far more commodified and that the trend
this is a part of is the opposite of commodification.

An electrician is usually licensed, which means they are above a certain,
fairly low bar. The average person is far more concerned with avoiding the
worst electricians. Beyond that price is the biggest factor and the
electricians are interchangeable. Give me the best price for soy that isn't
rotten.

In coding jobs, employers are trying to identify the best, worst, etc. You can
argue against this as a test of quality & qualities, but the net effect is not
commoditization.

~~~
asadlionpk
Yes, the objective of this tool and many others is to improve the ability of
the employer to identify skills quickly and without false negative...

~~~
antocv
"Identify skills quickly" thats exactly what this tool does not do.

It identifies the most needy/desperate engineers.

Anyway, I for sure would not sign up for such a thing, it tells me the
recruitment agency or potential employee views software engineering as "typing
code skills", like hacker-typer.com. In my opinion a software engineer works
more closely to the business and requirements elicitation than just
implementation.

~~~
asadlionpk
no, that example on the page is just one type of rating the employer can give.
After all, these are private comments about the candidate. Employer will write
what matters to him.

Like to me speed does matter, someone unusually fast at coming up with a
solution would definitely get my upvote.

------
notastartup
For me this makes it easier to filter out companies. If I see
remoteinterview.io I would simply move on to the next company .

~~~
asadlionpk
Why?

~~~
notastartup
Because I don't believe software is built around the ability to memorize
algorithms from computer science courses and recite it. Even if you apply the
algorithm, you are still coming from learned memory, something you read and
recanting with slight variations.

If it was based on the specific technology and questions and in the context of
their business problems, I would understand. I hated memorizing sorting
algorithms and be asked to pretend like I'm reaching an epiphany as I'm doing
the problem live. Frowning profusely, and slowly writing the solution, and
emerging as if you just solved a complicated physics equation.

Tell me to build a small project in the stack you are using, if I don't think
I will be able to do it, it will show.

