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Ask HN: How do you get hired without a programming interview?

10 points by rvalue ↗ HN
Few days ago, I was fortunate enough to talk to a person who switched from engineer to a manager position.

Most of the questions that were asked included how to solve project management tasks and conflict resolution strategies. No programming tests were included in the interview.

We see and also personally observe how coding tests do not effectively measure a persons analytical skills. This begs the question, for engineers, can there exist a system where companies can hire them without programming tests in interviews? One seeking a managerial position isn't necessarily asked to demonstrate and perform his skills on spot, are they?

23 comments

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imaginenore
I've interviewed at a few places without any technical questions. They basically talked to me about my past work and what I wanted to do. It's strange indeed.
hashnsalt
Which places specifically?
imaginenore
That was like a decade ago, I wouldn't remember now.
rvalue
What position were you interviewing for? and did you get hired?
jpindar
So have I, but that's because I work with embedded systems and my employers are electrical engineers.
ng12
> We see and also personally observe how coding tests do not effectively measure a persons analytical skills

I'm not convinced of this. It's not a perfect system but a well-orchestrated coding test is a great indicator of performance. In fact I think that's a huge pain point when hiring for a soft-skill oriented role -- it's very difficult to judge candidates until they've spent ~6 months on the job.

So what do established companies do? They rely very heavily on pedigree and experience. Coding interviews suck but I think they're necessary for meritocratic hiring. Plus, most of the complaints I see here are the result of poorly conducting programming interviews, not necessarily programming interviews as a concept.

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ycbI
> It's not a perfect system but a well-orchestrated coding test is a great indicator of performance.

[Citation needed]

a) I would rather hire someone who needs some guidance but gets along with the team rather than an arrogant coding genius.

b) "Programming interview" = "coding quiz" which means it only measures how well someone can remember something from school or how well they can take tests, neither of which is relevant to any real world job.

c) Successful "coding quiz" by no means indicates one's ability to write software in any capacity outside the given quiz parameters less so as part of a team and even less so among multitude of teams which typically is required to deliver any real life product other than the multitude of *ly.coms or whatever is the trendy naming convention is this week.

soulchild37
I show my app on the app store to the interviewer, shown him a bit of the source code of the app on how I tackled some interesting problem etc, how I handled user complain/support etc. Got offered immediately afterward.

This might not work for most company however.

CmdrSprinkles
> One seeking a managerial position isn't necessarily asked to demonstrate and perform his skills on spot, are they?

Actually, they are. That is the interview. As a manager, you need to have social skills. And a lot of the questions asked give a good insight into how you approach problems and social situations.

And that is why the better coder interviews are more about talking through a problem with a bit of whiteboard sketching/coding.

ycbI
Actually, they aren't.
itamarst
On site programming puzzles are flawed, yes, especially whiteboard programming (as interviewee you're stuck with still doing them, but there's things you can do to make it less awful: https://codewithoutrules.com/2016/04/04/interview-puzzles/)

Other alternatives:

1. Take-home programming exercise. More realistic, if it's a good task. Biased against people with less free time, though.

2. Paid take-home real work. DuckDuckGo does this, as does SpiderOak I think. Doesn't work well for people who have current job, but if it ever becomes popular it'll be easier for people to quit during job hunt period.

3. Pair programming during interview. Somewhat more realistic than whiteboard puzzle, biased against people with interview nerves.

4. Debugging code during interview. Somewhat more realistic than whiteboard puzzle, biased against people with interview nerves.

Etc..

There's no magic bullet, sadly.

future1979
I've been anti hw problem given it requires no investment of time by the potential employer. If it was a short hw .. say max of an hour or two followed by a discussion of it (where discussion was the interview) I might be okay with it. I'm definitely not okay with the hw being step 1 of the usual shit process.
mrfusion
I'd like style guidance on these kind of tasks. One place got turned off that I put unit tests on a small toy problem.
itamarst
Probably don't want a job that objects to unit tests, if you can avoid it.
allfou
You don't unless it's a tiny startup and none of the founders/employees are technical. Which is pretty rare.
throwmeaway32
"One seeking a managerial position isn't necessarily asked to demonstrate and perform his skills on spot, are they?"

Yes they are (kind of), they are asked questions/problems which are used to gauge their ability to manage and do the job expected of them; in the 'best' way achievable in a interview scenario. Just like coders are asked questions to try to gauge their ability.

I'm not saying either ways are perfect, but it's not like a managerial interview is easy/non-challenging.

[Edit: Ooops saw a similar reply below, done way earlier...will keep mine here for consistency on my part]

future1979
It used to work that way before Google messed it up. Microsoft was known to have a "difficult" process .. a cakewalk by today's unreasonable standard. Companies didn't try to emulate Microsoft in those days .. I don't know why everyone wanted to copy Google.
ycbI
Same reason many wanted to emulated Microsoft — they don't know any better. Many claim "it works for Google" without giving it much thought (not a surprise in today's world) but does it really? Google, among others, is a hot mess and precisely for this reason — they hire people who are great in passing tests but can barely function socially and professionally.

But hey — it keeps them busy and removes them from competition, so it's not a bad thing.

JoshX10
In 2014 I was earning ~$60,000 in my developer's salary.

Then I used new (other vendor's) enterprise software developer's platform to build a solution at my spare time.

I published an online instructional on "how to" do "good things" with other enterprise software vendor's offering.

"Other enterprise vendor" found my online instructional and hired me for $164,500 for a management position.

No bullshit coding interviews, no crap. Today I have the best job in the best part of the city with the best manager I ever had. Seriously.

Just sharing my experience with some hints along the way.