throwaway298477

That definitely has not been my experience at all.

My experience is that almost every place I've interviewed requires both a coding project and at least one whiteboard interview, with open-source as a huge plus in your favor.

Maybe it's not an either-or thing and just requires a little bit more consideration of how it's affecting the industry as a whole.

- If someone has stellar experience on what's desired, they shouldn't have to jump through the other hoops.

- If they have a strong open source portfolio that reflects exactly what's desired, they shouldn't need the other hoops.

- If there's a whiteboard interview, don't ask about anagrams or anything that an experience dev wouldn't already be using in their day-to-day. Ask something relevant, like their understanding of databases, networking, etc if they are going to be Senior Backend dev. Ask about something a strong, experience dev actually knows that a junior doesn't. If you suspect possible gaming, then go deeper into the questions to filter out bs.

- If there's a coding exercise, keep it timed to a max of 1 hour if it's a screening test, up to 3 hours if it's a final interview. Have the project already set up for them so they're spending time on the problem and not on config. Clarify exactly what you're looking for in the results.

It's basic common sense.

I've heard on other threads a lot about being 'too old' to code. This doesn't happen in other engineering disciplines, where age is highly valued because of the experience it brings.

I'm suspecting this kind of hazing ritual to be screening out very good older devs that have a lot to bring to the table, but don't have the time to do all this extra stuff because they have a family.

You're just describing leetcode here. Not something most people even do in their day-to-day.

A lot of frontend devs don't even work with the DOM directly after having spent years with React. Could they do it? probably. Are they prepared for DOM-related manipulation questions on a whiteboard? nope.

Except when the candidate isn't told that they will have a timed coding interview in advance and in general what it would be.

I've been asked to write a full-stack app from scratch, and I spent like half of the time debugging the webpack config, which could've easily been solved by having a template prepared in advance if I knew what I was doing.

If anyone's reading these, please have the coders work off of an already existing template that you give them.

> wouldn't that imply that it's their job to clarify the nebulous spec?

Maybe, except when you try to clarify and their answer is that it's open-ended -- and yet they want something super specific in the end. And the super specific things are just one of many tech opinions and not objectively good design.

> FWIW, many of the FAANGs are famous for asking intentionally underspecified questions, and the candidate preparing properly by figuring out what's in scope and what's not is part of the scoring.

Why is this a good thing though? Why is solving riddles in a professional interview somehow ok?

I don't want to sound cynical, but is the interview process likely to change any time soon?

Looking at the HN history, it's been a better part of a decade, if not longer, since people have been complaining about the hiring process.

It doesn't seem like much has changed except that it's worse, in the sense that you're usually asked to spend several hours on a coding project for screening AND have a subsequent whiteboard/leetcode interview or 10.

When you take into account all of the 'signals' that you're supposed to provide to even get a job, let alone be successful, maybe this isn't a good profession to be in anymore? Example:

- Several hours - several days coding projects. Some are screening tests.

- Having to practice leetcode continuously in order to keep it fresh in your head, because you never use it in actual work.

- Robust open source portfolio is highly encouraged, in some places required.

- Constantly keeping up with new libraries, frameworks and languages. It's unusual to get to learn these on the job, usually you have to do this on your own time.

Let's face it:

When you take into account all of that extra time, it seems like Software Engineers are not being paid very well.

Especially if you value your leisure time.

Why is it like this? Maybe it's just too competitive, too many Software Engineers applying for too few positions. Whatever the reason, it doesn't sound at all what it used to be, and maybe it's time to get out.

Because it's not objective?

Everyone seems to have very different opinions of what good or bad code looks like, what's overengineered and what isn't.

Why is the problem even asking for AI? are they applying for an AI position?

And why is it ok to ask people to work for free on a coding project? From what I've seen, people generally ask for pretty high rates to do consulting, with good reason.