
Show HN: Free, anonymous coding interview practice - leeny
http://interviewing.io
======
onislandtime
Dear software professional: if you have been rejected because of a coding
interview, don't feel bad or discouraged. It has little to do with how smart
you are.

Unfortunately, this style of interviews is likely ineffective and leads to
hiring people who look alike and have similar skills. Solving a problem with
someone looking over your shoulder and forcing you to talk to explain what you
are thinking is a skill that I've never seen used in the real world. I'm sure
new grads spend a lot of time in classes training for this. Many great people
don't function like this and still they may come up with brilliant ideas after
a day or a week. Some people have breath of knowledge and study specific
topics as needed. Some people can write very well and may not be super fast in
tests. I know many brilliant engineers who have been rejected and are doing
just fine, building amazing products, and leading teams.

If corporations really wanted a cookie cutter method to evaluate CS knowledge,
then they should require a scientifically validated standardized test
conducted by a third party. It would be cheaper than using engineers' time. So
why don't they do that?

The reality is that they think they are doing more than that but there is no
scientific proof that the interview method works. They don't want false
positives but they cannot measure efficacy. If you are one of the guys who
know how to perform, then you can get hired faster. In some cases if you are
an outsider (older, female, different), then your chances of knowing the
"secret interview code" is much lower.

~~~
robbyking
The analogy I use is a coding interview is like asking a musician to play a
specific song; chances are, a classically trained pianist won't know the
chords to a specific pop song, but that isn't any indication of their skill as
a musician.

The interviews I had with the company I work for now were amazing; they asked
me some basic questions to verify my resume wasn't completely BS, then asked
me to discuss previous projects I'd worked on, asking questions about
technical details on the way. ("Why did you use collection type X in stead of
collection type Y?") This allowed them to learn about my real world experience
without the risk of asking me about one specific type of problem I may not be
familiar with.

~~~
JPKab
I recently was flown to Austin for an interview. The entire reason I was
brought down was because of Python ML projects on Github. The technical
interview consisted of nothing, and I mean NOTHING but super advanced SQL
questions. (over the phone, I had specifically stated I hadn't used SQL in
years) My expectation was that I'd be interviewed using Python and asked to
perform ML related tasks.

When I mentioned that I thought that the purpose of me being brought there was
to add an ML dimension to the team, which was far too data analysis (using SQL
and some R)focused and with no Python expertise, I was given a blank stare.

Then it hit me: the guys interviewing me didn't know how to do any of the
stuff I had been brought down (by higher ups who weren't in the room) to do,
so they weren't evaluating me on it. They evaluated me on what THEY knew. It's
the equivalent of Peyton Manning being asked to evaluate a linebacker, and
demanding that the linebacker throw passes downfield.

The highlight was when one of the guys (typical pony-tail neck-beard type)
pointed out that an alluvial flow diagram in my portfolio of data
visualization projects wasn't "Tufte-esque". (It was a gross misinterpretation
of Edward Tufte's commandments on his part, but am I really going to get in an
argument with the guy interviewing me?)

It was clear that the guys in the room wanted someone who knew what they did
and thought like they did. A brilliant recipe for getting a homogenous team
with no diversity in skills.

What an epic fucking waste of time. The best part? The company only has 150
employees, and a recruiter just contacted me for a position on another team
that uses Python. She was unaware of the fact that I was there a month ago. I
told her that they should have thought about that when they flew me down the
first fucking time.

~~~
pooper
Maybe if I am in a similar position, I should demand compensation for my time.
That way I'll at least get to visit friends and see scenery around Austin. I
wonder if a demand for compensation (besides airfare and stuff) would fly...

~~~
loumf
It would not. The only thing I could imagine countering is: Fly me to Austin
for two weeks, put me up in a hotel, and hire me to do a project at $x/hr. If
we both like what we see, let's talk about a full-time position.

Frankly, I think this is anti-candidate behavior if the employer suggests it,
but if you actually want it, they should be willing to do it if they can vet
you otherwise (github, etc).

------
cnp
I'm absolutely one of these people who melt down. Give me a task and leave the
room and I'm on it, but while being watched I loose all ability to think,
which I think has a lot to do with the fact that I never went to college and
jumped right into the industry directly after high school essentially
bypassing a very important skill you learn there: test taking.

