Software engineering interview questions

Re:Software engineering interview questions by rcoder on Tuesday December 23, 2014 @01:44PM (#8789494)

I agree strongly this is the best way to interview a candidate. It's even relatively easy to set up for a new grad or junior candidate who isn't currently working. They should of course also be local or have no family or professional commitments that make a week-long non-work trip difficult.

Sadly, many of the best engineers I've worked with do have families, are working, don't live in the same town, and would absolutely balk at the idea of taking a week away from all that to "try out" a new job.

Of course, there's a wide spectrum between "work together for a week" and "write some C++ on a whiteboard for 40 minutes" that gets dropped from most screening processes. That's the zone where I'm most interested in finding creative evaluation tools.

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Re:Software engineering interview questions by fiachamp on Tuesday December 23, 2014 @01:55PM (#8789553)

We've found a good middle ground. Giving the candidate a few days to do a test project that involves fixing a bug on the production site. Its something they can do at night after work, gets them resolving a real-life problem, seeing how fast they figure out the codebase.

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Re:Software engineering interview questions by pkaye on Tuesday December 23, 2014 @02:07PM (#8789633)

Really good candidates will have multiple offers and given equal choices of companies, will choose those which make them not run through hoops.

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Re:Software engineering interview questions by toomuchtodo on Tuesday December 23, 2014 @02:20PM (#8789704)

In demand DevOps candidate here. I had multiple six figure offers from companies, and still picked the job that required a 4-6 hour project I completed over 2 weeks in the evenings (that I was paid for).

Provide the right work environment and perks, and people will "jump through hoops" if they think its worth it.

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Re:Software engineering interview questions by wernercd on Tuesday December 23, 2014 @04:41PM (#8790379)

This.

At the end of the day, what job/pay/perks do you want?

If jobs require you to jump through some hoops, then they will be jumped through - within reason.

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Re:Software engineering interview questions by pkaye on Tuesday December 23, 2014 @04:46PM (#8790409)

So if two companies gave similar perks but one required you to jump through hoops, which one do you think a majority would consider?

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Re:Software engineering interview questions by propelledjeans on Tuesday December 23, 2014 @08:28PM (#8791125)

The job with the best team. Generally, the job where you have to jump through hoop will have a team who has jumped through those hoops as well. It's all about vetting.

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Re:Software engineering interview questions by jghn on Tuesday December 23, 2014 @08:48PM (#8791175)

Which is only meaningful if the vetting is for the sort of skills one actually uses day to day.

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Re:Software engineering interview questions by ep103 on Tuesday December 23, 2014 @04:55PM (#8790441)

I don't know, if a company asks me to complete a simple test application, I might be more inclined to talk with them, because it means my interview (ostensibly) would be about the code I'd submitted. Which in turn is much more like what a day in the life of a developer would be like at their company (I write code, review with team lead, repeat, or somesuch).

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Re:Software engineering interview questions by kriro on Tuesday December 23, 2014 @05:01PM (#8790469)

I think really good candidates will enjoy working on relevant issues and not working on silly interview questions. If anything these "hoops" seem like exactly the filter you'd want. You want people who enjoy jumping through those hoops every day after all.

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Re:Software engineering interview questions by mahyarm on Tuesday December 23, 2014 @06:32PM (#8790810)

The key is to give this in liu of a 6 hour panel of interviews. So your project should be 4hrs max. And don't add in vague time waster 'bonus points' for doing more details.

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Re:Software engineering interview questions by bvanslyke on Tuesday December 23, 2014 @03:22PM (#8789994)

Kind of sounds like a sleazy way to get free labour. Unless these are made-up bugs or you are paying these candidates.

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Re:Software engineering interview questions by gaius on Tuesday December 23, 2014 @05:03PM (#8790476)

Free consulting? No thanks. Paid gig? Well that'll make my taxes complicated. No thanks.

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Re:Software engineering interview questions by mkramlich on Tuesday December 23, 2014 @05:16PM (#8790531)

it could be done evenings or weekends. i'd make it async/flextime as much as possible. the main point is to try a real project, however small, and pay the person, therefore it's real and fair for both parties. from my observation over a few decades, all other methods are noise and circuses and mysticism and propaganda in comparison. at least, I'm so done letting myself be the victim of other people's theories and guesses and unpaid meta makework.

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Re:Software engineering interview questions by jghn on Tuesday December 23, 2014 @06:00PM (#8790708)

Don't forget, they might also have a non-compete which would be violated by such an arrangement regardless of timing/flexing

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