[SanFranManDan]

I had one person say after I put in 4 hours "The code wasn't clean". That was his feedback.

I pressed him and he eventually said "I ran this by 3 Senior Python experts I know. All of them said the code wasn't good." No other details.

Before he even gave me the assignment he made his decision. He lied about asking 3 other people.

Coding assignments are always one sided. Unless someone from the company is going to sit with me and invest equal hours into the project, I will never do another one.

They are used by companies to filter out desperate employees (young engineers who don't have reputation to fall back on, or nothing to lose by doing it) and it signals a lower value to the company.

[azinman2]

Perhaps the opportunity of the assignment was to “right the record,” hoping to be surprised. It would have been nice to be more upfront about that.

I disagree with the notion of desperate employee — I’m anything but that, but I prefer a take home to show my engineering worth rather than a whiteboard if those are the two choices. Of course if you’re super famous then you probably won’t get either, depending on the company and it’s processes. That said I’ve been down the M&A path and still got (many) whiteboard interviews.

[dominotw]

> if those are the two choices

I would be shocked if any company in the world gives you this choice.

[azinman2]

Apple did, and I’ve had others do so in the past as well.