Two weeks ago the position of my dreams -- literally, exactly what I wanted to
do, and at a totally rad and well-regarded company -- vanished during my
second interview after (what I believe) was a killer and detailed coding
challenge submission (which we discussed at length) and an excellent first
interview.

Why?

Function.apply -- LOL

"Describe event delegation" \-- LOL

Stuff you learn during DAY ONE of JavaScript coding (I've been programming for
over ten years in a number of languages, and have built many, many large-scale
applications). It was absolutely humiliating, and I'm still recovering from it
in the worst of ways. My brain just froze up completely.

Thanks for putting the site up because I'm sure there are many people that
will benefit. I've got an interview at Amazon at 3pm and those are notoriously
difficult; wish it were already live and running! I'm not looking forward to
it.

~~~
gearoidoc
Dude, if you're that passionate about that job you just described then I'd
suggest calling the company up and explaining what happened. Having
interviewed many people I'd certainly be open to giving someone a second
chance if they explained a situation like yours to me.

~~~
cnp
After the second interview I had an entire email written out that I was going
to send to their lead, but honestly, given that the app that they asked me to
develop prior to the interview was well done, detailed, commented and modern,
complete with a PR flow that me and one of their devs went through via GitHub,
I felt that if they were willing to pass due to me obviously locking up on a
Skype + Google-Doc shared whiteboard, and on the most basic of JavaScript
skills (which were clearly elaborated upon within the project), then it wasn't
the right fit anyways.

~~~
akanet
For those interviewers and candidates looking for a better solution than the
"google doc shared whiteboard" \- I suggest checking out a product I make:
[https://coderpad.io/](https://coderpad.io/)

You can think of it as a much higher fidelity Stypi, Etherpad, Collabedit,
etc, except that you can _run the code in the browser as you write it_. It
really helps alleviate the choking sensation of being asked to write out an
entire problem on a whiteboard without any of the modern affordances we've
come to know and love.

~~~
cnp
Yeah, this actually did seem to lead to some confusion, which was the first
bad sign. Google Docs obviously doesn't know how to format code, and the
indentation was getting messy during the typing process leading me to have to
break, think, fix indentation, resume thought, then answer to the questioner
about my "preference for three spaces or two"... ? It was an obscene process
that could have definitely been refined by your app and possibly led to a
better outcome.

------
eric_bullington
I find code interviewing so nerve-wracking that I'm delaying my transition
from another profession into a much-desired full-time programming job. I'm 40
and always aced interviews before I did my first coding interview last year.
In my prior career, I literally never had an interview that failed to result
in an offer.

But I blew my first coding interview both in the interview itself -- in which
I repeatedly blanked out and froze -- and in my failure to show the company my
best work (they asked what I was hacking on and so I showed them a half-assed
blog engine I was rolling using the remnants of another project when I should
have shown my more polished work.).

This interview was so bad that I cannot yet bring myself to try it again,
despite spending lots of time polishing up on algorithms and data structures.
Up to now, I had never experienced performance anxiety of any type -- I did
very well on interviews and standardized tests like the GRE. Yet now I'm
petrified of programming interviews.

By local standards, I'm a pretty good programmer (by HN standards I'm probably
average). And what I lack in knowledge I made up for with enthusiasm and
persistence. I've got a bunch of code of varying quality on Github, including
small contributions to several very large open source projects and a
moderately popular open source project that I created and maintain myself.

I'm also limited by the fact that due to my family situation, I can only
consider remote jobs at the moment. But by far my main hurdle is this fear of
programming interviews.

I'll definitely be taking a look at this. Maybe this will help be break
through my mental block.

~~~
ansimionescu
Here's some stuff to get you started, hope it helps:
[https://github.com/andreis/interview](https://github.com/andreis/interview)

~~~
cnp
Whoa, thank you!

------
general_failure
This looks great.

These days I skip all interviews which require me to code in the interview. I
have plenty of open source code, if they cannot figure how good I am looking
at, then they definitely cannot figure how good I am with a 3 hour coding
interview.

