[tn_]

Someone sounds pretty entitled. You know how burdensome it'd be to verify that your repos were fully yours and how much energy an employer would have to exert to make sure everything was connected/architected well vs using a template I'd be already familiar with / created, that could be slightly altered to avoid it circulating the internet.

2 hours is not unreasonable for a take home project with the entire internet at your disposal. People need to be motivated to join the company they're applying to! (Anything more is definitely unfair for the candidate and doesn't scale well when reviewing code)

This notion that 2 hours is a lot of time, well plenty of engineers would rather have that than waste a few months memorizing algorithms they'll rarely use. It's pretty common for algorithm tests to be an hour long anyway.

So many software engineers have it backwards. Companies don't work for you, you're not even in the door yet. Unless you're a vp or principal engineer with a stellar bg, your tasks are replicable and most employers aren't going to be drooling over to get you on board as entitled / piss-poor attitude is going to cause more friction than it's worth.

[_jal]

Eh. There is this thing called a market. Sometimes producers have the whip-hand, sometimes it is the consumers. We have markets in labor, and anyone who (for instance) weathered the 2000 dot.com bust knows, employers in tech don't hesitate to use it when the wheel turns.

I refused a homework project for one firm[1]. It was a highly specific problem that only made sense for one specific version of an app server, and was really a lot of work with some tricky edge cases. Call me entitled, but after I made sure I understood what he was asking, told the interviewer where he could put his homework.

I think it is important to keep a sense of the power dynamic. It is really easy to start moralizing to the powerless (here, employees) when they do find themselves with bit of leverage for a change. Not only is it a bad look - punching down is for insecure assholes - systems break down without feedback and (sometimes) pushback.

[1] Well known, I'm not naming names because it probably was a fluke.

[crdoconnor]

>Someone sounds pretty entitled.

Maybe the guy who wants me to volunteer 2 hours of my time before deigning to have a conversation with me?

>You know how burdensome it'd be to verify that your repos were fully yours

I've never interviewed anybody who lied about the provenance of their repos. I'm pretty sure if I did, it would come out in a 5 minute conversation during the interview.

If one or two gifted liars slipped through the hiring funnel into the interview stage before being found out I wouldn't view it as a tragedy.

>This notion that 2 hours is a lot of time, well plenty of engineers would rather have that than waste a few months memorizing algorithms they'll rarely use.

2 hours is fine for an interview, but it's way too long to spend on a speculative application for one company.

[jasonlotito]

> 2 hours is fine for an interview, but it's way too long to spend on a speculative application for one company.

So... you limit yourself to no more than 4 hours effort applying to any company? Doesn't that limit your choices greatly?

[crdoconnor]

I limit myself to about 15 minutes' effort before talking to somebody who works at the company.

I don't find it limiting, no. I am only very rarely asked to jump through a bunch of bullshit hoops.

[jasonlotito]

That's not what I asked.

[dceddia]

I think "2 hours" was in quotes because maybe many of these assignments are nominally 2 hours but realistically require 4-6. Just speculating though.

[ryandrake]

Consider that you're interviewing at 20 companies: What if they all did this? That's 40 hours, or an entire work week of unpaid work, for the chance at getting to the next round. Seems unreasonable to me.

[tn_]

I never hand out assignments like this (or have in-person interviews w/ a similar task while having the internet at their disposal too) unless the person's already sent in their CV/Resume, had a phone-screen and they seem like a good prospect.

Regardless, you're going to have to put in time unless you're already trusted by one of the seniors/leads/managers.. if that's the case then there's no coding assignment.

If you're interviewing at 20 companies concurrently you should probably not interview at so many companies at one time and narrow down who you would most likely want to work for.

[crdoconnor]

>I never hand out assignments like this (or have in-person interviews w/ a similar task while having the internet at their disposal too) unless the person's already sent in their CV/Resume, had a phone-screen and they seem like a good prospect.

If they seem like a good prospect then you can signal your seriousness by granting a face to face interview / test.

By throwing out homework assignments (which cost you 0) you are signaling either that they do not seem like a good enough prospect to be worth your time or that you simply view their time to be worth vastly less than yours.

[tn_]

> If they seem like a good prospect then you can signal your seriousness by granting a face to face interview / test.

Yup, that's what I will do occasionally too. If the phone-call goes well, I'll invite them onsite for that coding task... no algorithms. I like being flexible with them, if they are more comfortable doing it at home due to scheduling, they can hack away at home.

>By throwing out homework assignments (which cost you 0) you are signaling either that they do not seem like a good enough prospect to be worth your time or that you simply view their time to be worth vastly less than yours.

I generally stick with working at start-ups. I need to know that the engineer I'm bringing on can handle high-pressure situations when we have to deliver milestones. Which I can totally understand why some potential employees that I've handed this assignment to become upset / flustered. But it's a good indicator if they don't complain at all and do an exceptional job, that they'll generally do well and at the very least be open to critique so they become a better engineer.

These requirements are absolutely not appropriate for more established/larger corps just as start-ups aren't for everyone.