There's a trade-off: if a company spends more time / requires more effort on an interview process, they can get a better signal on the candidate's abilities, but then they'll lose out on candidates who are unwilling / unable to commit this time. This might just be a hard trade-off in recruiting.
Internet applications have made it so easy to apply to a position, companies have to find (usually arbitrary) ways of filtering the pipeline.
It’s a very difficult problem to solve - Coinbase had 500k applications for 500 positions.
Edit: I’m very concerned about AI tools flooding the pipelines even more by sending out tons of automated applications. This is going to cause an arms race where the companies have to use more arbitrary methods to sort through candidates, and it will only make it harder to find good ones.
But, yeah, it's not that, back in the day, I didn't post a ton of application resumes and form cover letters to HR departments out of school--and even got non-form responses from a number (and an offer from one sight unseen though I ended up going with someone else even after insisting on an in-person visit). But my sense is that, as you say, there's more of an arms race as you put it going on today where--if you don't have some way of cutting trough the noise, such as through your network, it's a tough slog. Which is one reason the anecdotal evidence at least suggests it's tougher for people who have't developed a network yet.
I feel like the industry is far tougher to get into now than when I joined.
I sent out maybe 10 applications, got a few interviews, and 1 offer.
I hear of kids now sending out dozens to hundreds of applications with few bites.
Makes me sad for the stress they must feel.
But compared to maybe the decade plus prior to a couple years ago for (especially junior) software developers, it seems like a tough market based on a lot of conversations irrespective of overall unemployment rates.
If I had a dollar for every time I heard this (flawed) argument, I’d be rich and would no longer have to sell ads on my Hacker News comments. I’m going to get hate for this unpopular opinion but here we go.
So often, “But Leetcode isn’t like REAL programming” is the siren song of the programmer who probably overestimates their coding skills and experience.
Yes, I hate to say it - live coding is actually one of the best signals you can get on a candidate’s seniority and ability to program a computer (and more importantly, their core computer science skills). A good interviewer is trained to know how to probe your CS knowledge during this, and will watch how you structure code, break down problems, debug, and think about testing. They will even ask you to make changes to see how coachable you are and what you might be like to work with. It’s not about inverting a binary tree while sharing your screen, it’s about showing me how you solve a problem, then translate what’s in your head to code.
Take home exercises provide little to no signal, and screen out people who have families (who wouldn’t bother with a 4 hour take home exercise after work). I don’t want to see how you Google, I want to see how you think.
These candidates always want some version of, “But trust me, bro! Hire me: I’m a senior engineer, I don’t remember how to Leetcode! I’m good, I promise!” But what they won’t admit to themselves is that a good senior engineer is able to do all the things a junior can do PLUS all the things a senior can do.
It’s not perfect, but I won’t hire anyone that can’t pass a live coding round.
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2) if you have thousands of applicants for a position, and probably a dozen stand out by passing a really tough bar, wouldn’t you want to find those dozen?
I have no idea what could be a better option (well, maybe preparing some small feature to work on together), but it often turns out that good problem solvers are not really great at doing the job, for reasons that have nothing to do with the hard skills.
Hiring is really hard. You only get a few hours to decide whether someone will be a good engineer and colleague for several years.
By the nature of the constraints alone, anything you do will be extrapolation, and a guesstimate at best.
It's a reasonable assumption, but you might not. If the role doesn't actually require those skills you might hire someone who's going to get fed up and leave in 3 months or (worse) who invests time in making their job more interesting instead of solving your actual business problems.
So, yeah, you are right. Live coding is very good, which is what I do, but too many people confuse live coding with just leet coding.
Excellent - please be sure to mention this in the job description so I can know to never apply to where you work.
This idea that “I’m special - I’m too good for a live coding round” is definitely not an attitude I want on my team. It’s highly entitled.
The irony.
I tend to think that's very possibly true of developers (especially if they haven't worked in open source) but I wouldn't generalize that some combination of pointing to samples of past work and/or a take home isn't valid for a late-stage interview/demo in general. Jobs that involve a lot of writing or presenting, for example, probably require some demonstration of ability whether pre-existing or created for the purpose.
I'd also say that one mistake along this line was taking one such sample and assuming that it was close enough and could be upleveled with a bit of work.
If you let people cheat they will cheat.
The coding equivalent would be asking them why they took some specific approach or used a particular algorithm. I'm not sure about my feelings with respect to coding takehomes but there are circumstances where someone doesn't have an openly viewable body of work where takehomes can make sense.
I don't know if the the above was in jest as I wouldn't be able to see that from your oversized ego.
Let’s face the reality that most developers will never be able to write original software and just put text to screen using a tool or framework. Don’t call these people engineers. These people are the assembly line of software. Measure them according to desired patterns. They are copy/paste but smarter than data entry and understand some of the restrictions in place. Expectations are low and compatibility and replacement are the key business values.
Next are the people who test software, the QA. We expect more from these people and then work them harder for less money at a lower level of reputation.
Next are the people who evaluate software. These people are closer to engineers. These people include accessibility, security, and performance experts. These people are more like a combination of QA and senior developers. Evaluate these people on these criteria: written essay, technical knowledge, force them to measure things in real time and see how they perform.
Next are the people who actually write software applications. Let’s call these people solution delivery. These people are similar to junior architects and actually build things. These people should be evaluated only on the basis of organizational capabilities above that of the engineers that measure things.