IMO, coding interviews is like public speaking. Many people get nervous in
front of a crowd. It's a skill one has to obtain should it be required. Coding
interviews are quite irrelevant for a programmer/developer position.

~~~
elq
>I have plenty of open source code, if they cannot figure how good I am
looking at...

I've interviewed several people with lots of code on github and what looks
like lots of accepted pull requests to many projects who still can't seem to
reason through a problem described as "write a function that takes two
unsorted lists and returns one sorted list".

I think I'll continue asking technical/coding questions...

~~~
1qaz2wsx3edc
If someone asks me to code/problem solve in an interview these days, I don't
even bother to try, I just pretend to try and answer the question to see their
reaction, because by that point I've already lost interest in the position.
It's the equivalent of a shit-test, so I like to turn the tables around and
see how they react instead.

I do this for many reasons, one of which, is they obviously weren't interested
enough in my talents to throughly research me before the interview to assess
my skill-set, which means, they weren't that interested in hiring me to begin
with. I don't want to work for someone who is just slamming through interviews
for talent; I'll bow out. I want to work for someone who is specifically
interested in working with me and understands my skill-set before hand. The
second reason, I don't deal with these questions is that I don't like to be
put on the spot without my normal working environment, I feel at a
disadvantage and uncomfortable. Keep in mind most developers are introverts.

I consider a good interview to be about people; not technicals, which can be
referenced/refered or looked up; they should provide a medium to see if the
employee is a comfortable fit. If goals and motives align. To talk history and
such.

~~~
elq
Oddly enough, people lie, unknown references can be bullshit.

The cost of hiring someone who is incompetent is high. High enough that
companies generally make several attempts at finding and filtering people that
might be incompetent. I don't think anyone who interviews programmers actually
believes the standard technical interview process is fun or necessarily even
accurate, but there's nothing else as low cost to implement that works better.

Further, someone who treated a technical problem in an engineering interview
as a "shit test" would be walked out at any company I've interviewed for...
Good luck with that!

------
learc83
None of my engineer friends have ever had a Google style technical interview.
What makes software so different?

You don't ask an electrical engineer to layout a complicated PCB on a
whiteboard, you don't have a civil engineer build a bridge out of popsicle
sticks.

Surely hiring an incompetent electrical engineer is just as bad as hiring an
incompetent software engineer, but from talking to the EEs I know, they just
get asked basic questions or go over past projects--nothing nearly as
stressful as a coding interview.

If other industries can get by without them, whiteboard technical interviews
must not be as necessary as they're made out to be. It seems to me they are
just a damaging fad. I think the high stress technical interview could even be
one of the factors contributing to the software monoculture.

~~~
keppy
Well if your job resembles writing on a whiteboard, solving problems, then
they should make sure you can do that in the interview. Try going through some
problems on a white board you'll probably enjoy it more than you assume!

~~~
learc83
Software engineering doesn't resemble anything like solving brain teasers on a
white board while your boss watches over your shoulder.

No other engineering discipline does this, and software didn't do this until
everyone started copying Google.

In fact an HR guy from Google basically said that interviews were useless. [1]

>Years ago, we did a study to determine whether anyone at Google is
particularly good at hiring. We looked at tens of thousands of interviews, and
everyone who had done the interviews and what they scored the candidate, and
how that person ultimately performed in their job. We found zero relationship.
It’s a complete random mess, except for one guy who was highly predictive
because he only interviewed people for a very specialized area, where he
happened to be the world’s leading expert.

Everyone else is copying Google assuming they are doing it right, but they're
not. Once Google selects potential candidates and weeds out the people who
lied on their resumes with basic questions, they'd probably do just as well
hiring a random selection.

[1] [http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/20/business/in-head-
hunting-b...](http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/20/business/in-head-hunting-big-
data-may-not-be-such-a-big-deal.html?pagewanted=2&_r=0&smid=tw-
nytimesbusiness&partner=socialflow)

------
saganus
As minor feedback, it would be great if the "How it works" section actually
contained how it works info.

I only see 3 steps that look more like facts than actual "how's". Totally free
fully anonymous and interviewers from top companies. How does that explain how
it works?

I would prefer something like:

1) Signup 2) List all available interviewers (or interviews, or subjects or
something) 3) Select one, schedule it 4) Have an interview 5) See results!

Or something like that.

I have found that when you use a question as a webpage, blog or other text,
it's really good when you actually answer said question instead of not. Or
don't use a question as a section title perhaps?

I would be much more interested in this neat idea if I had a better way of
evaluating it I had more info.

Edit: For example, can I select interviews by subject? or by interviewer ex-
employer, or by level (basic, advanced, etc) or is it random? Can I rate the
interviewer as well?

