I won't apply at, or respond to recruiters representing, those companies that have a reputation for a long and/or torturous hiring process.
While I have no interest in being interrogated with high-stress puzzle solving, it is not the interview process itself that causes my disinterest; it is the understanding, from experience, that how a company treats its potential candidates is often reflective of its general culture.
I was referred to a company that eventually handed me “6 hour” (likely much more to complete sufficiently enough to advance) take home project a few weeks ago and I still can’t bring myself to start it. I read their Glassdoor reviews and the number of folks are reporting either being ghosted or getting a negative response minutes after submitting, after putting days of effort into this exercise, is disturbing. It seems like you lose by not playing the stupid game of asking questions while working on this inane project, so correctness and effort isn’t even enough — you must also pretend to be a moron who can’t figure things out on their own.
I also submitted one of those exercises for a different employer — that one took me about 6 hours but of course they estimate it at “about two”. I submitted it a week ago. They acknowledged receiving it immediately. And that was the last time I heard from this employer.
I’ll follow up tomorrow, but I’m kind of ticked as I was pretty happy with my code, and it’s not even something I can open source if they don’t like it. I also just got an offer elsewhere and I bet mentioning that fact will expedite their process more than me putting in effort into dancing around like a monkey.
Anyway, I’m done ranting, and I’m done doing take homes. I used to be a fan, but only because I preferred them to whiteboard algorithm puzzle questions.
> it’s not even something I can open source if they don’t like it
What? Of course you should... make sure you create a repo with the company name and people can create issues to collaborate on a better ToDo sample code.
It is mostly correct. Unless you sign very carefully worded IP assignment agreement to that effect, even work you get paid for remains under your own copyright. And frankly anyone who would sign that kind of thing on a employment test exercise is... Naive.
To be a work for hire, the work must be produced by an employee within the scope of their employment. Consequently, you cannot do work for hire if you have not been hired.
This is not true. If the problem statement itself is a unique creation, and the solution is publicly viewable and gives details on the question itself, the question writer may have the copyright even if you signed no NDA when solving it. Even if not, if a company wants to sue you to try to keep their interviewing IP private (as they see it), they can tie you up in court at a trivial cost to themselves but a life destroying cost to a lone developer.
Source: I once had a dragged out legal dispute with a company that used a GitHub DMCA takedown to tell me to remove a public repo in which I solved their takehome challenge (I had signed no NDA or otherwise any type of agreement of any kind prior to solving it).
If it's not an original question find the original source (a source that is older than the company would be especially nice), and post a solution to the question posed by the original source. The world is a big place, a lot of question are not original.
Downvote facts. I don't care about the fake worthless internet points. It is just pathetic that people downvote actual facts without having an actual rebuttal or intellectual counterargument. Nope just be a coward and downvote because I don't like it.
Not sure why you got downvoted, but I’m also not sure what point you are trying to convey. Facts are facts like 1 + 1 = 2, but it’s unclear what that fact brings to the conversation.
The top companies with these leetcode tests probably don't care that good people being rejected or avoiding them because of the amount of preparation required. Middle sized companies and startups doing leetcode tests are missing good people and probably can't afford the same number of false negatives as someone like Google with an endless supply of candidates. It seems like smaller companies often lazily copy these processes despite it likely costing them good engineers.
Having gone through the process recently I avoided companies with puzzle solving hiring procedures because I was confident that I could find well paid, interesting, work without jumping though those hoops. As you get more senior there are more people you have met and worked with with employment opportunities. It gets easier to find work by asking around and finding someone who will hire you based on recommendations or having worked together before.
This also applies to when you're actually interviewing. I once went through three rounds and they wanted a fourth. No is such a powerful and unexpected word. That they're still talking to you means they're interested but that they haven't offered you the job means they're not 100% sure. This one scenario I said No they came back with an offer. But it was rejected.
Would you do a 4-hr take-home assignment? What if I gave you a $100 amazon gift card?
There's a big difference between making someone jump through countless, one-sided hoops and asking for a little effort. The challenge IME is finding the balance.
Personally, if I can get to an onsite with another company after a recruiter chat and phone screen, I’m not even going to do a “2 hour” project. In my experience, actually spending the recommended amount of time on one of these take home projects is a losing proposition when there are people who will spend more time on it.
While I have no interest in being interrogated with high-stress puzzle solving, it is not the interview process itself that causes my disinterest; it is the understanding, from experience, that how a company treats its potential candidates is often reflective of its general culture.