Senior devs know that coding is the least important part of the job. It is much more important to know how to analyze a problem and design an approach or solution, the coding part is the most trivial and least value part. A more appropriate interview for a senior dev is simply based on discussions, diagrams, explanations and maybe some brief pseudo code. The expectation is that they just need to describe how they would approach a problem and go about implementing it. If they are actually doing a coding challenge the expectation is that the job is very low level, kind of like asking for a typing test. The more the interviewer insisted on a coding test for a senior developer the less credibility the interviewer would have (i.e. they would come accross as not actually knowing what is valuable in a senior software developer).
I think motivation is a major factor in the homework assignment. I've had hiring processes where I couldn't be bothered with the assignment mostly because I didn't really like the company or the person who interviewd me had some bad vibes. On the other hand, I really, really wanted to land the job at my current company. So I worked on the home assignment for a few hours every day for about 3 weeks. I wanted to make it as good as I could. And I got hired. Dream job, baby!
As a senior dev I'd drop out if I needed to do a 1-2 hour code before having the first interview. There's many job opportunities, and I can't dedicate 1-2 hours for each company. Before investing time into challenges I need to know I'm not wasting my time. - How is the work, what roles and tasks will I be working on. - How is the company culture and values, will I enjoy working there? - Is there room for me to grow in the direction that I want.
TBH, if you're not able to waste 2 hours for whatever task in interview, you're applying to any random bullshit job. and if you're in position when you're applying for every bullhit random job/company, why do you call yourself a senior, because of years of doing vue?
I agree that expecting anything prior to a first interview is pretty crazy. They want you to dedicate hours of your time before sacrificing a bit of theirs to talk to you. Especially if you're considered not a good fit in the discussion then the project was a waste of time.
I have to admit the last job I interviewed for with a coding test did it right. They asked me the language I was comfortable with then presented the code and asked me to evaluate the results while being as in depth about what I was seeing as possible. They wanted my _thought process_ in as succinct a process as they could get it. It took maybe 10 minutes with some discussion and they got what they wanted while I found out it was a team that thinks the way I do: understanding somebody's reasoning, engineering, and communication methodology is _far_ more important to functioning in a dev team on a daily basis. I wound up making a bigger impact far more quickly than any developer the lead dev had ever seen, so their process clearly delivered on finding the right dev for the opening.
I'm now at the point where I go "Nope, I won't code that, but here's 8 others interview challenges I've already done in this zip file. Each sample includes the code challenge documentation, my program, and my unit test automation for the code. Yours is similar to Sample#4."
I just completed the whole process you described to land a junior developer position. Screening interview, behavioural interview, coding challenge with multiple acceptance criteria (some of them performance based, unit test coverage, standardized output, completed all of them). And then a technical interview which was extremely philosophical about SOLID principles, how to write backward compatible code, design patterns, inheritance vs composition etc... etc... Completed everything got praised every step of the way, got L1.3 position offer, tried to negotiate, was tolk there are people working for years and I cant make more then them when I join, that they have salary publickly available to everyone in the team. Is this normal for the industry right now ? I have 3 years of part-time (3/4) experience in QE and was recently promoted to mid-level position in QE
The job market is in a bad shape right now. There is also the seniority roller coaster ride. Check out the article from Gergely Orosz, Pragmatic Engineer.
I know a lot of good engineers who would totally fail a coding test right now. If I'm applying to your company, I'll do what I have to do. If you are calling me, I'll take a look but I'm a busy person with family and responsibilities, I may not have the time. A coding interview is fine, but a weekend homework assignment, yeah no I'd rather not.
Using a simple, quick test to reduce the number of completely incapable applicants makes a lot sense. IE first line screening. However, I feel it has little value for actually determine skills unless the job in question is very repetitive. Ultimately you need to talk shop and you can embed some hard to spot tests into those sessions. I work in embedded. You can trigger a debate, perhaps by playing devils advocate on whether or not a uint8 stack variable will be represented by a uint32 in a C program on the ARM arch. The aim is that the candidate proves that it is or is not by constructing a test to demonstrate. This tests technical understanding, for example here that the CPU cannot operate on uint8 data directly. As well as problem solving and handling disputes.
Slightly unrelated to the topic, can you please write what equipment you are using for recording? I really like this format, and the video/sound quality seems pretty decent. On topic, recently I have received a coding test that is described as something that can be finished in 3-4 hours, but I have kept working on it for days, mainly because I liked the project, and wanted to nail it, also for personal learning. I am not too happy with the company stating that it takes 3-4 h since it is a sever underestimation, but the challenge was pretty nice and open-ended that I have enjoyed doing it. While interviewing candidates, what I have found to be more effective is to have a debugging challenge, where a project containing a few bugs is provided to the candidate. At least for senior level it can show you more about the candidate skills, compared to a green-field project. In my field, it is really rare to be set to work on a green-field project, and project comprehension and an ability to navigate in a complex code base is a really valuable skill for a mid-to-senior candidate.
I record the audio with the headphones I wear in each video. The video is so old that I can't recall the camera I used but I know it was not a very informed choice as I am pretty much ignorant of everything that is not code related. If you put a gun to my head I would still not be able to tell you even one brand camera.
What do you mean USED to? You do realize this video is more of a "speculation" and reasoning as to why many seniors purposely dropout of coding interviews right? It is not even supposed to be opinionative.
Senior devs know that coding is the least important part of the job. It is much more important to know how to analyze a problem and design an approach or solution, the coding part is the most trivial and least value part. A more appropriate interview for a senior dev is simply based on discussions, diagrams, explanations and maybe some brief pseudo code. The expectation is that they just need to describe how they would approach a problem and go about implementing it. If they are actually doing a coding challenge the expectation is that the job is very low level, kind of like asking for a typing test. The more the interviewer insisted on a coding test for a senior developer the less credibility the interviewer would have (i.e. they would come accross as not actually knowing what is valuable in a senior software developer).
exactly. it is almost boring to program the solution after you designed a complex business problem on the board..