~~~
leeny
great feedback, will fix. thank you!

~~~
saganus
Great! thank you. I'm looking forward for this.

------
Swizec
I love this! Too many of my friends who are great engineers melt down
completely when faced with an actual interview for various reasons.

But I do wonder if I could put this to use in freelancing as well. Sometimes
clients, especially early-stage startups, go for a very normal-technical-
interview approach to hiring freelancers

------
capkutay
Great...so when everyone does this and becomes good at technical interviews,
SV companies will find some other meaningless, high pressure method to screen
job candidates. "Steal a bone from this agitated rottweiler while you recite
every other fibonacci number up to 20"

~~~
akanet
I think this is an extremely pessimistic view of what is likely to happen.
Being good at interviewing (on both the candidate and interviewer side)
doesn't mean that you get jobs you aren't qualified for, it means presenting a
more accurate picture of your skills or what the job is. Anything that moves
us in that direction is probably good.

------
prezjordan
Congrats, Aline! This is too awesome.

Be sure to check out her blog as well, "making technical recruiting suck
less." Tons of fantastic content.
[http://blog.alinelerner.com/](http://blog.alinelerner.com/)

------
nawitus
>First and foremost, if you're trying to get better at technical interviews,
the best way to do that is to actually do it.

So to fix problems with signaling there should more signaling and even more
wasted hours?

------
gejjaxxita
Coding interview practice is absolutely key. I recently began interviewing for
the first time with a number of companies (I'm about to graduate). I noticed
that over the course of a month and 3 interviews with 3 separate companies my
interviewing skills had increased hugely.

The 4th company I interviewed at had a very different perception of me than
the 1st because of the month's practice, even though I had essentially the
same technical skills. Coding interviews test "coding interview ability"
rather than "coding ability", unfortunately the other ways (Github, aptitude
tests etc..) have their own problems.

------
gourneau
I have had Aline Lerner reach out to me as a recruiter before. She is one of
the best. She worked hard to find great matches.

~~~
leeny
ohai josh! thanks!

------
10098
I can easily see the benefit it provides for the interviewees, but what's in
it for the interviewers?

~~~
ernestipark
I think this site is ignoring the value add for the interviewers as well.
Interviewing others is a skill and takes practice and dedication. Many people
just take some coding question and ask a candidate without thinking it through
much and what they're actually analyzing. It would be good practice for
interviewers as well.

~~~
spyder
You mean like: they could allow a third person to watch/listen the interview
and at the end of it, rate the interviewer and give suggestions for
improvement?

------
thomasmann
I'm very scared of interviewing. I'm 29 and actually never got a job by
interviewing and only had 1 interview in my life. It was kinda awful and the
lady that interviewed me explained me how I was failing, which I understood
but can't improve just by will alone. I also have big troubles on how oral
communication implies a deadline (answer quickly or look bad)... I enjoy
emails much more than the phone

She said I had to sell my skills much more, instead of strictly answering
questions and then waiting for the next one in silence. I felt like a
sociopath with no people skills.. I'm kinda shy guy that doesn't do well with
strangers, or bigger groups. From my readings online, this is very common with
anxious people or introverts.

In the interview there wasn't a group but there was the "this person can
control my destiny" pressure, which is also irrational (you can always get
another job).

Another things that affects me is impostor syndrome: selling myself feels like
lying.

Also the crap unanswerable questions like "What's your biggest flaw?"

So this could actually be very good for me :)

------
Centigonal
Good idea! It leapfrogs the scores of existing "code interview practice tools"
that give you a problem and a text editor and do some auto-validation on your
answer by providing a human element. Something like this seems like a more
relevant kind of practice.

How does the business model here work? Are interviewers paid? Are you planning
on eventually expanding into recruiting?

~~~
leeny
hey, good question. right now, interviewers aren't paid, but that may change.
re business model, ultimately, i'd like to have this platform be something
companies can use to find candidates rather than relying on proxies like
pedigree (or resume, for that matter!).

~~~
somerandomness
what do interviewers get out of it if they don't get paid? Are they employees?

------
columbo
This is very interesting. This is one of the few actual disruptions that I've
seen in the interviewing/hiring space.

One small issue: I don't know what I'm getting into when I join the waiting
list. I understand what the site is about, if I join will I suddenly be asked
to take an interview next Friday? It would be nice to know a little more about
the process.

