
Stop Don't blindly take that coding challenge - tdurden
https://dev.to/theobendixson/stop-dont-blindly-take-that-coding-challenge-1903
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MrLeap
I charge 100$ an hour to do coding challenges. Recruiters guffaw when I tell
them (of course they do), but I don't do the ol' jazz hands routine with the
money makers for free. Really, the positions they're seeking to fill pay >
100k. What's a few hundred to a candidate if you really want them to
demonstrate a skill? Pay that and I don't care if I'm actually closing a real
ticket for you as part of the interview process.

Once I wavered on that for a data science position. They had me do some
predictive analytics on a dataset. I've built a pipeline for problems like
that so I figured I'd spend the 20 minutes spinning it up... I ended up
spending an hour creating a rather detailed writeup about methods used and my
analysis. The stake holder got back to me asking for changes to minor format
things with my output data. (headings, serialization of booleans.. minor shit
like that) I came to the cynical conclusion they were getting free data
science work and the position was an illusion. I asked if that was the case
and never got a response.

Learned my lesson I guess.

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jjeaff
So how many potential employers have agreed to pay you the $100 an hour?

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MrLeap
Quite a few. I've been a full time self employed consultant for 3 years now.
Yes, I'm being cute -- but the distinction between customers and recruiters
who trick me into answering the phone by spoofing my area code is irrelevant
to where I draw my lines. I like the internal consistency in my handling of
either situation.

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lev99
> Employers already have most of the power in this relationship

I feel like it's the exact opposite.

I once was at a team where a coworker left. He was one of two developers
working on a subsystem. The subsystem was highly valued by the company because
it would result in faster payments and less labor in processing payments. Even
though they replaced him with another developer the project still took 1.75x
longer to complete compared to the previous pace.

When a developer replaces a company they continue to pay the same green money.
When a company replaces a developer it can take months or years to retrain him
with institutional knowledge. The asymmetry gives developers more power in the
relationship.

~~~
ken
Employees may have more power than employers, but employers have more power
than candidates.

~~~
lev99
Right, I was thinking about the wrong relationship.

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ropman76
I am moving in this direction after having taken a few coding challenges and
not heard anything back from the company. If I am going to spend time on a
coding challenge, I am expecting at least an acknowledgment that I am no
longer being considered for the position. Coding challenges are a time
commitment and if a company can't even be bothered to commit to at least being
polite about it, then it's a clear indication of how they view employees.

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tc7
We sometimes hire mid/jr-level FE developers, which means we get _lots_ of
bootcamp applicants.

It feels like the main goal of the bootcamp is to produce portfolios/resumes
that make you indistinguishable on paper from developers that learned any
other way.

Not necessarily bad, but the quality difference among bootcamp grads (from the
same program!) is crazy. Some people understand the fundamentals of what they
learned and continue to learn and expand their skills, but some are just
copy/pasting code and debugging by typing random character combinations until
something works. Both got through the bootcamp with identical group-project
portfolios and class assignment personal websites and resumes.

We've recently started sending an at-home coding challenge to all jr. FE
applicants, just to cut down on amount of time wasted if we bring them in and
they don't know anything. This has worked okay so far.

I'm generally very cognizant of wasting peoples time, so I don't want to do
this as a general rule for more experienced candidates. But for junior/first-
job candidates, I'm not sure it should be as offensive. Do any of y'all see a
reasonable distinction here?

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Sohcahtoa82
Is a bootcamp grad much different than a university grad?

While in school, I read blogs claiming that the majority of CS grads can't
code. I got the hint this may be true in one of my 3rd-year classes where we
had to work in groups of 2 or 3 over the course of the semester to write a
program that was essentially like an alpha version of SimCity. At the last day
of class, we had to present our work. Half the groups didn't complete the
project, and one group only had a blank window with a Help button that
presented a wall of text. Then, during my senior project, in my group of six,
two of them admitted to not knowing how to code, with one of them saying they
didn't even want to code, they just became a CS major because they heard CS
majors have low unemployment and good salaries.

I've digressed a bit, but...

When I finished my degree, I didn't have a software engineering internship
under my belt, so I made sure to list personal projects on my resume. I think
the presence of projects done on my own time for my own enjoyment and learning
was a key factor in landing my first job.

So no, I don't think there's anything offensive about rejecting a candidate if
a bootcamp is all they have to show.

~~~
bradknowles
I’ve worked with people who have MBAs but aren’t really developers or even
devops types.

It’s interesting to see them get frustrated so easily and have a hard time
plowing through problem after problem making small changes until they finally
get to something that works.

Someone who has only done a boot camp hasn’t demonstrated that they can work
on problems for weeks or months before they can see real progress.

Someone who has an actual degree from a legit university or college, has at
least proven that they can spend months or even years working on something
until they get their reward. They won’t necessarily be able to program their
way out of a wet paper bag, but they have at least one advantage on people who
only have the boot camp certificate.

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Piskvorrr
TBH, for the positions I applied to, a coding challenge came _after_ a face-
to-face interview. From what I later learned, I have been mostly given low-
priority tasks built upon the actual codebase, but I was expecting that much
at that point in the process (why bother spinning up a googol+1st blog
implementation?).

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hmillison
Having just been through the interview process, i ended up having to go
through a few coding challenges. Luckily for me, i never got “ghosted” after
sending one back.

The important thing to me is that the coding challenges have a reasonable
scope. I really appreciated two of the companies that gave me an already set
up project (it was not their actual codebase) and then required me to build an
addition to it. That feels like an accurate way to test someone’s skills.

As someone who doesnt excel at some of the “leetcode” interview questions as
much. I have found challenges to be a welcome alternative when done right.

I did experience some companies who would give a project that was wayyy too
complex and they estimated it would only take one hour. Those are the places i
would reject without doing it. With the market as competitive as it is, you
need to have some limits with these things.

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collyw
Agreed.

Also, why is no one willing to look at code I have already written?

~~~
toast0
As an interviewer, I try to ask a consistent question in a consistent way, so
that I can calibrate my feedback against all of the people I've interviewed
before. It's nice that you claim to have some previous code, but most of my
candidates aren't able to share their code, and some hopefully small number of
my candidates are going to submit someone else's code and claim it as their
own. I have worked with and interviewed people that can discuss all the
things, and run through other people's code as if it's their own, but are
unable to write their own code.

That said, exceptional candidates are exceptions and maybe should be handled
outside the normal process.

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cutler
Asking to speak to an engineer isn't going to change much. If you really mean
business insist they pay a nominal fee for your time. Not an hourly contract
rate, more like the hourly salary rate of a mid-level dev. It's peanuts to
them so if they won't pay they don't value your input so it's game over.

~~~
rightbyte
I agree, but it's probably no a thing the recruiter can do without going
through the boss of the boss and hassle with accounting department. Until a
big body of of candidates require it, nothing will happen, and if too many
require it, the employer will probably just quit giving home work.

This concept of whiteboard interviews and assignments is quite alien to me.
I've got three different software jobs since graduation and not one did any
sorts of test they just trusted that I would not apply if I couldn't code.
Never heard of any colleagues or former class mates that done any either.

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jiveturkey
sorry but this is as absurd as saying don’t let line cutters into traffic.
yes, “we” should band together to end the practice, but the fact that
“everyone else” is going to do it means it will continue.

rather than address the call to action to candidates, how about asking folks
to refuse to give a coding test?

