Ask HN: Is this normal during applications?

Yes this can be normal. Give it your best shot. If nothing else you'll learn a lot.

I've never been asked to something like that for a company in my region (northeast), but from what I've read in the many interviewing threads on HN, this is not uncommon in Silicon Valley. Braintree just had a front page post about their interview process here last week and it said they also have a several hour coding task which they review with the applicant in the next interview.

It's not necessarily the norm but I don't think you should be skeptical based off of this one factor either. The company has to figure out how to evaluate you and decide whether you're a good fit for the job. Talking on the phone and viewing past projects is great but perhaps they're newer to hiring and doing their best to realistically evaluate you.

When you say the task seems similar to what you'd be doing for them, do you mean you're concerned you might be doing some actual work for free that they'd use even if they didn't hire you?

I did a 2-3 hour evaluation for my job and had similar reservations but it turned out great. Assume that they're acting in good faith to evaluate you even if the actual method seems less than ideal.

You're the only one who has all the information to make this decision though, so make one you can be happy with.

How long/detailed was the phone conversation?

A small coding question isn't too unusual — at least, not for startups. What does surprise me is that the coding question came after they spoke to you on the phone, not before, as a filter.

I did this for my last job, although I went into the office and they did pay me for the day.

When I apply for my next job, I'm hoping they do this too as it's a chance to demonstrate my skills. I wouldn't be bothered if they expected me to do this remotely and unpaid (of course, massive difference if it's a week's work).

A popular alternative is that they call you into the office and basically give you an exam on a certain language/technology which you have to pass in an interview situation without being able to refer to the Internet. I'd hate this and argue that it's a pretty false way to estimate productivity - there's gaps in everyone's knowledge, good coders are people bright enough to Google for solutions, determine which are actually 'good' and implement them quickly.

Yes this is quite normal. By normal I don't mean that every company or even every second company uses this practice. I just mean that it is nothing to be skeptical of.

I have completed a few of these for companies over here in London (UK). Sometimes they organise a set time to send you the instructions and expect you to send the working solution by a certain time. I have done this twice and I was given 2 hours to complete the task. The other ones I have completed were not timed, they just advised that I send the working solution within the next few days.

Pretty normal. Are you saying that you can't be bothered to spend 3-5 hours to get a job?

3-5 hours seems on the high side, but other than that I wouldn't say it's strange. And what are you skeptical about? That they are getting free work out of you? Out-sourcing a 3 hour job to a college senior simply doesn't make sense.

Quite normal.

I did this for the first "real" job that I got and then again for a startup that I got a job with I did something similar. In the first case, the company was a few years old and the task they gave was very obviously just to gauge skills (not a real-world task). In the second, the startup was fledgling, actually the previous "main" developer wasn't getting things done and was essentially being shuffled out the door so I agreed to basically take a part of the project he was struggling with and spent a day getting it working as I was told if I could do this I would get the job. I doubt I would ever do that again but at the time it made sense because it was a step up for me and I hadn't proven myself enough yet. I would be willing to do something like the first job again, however, as I think its fair for them to give a test if its obviously not something they are using as part of their business.

For my current job, for which I'm a contractor, the only thing that I did as far as skill evaluation was take a basic language-specific evaluation test from the recruiter.