~~~
pbhjpbhj
A walkthrough video would be nice. I've never had a "technical interview" and
don't know what it entails, for example. Should there maybe be a pre-testing
phase to weed out those who could simply not approach the level that could
pass the technical interview?

~~~
leeny
thanks! video is in the works.

------
Phlow
Whiteboard coding problems are absolute garbage. I recently had a remote code
problem where I was given a Visual Studio IDE (albeit minus Resharper) and
absolutely killed it.

If I'm going to be challenged to write code in front of you, give me the tools
I use every day, let me use the resources I use to solve problems efficiently
(which btw can include StackOverflow) and you will get a much better picture
of me. I don't write perfect code the moment it's written. Often I will
mentally acknowledge something needs further thought and my brain will revisit
it, sometimes days later, sometimes after multiple iterations. I'm fastidious
about those types of things, and as a result I can realistically say I write
some of the best and least buggy code in my company. I'm also very good at
theorizing about problems and debugging, which is never looked at in an
interview.

I guarantee you should hire me, but how can I show you that, and how can you
gain confidence in that?

------
gtani
(if you have to submit to a memorization-based screen) I didn't see source
materials to review for canonical algos/data structures questions. The 2 books
by McDowell and Guiness ("Ace the interview" and "Crack the interview" ) are
good, along with

[http://algorithmsandme.blogspot.com/p/blog-
page_27.html](http://algorithmsandme.blogspot.com/p/blog-page_27.html)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7477095](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7477095)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7827048](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7827048)

[http://www.quora.com/Which-are-the-frequently-asked-
intervie...](http://www.quora.com/Which-are-the-frequently-asked-interview-
questions-for-Java-Engineers)

I could put up alist for math for ML/data science as well)

------
yeureka
This looks very interesting. I have been through a lot of interviews in the
past, with small and large companies and now being in charge of hiring
developers I try to make the experience as friendly and as efficient as
possible. I hate white-board coding interviews because of the pressure of
doing it in front of a stranger, and I choose not to have that in our company.
But I do ask technical questions related to the job and I give as much time as
the candidate needs to complete a very simple coding test ( fizzbuzz type ) on
his/her own in a private office free of distractions and other people.

Unfortunately there are people with amazing cv's who can't solve simple
problems or who can't explain what they have done in previous projects.

Interviewing is hard and there are a lot of biases at play but it needs to be
done.

------
keppy
Reflections on whiteboarding:

Lately I have realized that I use google a lot less than I did in the past. I
don't have to look things up as much, thus I have seen gains in speed when
working on some functionality. The interesting part is that coding/reasoning
without google feels a lot like whiteboarding. In fact I get into the same
'mental patterns' when solving a problem I don't need google for that I feel
when brushing up on algorithm problems at the white board.

I don't come from long history of math rigor. I don't have a mathy degree at
all and have hardly used a whiteboard in front of any professors or math
nerds. But I'm also not an imbecile; computer science is built upon a
foundation of mathematics and if you aren't willing to play ball then get off
the fucking field.

------
Jemaclus
Nice. Aline is pretty sharp for a recruiter, and this just makes it even
better. Great idea!

------
stangeek
I love the footnote on the homepage ;)

------
sequoia
If one of the goals is encouraging meritocracy, I cannot imagine why it was
decided to add voice to the interview. From someone's voice I can frequently
tell their gender & maybe their socioeconomic background, sometimes their race
(or what I think their race is)... Basically I don't really buy the
"meritocracy" argument if you still have to say "I'm a woman" or "I'm a man"
at the start of a technical interview.

------
chipgap98
As someone who is going into my senior year of college, this looks fantastic.
I don't have a ton of experience with technical interviews and I would love to
get some more.

I've had 3-4 so far and even for similar jobs I feel like the interviewers are
looking for totally different things. Some want me to spit definitions back at
them and others are looking for me solve problems. It is hard to know what to
expect, especially when interviewing at startups.

------
minusSeven
Any ideas how the whole thing will be implemented. The site only contains very
generic information about it.

How are the interviews going to be conducted ? What will be the different
forms of interviews (as most companies have different forms and phases of
interviews) ? How will the feedbacks be given ?

Hope this just doesn't turn out to be just meeting place for anonymous
interviewers and interviewees .

------
lifeisstillgood
A friend of mine surprised me recently - he is starting a "new kind of job
board". Which struck me as "meh" till he explained - it's more of a "Developer
Relationship Management" system.

The idea is if you have developers they will interact with other developers -
so track those interactions and you get a good idea of where and how to fish

------
xtrumanx
Pretty cool idea; instantly signed up.

I was thinking about posting "Ask HN: Interview me" since I don't have many
interview opportunities in my corner of the world and wanted to find out how
good you guys think I am.

If anyone wants to test out their interview skills with me, we could set up a
meet over at talky.io and discuss some C# or js. Mail address is in my
profile.

------
lukasm
I had the same idea a year ago :) Simply, Google and other companies do CV, 2
phone screens and on-site. Someone could handle for them CV and 1st phone
screen. They would not only save 45mins for recruiters and devs, but will get
extra productivity. No distraction for hackers.

Charge a little to filter out people that clicked, but don't care. I'd pay.

------
mathattack
I wonder where the interviewers will come from. That said, this is a great
idea, and also along the lines of the "Show me a million new jobs" RFS [0].

[0] [http://blog.ycombinator.com/new-rfs-one-million-
jobs](http://blog.ycombinator.com/new-rfs-one-million-jobs)

------
mVChr
I like this in concept. It's like how major symphony orchestras hire, put a
curtain up between the performer and the judges so that the performer is never
seen and is assessed solely on the merits of their performance. Interesting to
see how it might play out in practice through this site.

------
jacalata
How does it manage not to connect me with someone that I work with based on
just my github profile? I work with plenty of people who don't have a github
profile, or if they do I'm not connected to it. I'm probably not connected to
most of them on LinkedIn either.

------
tannerc
I really wish this had existed a year ago when I panicked during an interview.
Having this type of practice is ideal in my mind for any type of technical
role.

I, too, am curious about sustaining this service though. Have you considered
offering tiers for participants?

------
user1408
There is voice but no video! How awesome is that! You invented the telephone,
I guess.

Seriously, I have no idea what kind of service you are trying to describe on
interviewing.io. There is only the usual BS like "totally free" and no actual
answers.

------
uberwach
Great idea!

Being Berlin based I am really curious on how tough the interviews are gonna
be.

The interviews I have had here were not challenging at all. The technical
problems did not even reach the difficulty of qualification round problems in
Google's Code Jam.

------
domluna
Is it just me or shouldn't we be moving towards projects rather than code
interviews? I think you can recover far more about a person in a project
setting than by asking them a couple of random questions to solve in X time.

