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Comment by lone-cloud | Hacker News Reader

This sounds like an incredibly toxic hiring process and not a company I'd ever want to work for. So you apply for a job and in response they (maybe) email you back asking for your expected salary (great way to filter out anyone worth hiring btw) and if you're cheap enough they then ask you to do work on a take home assignment. Everyone here thinks that this is okay and they want to be interviewed this way?

"Since we are focused on efficiency, we need to respect people’s time as much as our own". How exactly does this process respect the candidates time?

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For the game industry this is practically amazing.

Firstly, for 99% of appointments they usually don't care how good of a developer you are. You may have invented 10 new technologies and have revolutionized the field, if you can't show them a portfolio of games you have shipped then they don't care. They don't hire you for a developer/code role because you're a great developer, they hire you because you've shipped some games before (which is totally a different metric). For whatever reason the whole industry is stuck in this mentality, they can't differentiate between the metrics of appointing a great developer vs trying to find someone that can ship titles.

Asking for expected salary is a pretty quick way to filter because no one ever lists their requirement in their cv. If the job listing included their range then they might have gone with just assuming that the applicants would be within that range, but it doesn't hurt to check.

The test itself is quite easy and straightforward, if anything the real gotchas around it would be to stand out significantly from everyone else.

A few paragraphs below, the article answers that the company can't afford to pay as much as some others; I assume if you are being already being paid way over the market rate you should keep working at the place you're at.

As for the take home, I'd take it or any other kind of non-conventional question that allows me to show me my skills, rather than the usual interview where your interviewer gives you an algorithm or system design question they couldn't solve themselves, with the occasional smirk as they watch you fumble through that question.

I might be a masochist, but I actually enjoy system design interviews and they're quite formulaic. Resources like "System design in a hurry" are great for narrowing down the formula.

Where I live (BC, Canada) actually has a law requiring all employers to list the position's salary range, which is great for cutting down on the "expected salary expectations" dance.

I don't like take homes as it's (highly likely) a one way time commitment and if you're truly looking to show off your skills it would take you hours.

Washington State (where this company is based) has the same law about including salary ranges in job postings

If the system design interview is designed in a sane manner, which most of them are, thankfully for now.

Unfortunately, some interviewers ask questions that they themselves have not thought through properly, which leads to "interesting" discussions followed by a disqualification. While I've not had to face that issue first-hand as an interviewee, I've seen interviewers who wouldn't have been able to pass their own interview, for example.

I wouldn't do a take-home unless they do an interview first, to signal they value my time and are acting in good faith. (HR people don't count).

Then, when they give me the take-home, I would ask how many other people are in the stage with me. If it's 20, with only one candidate getting hired, forget it. My expectation in such situations would be that they won't be able to trim the pipeline as much as they will need/want to by applying purely objective/rational criteria, and I'd end up getting rejected on grounds of "inability to mind-read subjective preferences".

I wonder if the people replying bothered to look at the take home question. I wish I had an interview like that, it would be the second easiest interview I’ve ever done in my life, and then task is interesting and easy to me, as someone who just started learning unity a week ago

> Hi, I’d like to work for your company > Great, state your price and availability If match: > create a simple project(<1 hour of work) that demonstrates familiarity with technologies that will be used on the job. If done, check for team fit.

This is toxic to you???

Unless they are paying for the 1 hour of work then yes. If the company wants to know if someone can do something then look at their github or bring them in for an interview. Do not do work for free.

The take home assignment is to create a web service that changes the color of a cube, hardly anything cutting edge. Do you expect to be paid for coding interviews too?

Personally, I don't mind burning some time to interview for free. But I expect the company to also burn the time of their own engineers as well. It displays a degree of commitment and seriousness from them about this meeting. I'm never going to let them yank my chain and dance for them when all they've done is send an email. But I'm also not desperate for work, so it's a good filter for me to know what kinda dogshit work culture you've got.

I assume you have never seen the German software recruitment process. 6+ rounds spread over 3 months (with no ghosting in the middle if you are lucky). Here is the current process -

- Apply online

- Initial screening with recruiter if they like your resume (book a 45 mins slot)

- Take home assignment or online assessment (2 -4 hours)

- First technical screening interview (1-1.5 hours)

- Second technical interview (system level, deep dive, 1.5 hours)

- Product manager interview (1 hour)

- Senior leadership interview (1 hour)

- Final offer

Between all these rounds, you need to book meetings and it usually takes 1-2 weeks between rounds.

Is that part of the reason why the German software industry is generally so sclerotic and unproductive?

To be fair, it is more difficult to lay off in Germany so the company takes more risk.

Salary expectations should always be the first conversation imo

Should be posted BEFORE the first conversation.

When a recruiter reaches out to me, my first response is my resume and expected hourly compensation (I primarily do consulting/contract work).

I provide different numbers based on whether WFH, Hybrid, or In-office, and for any type of commuting, I figure that out and work it into my day, so if I'm looking for $150/hr, and the commute is 1 hour each way, that is an extra 2 hours per day in the office, if I'm in the office for 3 days a week, that is 46 hours of billable time (to me), but still only 40 to the employer, so my $150/hr becomes $172.50/hr.

> great way to filter out anyone worth hiring btw

This seems to imply that there is a significant causal link between a developer’s salary and the quality and quantity of their output, and I just don’t think that’s true in the general case.

That’s a ridiculous take. Well-paid developers tend to care much more about the quality of their work than those barely making a living from it.

The one who doesn't have a lot of skills or any deep knowledge will also be in self doubt and is much more likely gonna accept a lower offer, but a high skilled one will take it as an insult.

My anecdote is based on several years of experience and dozens of programmers hired. I’ve seen mediocre developers command high sums, and exceptional developers take more meagre remuneration, and everything in between.

You might characterise it as ridiculous, but you haven’t changed my mind on this.

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