HN Explorer

Ask HN: Best way to have candidates share code for takehome evaluations?

2 points by collectedparts ↗ HN
I used to be against takehome evaluations (I thought companies showed the most respect to candidates by being present during the evaluation), but we've recently had a few candidates say they prefer it as they think it gives them a better chance to show their skills.

So we wrote up a short prompt for a project that should take a couple of hours.

What's the right way to have candidates share their solution code? My first thought was to instruct them to put it into a private github repo and share it with me. But that seems to present a few problems: 1) According to the accept invite dialog, Github apparently leaks my IP address to the repository owner whenever I access it? 2) No obvious workflow for me to share the code with other engineers on my team so that they can help evaluate. I tried Github forking but the candidate was included as a collaborator on that fork, so probably got awkward emails when I forked and then removed him.

So I'm trying to think of a solution that doesn't involve leaking my teams' IP addresses, or other teammates' Github usernames.

I don't need to run this stuff. I'm OK with only being able to review in a web UI (I prefer it, from a security perspective). That's also why I don't want them to try to use email attaching either, even if Gmail could be made to tolerate it.

So I want something like a web (lowercase D) dropbox for code. Any ideas, HNers? Thanks!

13 comments

[ 4.9 ms ] story [ 28.2 ms ] thread
OrangeMonkey
First, to answer your question: email works well for most people, its ubiquitous, and its been used long before other services were available.

Second, you may want to rethink your choice.

I've no tolerance for take home tests nowadays and I would politely thank you for the time in interviewing me, explain that I do not have time to do that, but that I would be more than willing to whiteboard a problem that you have today.

If I could not successfully redirect them, then I would simply opt-out of the process at that point. I don't know how many people here would do take home tests but it can't be all that many. Maybe you are trying to hire folks that are not regulars here. Its something to consider.

b20000
you have 3 months to waste grinding leetcode but can’t do a small relevant assignment in the comfort of your home which you don’t need to grind leetcode for?
OrangeMonkey
Yes, I refuse unpaid “homework” for a job I don’t work at regardless of how it’s couched.

The more folks who put up with this nonsense the more pervasive it becomes.

b20000
i rather do that than grind leetcode and receive zero respect for my years of experience and skills.

you write the code, you own it. if they want to use it, demand payment to sign the rights over.

yuppie_scum
Message size and format restraints imposed by the email security layers have caused me issues sending and receiving candidate deliverables in the past.

Email is not secure anyway, if OP is so paranoid about exposing an IP surely s/he will want some more dedicated data transfer option

collectedparts
Did you see the beginning of my post?

> I used to be against takehome evaluations (I thought companies showed the most respect to candidates by being present during the evaluation), but we've recently had a few candidates say they prefer it as they think it gives them a better chance to show their skills.

We developed this as an option based on candidate demand.

Re:

> Maybe you are trying to hire folks that are not regulars here.

I knew when making this post that the HN crowd is pretty opposed to takehomes. Again, I was too. But I've been meeting more good engineers (candidates) who actively prefer the takehome format. And I'm very sympathetic to it: your daily work won't be a "quiz" with someone over your shoulder or even a bunch of whiteboarding. It will be asynchronously coding.

verdverm
git, it's how we all share our code, why would you use something else? I think you are over worrying about "leaks" and just need to set permissions appropriately. Create the repo for them and add them as a contributor
b20000
are you paying them for their work? if not, you should. i assume you are giving them something relevant to work on.

if you don’t want to pay them, do not ask them to sign NDAs and understand they will keep ownership of their work.

collectedparts
No. It's a reusable prompt as a skills assessment, not something we'd use as work product. We do not have candidates sign NDAs.
yuppie_scum
Dropbox or a google drive are options. Or host a little SFTP for them
t-3
Could you set up a "evaluation" repo under your organization for each candidate, and just and hand out temporary credentials whenever you want to give a takehome?
collectedparts
Aha. Thank you. Should have realized I was thinking about it backwards.
drakonka
Thank you for considering take-home evaluations. I much prefer them to any kind of whiteboarding scenario.

Whenever I've done take home assignments, what's worked well for me was putting them into a "hidden" GitLab repo. One that is not publicly visible on my account, but is not gated behind auth and can be shared with the interviewer/relevant team with a link. It seems to have worked well enough.

A temporary evaluation repo as someone suggested also sounds like a good idea I hadn't thought about before.