~~~
mahyarm
Time wise it costs too much for the candidate.

------
ankit84
Their oAuth application URL is localhost :P (check at the time of Github
authorize)

------
rgawdzik
This is a great resource for first year CS co-op students at Waterloo. Even
though Waterloo grads end up with at least a hundred interviews under their
belts, the first few are really difficult.

Great job, keep up the work!

------
adamredwoods
I'd also be interested in a "faux" simulation, perhaps where it is pre-
recorded video interviewer with a countdown timer.

The video could occasionally say "Are you sure you want to do that?".

------
logfromblammo
This is especially useful when you consider that companies that actually
interview you absolutely will not tell you why you failed their process, or
they will offer diplomatic deceptions instead.

------
johnward
It's like Chatroulette[1] for technical interviews.

[1] But without the dicks

I laughed at this...

~~~
Link-
I came here to say just that! :D

~~~
tiler
me too.

------
jheriko
yeah... there is a big problem with interviews and best practices already. if
you are good enough at an interview you can con your employer into giving you
lots of money for not very much... can we have a service that goes the other
way?

identifying that brilliant junior who is worth 5x his years or the dirty rat
who has 30 years of experience working out how to not do his job and get away
with it.... that's hard.

interviews are already easy to win for the prospective employee...

------
zcase
Why would this be free?

------
lightblade
This is not only good for the interviewee, but also a great practice ground
for interviewers. Interviewing candidates also takes skills. :)

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callmeed
This is awesome. There is a chance I may be looking for work later this year
BUT I've been doing my own thing for > 10 years.