I think motivation is a major factor in the homework assignment. I've had hiring processes where I couldn't be bothered with the assignment mostly because I didn't really like the company or the person who interviewd me had some bad vibes. On the other hand, I really, really wanted to land the job at my current company. So I worked on the home assignment for a few hours every day for about 3 weeks. I wanted to make it as good as I could. And I got hired. Dream job, baby!
As a senior dev I'd drop out if I needed to do a 1-2 hour code before having the first interview.
There's many job opportunities, and I can't dedicate 1-2 hours for each company.
Before investing time into challenges I need to know I'm not wasting my time.
- How is the work, what roles and tasks will I be working on.
- How is the company culture and values, will I enjoy working there?
- Is there room for me to grow in the direction that I want.
TBH, if you're not able to waste 2 hours for whatever task in interview, you're applying to any random bullshit job. and if you're in position when you're applying for every bullhit random job/company, why do you call yourself a senior, because of years of doing vue?
I agree that expecting anything prior to a first interview is pretty crazy. They want you to dedicate hours of your time before sacrificing a bit of theirs to talk to you. Especially if you're considered not a good fit in the discussion then the project was a waste of time.
It like asking a doctor to perform surgery before hiring them. Its stupid
Actually it's how you hire the best surgeons, give them a gig, don't repeat if they don't fit
@@alivepenmods If the patient dies you dont hire them haha
It's more even like asking a junior doctor to perform a heart transplant for a position of a dentist.
@@alivepenmods what you are describing is hiring an engineer on a contract and then hiring them full time if they fit.
@@sashakrstev344 which is way worse than doing a 30min Leetcode.
Also it is insulting and deeply unserious and shows the prospective employer is inept
I have to admit the last job I interviewed for with a coding test did it right. They asked me the language I was comfortable with then presented the code and asked me to evaluate the results while being as in depth about what I was seeing as possible. They wanted my _thought process_ in as succinct a process as they could get it. It took maybe 10 minutes with some discussion and they got what they wanted while I found out it was a team that thinks the way I do: understanding somebody's reasoning, engineering, and communication methodology is _far_ more important to functioning in a dev team on a daily basis.
I wound up making a bigger impact far more quickly than any developer the lead dev had ever seen, so their process clearly delivered on finding the right dev for the opening.
I'm now at the point where I go "Nope, I won't code that, but here's 8 others interview challenges I've already done in this zip file. Each sample includes the code challenge documentation, my program, and my unit test automation for the code. Yours is similar to Sample#4."
I just completed the whole process you described to land a junior developer position. Screening interview, behavioural interview, coding challenge with multiple acceptance criteria (some of them performance based, unit test coverage, standardized output, completed all of them). And then a technical interview which was extremely philosophical about SOLID principles, how to write backward compatible code, design patterns, inheritance vs composition etc... etc...
Completed everything got praised every step of the way, got L1.3 position offer, tried to negotiate, was tolk there are people working for years and I cant make more then them when I join, that they have salary publickly available to everyone in the team. Is this normal for the industry right now ? I have 3 years of part-time (3/4) experience in QE and was recently promoted to mid-level position in QE
Not at every company. Depends on where you got hired.
The job market is in a bad shape right now.
There is also the seniority roller coaster ride. Check out the article from Gergely Orosz, Pragmatic Engineer.
I know a lot of good engineers who would totally fail a coding test right now. If I'm applying to your company, I'll do what I have to do. If you are calling me, I'll take a look but I'm a busy person with family and responsibilities, I may not have the time. A coding interview is fine, but a weekend homework assignment, yeah no I'd rather not.
I just dropped out a process with revolut. 6 interviews 3 technical tests, the first one leet code. I couldn't face it.
Using a simple, quick test to reduce the number of completely incapable applicants makes a lot sense. IE first line screening. However, I feel it has little value for actually determine skills unless the job in question is very repetitive. Ultimately you need to talk shop and you can embed some hard to spot tests into those sessions. I work in embedded. You can trigger a debate, perhaps by playing devils advocate on whether or not a uint8 stack variable will be represented by a uint32 in a C program on the ARM arch. The aim is that the candidate proves that it is or is not by constructing a test to demonstrate.
This tests technical understanding, for example here that the CPU cannot operate on uint8 data directly.
As well as problem solving and handling disputes.
Slightly unrelated to the topic, can you please write what equipment you are using for recording? I really like this format, and the video/sound quality seems pretty decent.
On topic, recently I have received a coding test that is described as something that can be finished in 3-4 hours, but I have kept working on it for days, mainly because I liked the project, and wanted to nail it, also for personal learning. I am not too happy with the company stating that it takes 3-4 h since it is a sever underestimation, but the challenge was pretty nice and open-ended that I have enjoyed doing it.
While interviewing candidates, what I have found to be more effective is to have a debugging challenge, where a project containing a few bugs is provided to the candidate. At least for senior level it can show you more about the candidate skills, compared to a green-field project. In my field, it is really rare to be set to work on a green-field project, and project comprehension and an ability to navigate in a complex code base is a really valuable skill for a mid-to-senior candidate.
I record the audio with the headphones I wear in each video.
The video is so old that I can't recall the camera I used but I know it was not a very informed choice as I am pretty much ignorant of everything that is not code related.
If you put a gun to my head I would still not be able to tell you even one brand camera.
I used to like and agree with your opinions in your older videos.
What do you mean USED to? You do realize this video is more of a "speculation" and reasoning as to why many seniors purposely dropout of coding interviews right? It is not even supposed to be opinionative.