Finally are the software owners. These people resemble a combination of project management and junior architects. They must have the experience to know how to build original software, like the junior architects, but also a planning vision to push though demands from competing stakeholders. There is busy savvy to this comes from a solid engineering planning vision plus superior communication skills most lesser software people never honed. Think of these people as senior principals with real authority. Evaluate these people on their delivery experience, using numbers, and reputation.
What has worked for me, honestly, is being directly involved with my hiring pipeline and having conversations.
It seems like common sense, but there's a lot of reasons not to do this and people will make good arguments to prevent it. "What about bias", "your time is more important" etc;
However, bias is an unfortunate consequence of selecting for value fit anyway and I can't think of a more important task than selecting the members that will be the future of the company.
I've had some positions that were open for a weekend where I got 400 applicants, and yes, it was daunting to go through and give each of them an honest shot, but you know: I had to do it. What's the alternative? I might miss a fantastic candidate because someone didn't understand what I actually need.
Evaluating programmers and "devops" people is just insanely hard, technologies are mostly fungible. If you can write one C-like language you can learn the others in about a month, but what can't be taught is what your values are, if you think in a systemic way, if you're easy to work with and respect others.
So, my solution is to have a conversation, challenge what they know, see how they react when challenged, see how they react when they reach the end of their knowledge and see what they're most proud of and if they get excited by it.
No gotchas, no esoteric internal handshake, just: are you defensive? Are you curious? Are you passionate? Can you communicate effectively and are you intelligent.
If you hit those, you can do anything.
"How do you even know who to interview?"
This is a hard question, for me there's not a lot of candidates that are physically located in my region, so those go through as long as they have something on the CV that looks relevant. For others it's a combination of: would it be easy for them to move, have they worked remote (and can do it in a region where I have a tax entity) and how strong of a fit to the role is the CV, lots of experience in games would be what I expect since I work in video games - but if you're going for a backend programming role then: what have you built and what do you list as your responsibility to achieve it?
With this mindset I managed to build a high performing, high trust team that executed very well on (literally) impossible demands. If the ownership of the company was better that team would have easily been world class.
We also exceeded dunbars second (clan) number with the size of the team, so it wasn't intrinsic to small teams (80+).
Failing a take-home is an entirely different thing. It's a huge loss in time and mental energy.
I've only done 3 of those in my career and only because the projects sounded interesting. 1 of those 3 resulted in a job offer which I can now confidently say in hindsight was the worst job in my career (...so far!).
I'm now leaning towards just filtering out companies that do take-homes because it signals to me that they don't care about their candidate's time and how a company treats its candidates is usually a good indicator of how they treat their employees.
Part of what lead to it I think is we hired largely straight out of college and doing a 9-hour interview with someone with little experience is a waste of time.
It worked great. In my five years there we only had a couple people not make it past the probationary period.
Less true in hotbeds for a given industry. But I've had relocation paid twice in my career and it was just a given.
They’ll say they will help. Even have you fill out a form. Then when it comes time to cover the expense, they come up with excuses on why they won’t.
If you get nervous, the main thing you can do is more interviews. My personal anxiety peaks right before the start time, luckily my bathroom is next door to my office! But after doing dozens of interviews I settle in once it gets rolling.
If you hate leetcode, well just get good at it. Yeah it is kinda dumb but it is straightforward to practice. And there is a lot more to a leetcode interview than knowing tricks - you need to communicate well.
Take homes? Yeah they are time consuming. If you really need a job do them, otherwise pass on the company!
Overall as a candidate you really need to try and go one level up on selling yourself - not just why you are a great candidate (which you are of course!), but why you would succeed at this role in particular.
0x264•2h ago
lsdforme•37m ago
This is so important, and most of the “fit” problems working I’ve experienced are because I didn’t weigh something heavily enough in the interview.
If you are even the slightest bit concerned with an employer, that is a red flag in your long-term prospects there.
For example:
- If your future boss seems even a little clueless about the job itself, you may be lucky to find adequate structure or information available to do your job well.
- If your future boss seems guarded, they may be hiding something; they may not be equipped for the job or could be a psychopath.
- If they have greater than average benefits or the recruiter calls you a rockstar, it may be some form of hell, and you won’t find that out until a few weeks in.
- If more than one person seemed like they were afraid to say something during the interview and were very quiet, either the environment there will be weird or it may be a serious hell and/or there is no chance to be able to fill the shoes of the person that left.
- If you sense that they overestimated your ability or you overstate something accidentally in the interview, you may not overcome that as much as you want to believe in yourself. No, you can’t make up for years of experience with hard work. Your LinkedIn profile description must be essentially you, with the burrs removed and buffed up a little; It’s not just to get past a machine or recruiter.
- If anyone you interview with is an arse, even if they work in a different team, that’s not a good sign.
- If you are ___, and no one else there is, that may be a serious problem. This is age, sex, religion, politics, number of kids and ages, pets, what they do/don’t do socially, emotion, humor, tech stack, clothing, what vehicles they drive, style of workplace, and everything else that either you won’t like or they won’t like about you. Diversity is a sham if you’re the only one different, though I know that some may not ever realistically find a place to fully fit in.
- If you join when they’re hiring others for your team at the same time, and the business itself isn’t growing significantly, that can be a bad sign.
- Claims that they don’t fire people are a lie or a hope.
None of these are absolute rules, but find your people, and if anything doesn’t seem right or seems too good to be true, it probably is. Weigh that extra salary against the impact of having to find another job if you quit or are let go later.