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justicezyx
I only have 1 sentence: “Coding interview (democ­racy) is the worst form of
interview (gov­ern­ment), except for all the oth­ers”

~~~
onislandtime
Not a good analogy. You can design interviews and measure outcomes. The goal
is not to eliminate coding if it is relevant for the position, you need to do
it right. There are people who spend their life designing and validating
tests, don't ask a busy engineer to wing it. Companies could use an unbiased
computer-based test as a first pass. This way, candidates can prepare and feel
they are getting a fair chance. In the second pass the interviewer can focus
on higher level problems and soft skills.

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Estragon
Is there a business model here? Why are the talented engineers running the
practice interviews devoting time to this?

~~~
fecak
I'm guessing because there is potential they could find a hire. Even though
you can choose to be anonymous, if two people hit it off there is nothing
preventing them from exchanging contact info. Seems like somewhat long odds
unless the candidate is willing to relocate anywhere.

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benologist
Brilliant way to connect companies that are hiring to developers without the
pressure of a 'real' interview.

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FallDead
This is a great idea, I can keep my skills up to date and be employable, if my
Canadian startup fails.

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jbcurtin2
> Hi, my name is Aline. I used to code for a living. Now I hire engineers. One
> of the things I've done that I'm most proud of is Lessons from a year's
> worth of hiring data, where I showed that, in an engineering resume,
> pedigree isn't a particularly valuable signal (whereas typos and grammatical
> errors are)

So what happens if you're lystdexic?

~~~
jacalata
You learn to use a word processor with spellcheck and get someone else to
proofread your resume before sending it out, just like someone who isn't
dyslexic should do.

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grdvnl
It would also be great to have some sort of feedback mechanism also given in
anonymity.

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lazyant
Silly question, why not chat (which can be saved for review etc) instead of
audio?

~~~
leeny
hmm, so audio is closer to what you'd get in the wild, ultimately making for
more indicative practice. logging it might be useful down the line, though, in
some format (provided users agree to that)!

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danielweber
I pressed the "sign up" button and . . . nothing happened.

~~~
owenversteeg
For me a popup appeared with a Github auth window. It's possible that your
browser blocked the popup.

~~~
danielweber
I did email, not Github. I no more want to log in with Github than I want to
log in with Facebook.

 _EDIT_ It seems to crash in the background if you have a "+" in your email
address.

~~~
leeny
thanks, will fix!

~~~
danielweber
Also, if you don't email me immediately, I probably won't ever think to check
my spam folder later.

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dkitchener
Simply Awesome!

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drhayes9
Kinda off-topic: where'd you get the batman icon?

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mellisarob
this wont workout i suppose

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dreamdu5t
I've been using [https://www.interviewcake.com](https://www.interviewcake.com)
and highly recommend it. It's just a series of problems you work through
combined with advice.

~~~
nmrm
There's a lot to an interview besides just coding questions. Interacting with
an actual interviewer lets you get all of the human interactions, talk in-
between problems, using problems to showcase talent, etc... all this stuff I'm
told I should do but have no idea how to actually do, basically.

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notastartup
This is a very promising idea.

I always crack when it comes to algorithm type question. I am aware of some of
the run of the mill ones like, write a palindrome detector, bubble sort.

However, I still can't figure out the crazy hard ones like:

In a pyramid of numbers, write an algorithm to find the path to the biggest
sum. Write a method to produce pascal's triangle. Given a grid, where X =
wall, O = space, write an algorithm to figure how big the room is and so
on....

My biggest gripe is knowing that these type of questions will kick my ass and
not being able to prepare because you are already supposed to know this from
your comp sci courses, which I've never been to as I have been self taught
through making my own software, and learning as I went along.

~~~
mquander
If you're a naturally competitive sort of person, you should try doing
TopCoder and Google Code Jam. I also skipped formal CS education and when I
was roughly at your level of ability I found that doing TopCoder SRMs in
particular taught me a nice toolbox of common approaches to algorithmic
problems.

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lazyant
S

~~~
lazyant
Submitted this by mistake, can't delete, funny how downvoters don't see that.

~~~
jcculb
Right, it was at least more insightful than "This!".

