Comment by throwawaymath | Hacker News Reader

Comment by throwawaymath | Hacker News Reader

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> I look for maybe 70% correct and I look for quick answers. You know it or you don't. And I set that expectation up front so they can give me a few "I don't know"s with no penalty.

I like that system. I recently took the TripleByte technical quiz and I liked that "I Don't Know" was an acceptable answer for most of the questions. When paired with the timer (or in your case, looking for a fast answer) it seems like a system that encourages honesty and "moving along" so you don't waste time on questions that you will probably do poorly on anyway.

As an aside, does anyone happen to know what the "levels" of performance on the TripleByte technical quiz are? When I took it (and I realize this will sound like a humblebrag), I was told I did "exceptionally well" and could be paired with "approximately 27 top tech companies", but I didn't feel I did all that well on it at all.

I ask because they say they only invite the "top few percent" of quiz takers to continue, but all I typically see when I search this online is other people mentioning they also did "exceptionally well." Anyone have feedback on the process?

I interviewed as an iOS Developer. Took the initial screening quiz and did "exceptionally well" and was scheduled for an online interview with one of their interviewers. Online interview consisted of making some rather straightforward additions to a very basic core application and getting the features up and running and manually tested. After that it was another series of questions. During the interview the interviewer took several short breaks to record feedback in their system. A few days later I received the decision that they would not be moving forward with my application. Feedback was fairly generic and vague imo with no real suggestions on how to improve other than to practice small coding problems and other suggestions oddly didn't coincide with any of the actual code part I was asked to implement or the questions of the quiz. Nothing was mentioned about my strengths eventhough they claim what they look for is a candidates strengths. I guess I just don't have any? Overall I think the process was on par with other technical coding interviews I've had and the feedback was equally useless.

I love how they mention small. I think small problems test for problem solving and understanding while large engineering questions test for knowledge of libraries that anyone can learn. I know I'm probably overinterpreting the use of the word "small" here.

As an aside, does anyone happen to know what the "levels" of performance on the TripleByte technical quiz are? When I took it (and I realize this will sound like a humblebrag), I was told I did "exceptionally well" and could be paired with "approximately 27 top tech companies", but I didn't feel I did all that well on it at all.

I tried one of their quizzes once, out of curiosity after it was mentioned somewhere I think. The questions I saw were routine enough for an experienced developer and I'd have expected anyone senior to get a near-perfect score. I'm pretty sure I still got shown something very close to what you got shown at the end, though.

That said, the other recruiting site that comes to mind for plugging how selective it is is TopTal, which claims to only take the top 3%. Given that 100% of people I've encountered who claimed to be in that group would also have failed a junior developer interview with me in minutes if not seconds, I'm guessing the population of people who seriously apply to these sites skews very low on skill and experience. Maybe anyone mid-level or above who actually knows what they're doing really is exceptionally good within that population, and even though you didn't feel it went that well you were still a good prospect among their applicants.

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