Anyone care to comment on how the whole Triplebyte process goes as a person who wants to be hired? I'm interested since I never got past the set of questions due to some kind of bug in the beta.
I went through the process about 2 months ago, and I really enjoyed it.
After the initial quiz, I had a ~2 hours interview with a human, which included a 1h "pair programming" challenge, random technical questions on my field, general CS questions and architecture (system design) type of questions.
Once I passed that step, my talent manager (the person who helps facilitating the discussion with the companies) told me IIRC that about 1 in 5 passes the human test.
Based on my skill set and preferences, the system "offered" some 30-something companies, and I chose to have an introductory call with ~10 of them. Each company has some background information, what they're good for (in TripleByte's opinion), their general size and their engineering size. Some companies (the bigger names) have additional steps before the on-site, like another pair-programming session or take-home exercises.
From those calls, 5 on-site interviews stemmed, and 4 of those resulted in an offer.
TripleByte also helped arranging the on-site all in the same week, so if you're remote you don't have to fly back and forth all the time.
I'll answer, made a throwaway because I don't want to be identified. I did the quiz, moved straight to remote Triplebyte interview. Then to on-sites with 3-4 companies. Got along great with everyone, rocked many of the algorithm and system design questions (and some not). Got zero offers.
I am a swe with 2-3 years of experience, maybe four depending on how you count experience maybe, speak at lots of large conferences, contribute to open source, etc. I feel (and have data to back up) like Triplebyte sold me as a 5-7 years experience person, so only got interviews with companies looking for senior people. Really got along great with all companies and I have historically been a great judge of how my interviews have gone, but I think Triplebyte overselling me essentially caused me to waste a week of my life. Feel free to handwave and say I am blaming Triplebyte for my failures (of which I have many), but I do think I would have had 1-2 offers otherwise. Although to be fair, the 130-140k comp most companies mentioned would be a significant pay cut and may not have been do-able for me even if I had received an offer.
I had a similar experience, but, having interviewed with several companies outside of triplebyte I'm not too upset about it. The old hay about companies "looking for someone with 10 years experience in Go" applies. In the end it seems like the only way I can get a job is the really old fashioned way (via friends network).
Around the middle of 2017 I interviewed with them to be a part time interviewer. It was something they promoted on HN for a while.
They put me through the standard interview process along with additional discussion about the interviewer position.
Overall they're much better than most startups but have room for improvement.
The good:
They kept me well-informed throughout the process and set proper expectations. They were prompt with followups and stuck to the schedule they set. My interviewers were knowledgable, clearly software engineers.
The bad:
Too much focus on algos and CS fundamentals, not enough on higher level concepts and what makes someone a good fit for an available position.
I understand it's really hard to have a generic evaluation that covers multiple potential roles. That said, I believe that these questions do not select for good employees for most roles. They are biased to select for recent college grads and people who are willing to study before interviewing.
For example, they asked me about bloom filters. 95%+ of startup software jobs will never have to deal with bloom filters. Why would you ask about them? Ask something that will actually be encountered on the job.
To add a little background I was responsible for our hiring process in my last position, including interviewing, so I'm a bit opinionated about this.
I had a great experience, even as someone primarily working in embedded development. They only targeted SF & NY when I went through their process, which wound up unexpectedly being a dealbreaker for me, but if it weren't for that I absolutely would've taken one of their offers.
I have a very similar situation. I started taking pitch calls and then ran the numbers on what it would cost our family to move to San Francisco / Silicon Valley, and it didn't work out. But their process was fantastic, and if my situation is different in the future I'd absolutely use them again.
Edit: By the way, you should email them about the bug with your profile, they'd probably want to know about it / give you another shot.
Same here. The bay area has now priced out professionals with families. I was looking at $40-$60k more per year for housing depending on where in the bay area I would live and I'm currently making over $120k...
I ended up not taking a job through them (I did the math and relocating to SF meant I would have a longer commute and only slightly more pay after housing my family of 6), but the process was great.
After the initial test, there is a fairly long phone/remote desktop interview that consists of:
* Writing code (on your actual machine with the tools and language of your choice!) to solve a simple problem.
* Debugging (a smallish program with 5 failed unit tests)
* General knowledge questions (databases, web (both html and http), data-structures algorithms)
The phone interview then ended with them giving you a couple of tips on answering the non-technical interview topics that a lot of engineers flub (why do you want to work here, when can you start, compensation).
The next day I got a list of over a dozen positions with the recommendation that I pick at least 5 to move on to phone screening.
The phone screenings went well (3 of them were just varients of "all the candidatese triplebyte has sent us were great, so we just want to talk about our company"). This was also my first hint that compensation would be an issue; one company was immediately ruled out because they were early stage and I can't pay a mortgage with equity.
Then triplebyte scheduled the on-sites all in the same week so that I wouldn't have to go back-and-forth to the bay area.
Ultimately Apple was the only company on my list paying enough to get me to relocate, and they passed on me.
I did the Triplebyte interview around six months ago. It was pretty pleasant. (I used Triplebyte because I'm self taught, without a college degree.) I really like the company I ended up getting hired at. I only interviewed at my current company, though, so it's very possible I just got lucky.
I find interviewing unpleasant. Triplebyte's interview wasn't an exception, but it was less unpleasant than most. Even though they choose not to move forward with me, I thought the feedback was valuable and I don't regret having gone through the process.
I passed the quiz and moved on to the phone interview.
Overall I don't think it was a good experience for me.
The interview was pleasant but long. Since they are more of a recruiting firm than anything, they are able to ask questions in a way that an organization looking to hire won't. It allows the candidate to be more candid and detailed with their knowledge and expectations. I thought it went well enough but I did not proceed to the company matching phase.
It is _very_ clear that they are looking for a specific type of developer - a type which I reckon probably doesn't need Triplybyte in the first place. I am not a web/rails/whatever developer, nor am I a senior engineer with very niche skillsets like low-level systems, etc.
The feedback I got was mostly positive, but contradicted itself in odd ways (pro: "we like your DB skills" / con: "work more with DBs") and really just translated to "you aren't marketable to startups and don't have the pedigree / experience needed to throw at our larger clients."
I suppose if you have an popular or incredibly niche skillset that is in-demand, but are having trouble getting the attention of companies for whatever reason (it happens), TripleByte is a decent shot. But if you have more general experience / a skill-set that
Ultimately they are a business and they have to operate this way, so I understand being turned down. I was, however, disappointed that I was 'let down' in a way by the vision I was pitched of what TripleByte claims to do / be.
I was interviewed by them. Best process ever. Easy, straightforward, had options but I wasn't really interested in working for other people anyway. They let me code in ClojureScript for the snake game if memory serves. Also, this was many years ago when they initially started out so I am assuming they only got better.
I agree, I was one of their early people (they even met me on a holiday weekend at their offices across from the stadium as that was the only time I could fit in for their "long form" interview). Was best process I've ever been through.
My only critique, is that it seems a bit too front end oriented these days for someone like me who is basically a deep backend person. They did have long form infrastructure questions, but as I get asked to take their prototype tests every so often, it seems many of the new tests are just front end oriented (i.e. language types). I'm guessing this is because that's where the market has taken them.
I worked with them roughly a year ago, and it was incredibly straightforward and enjoyable! I went through the online test and two video conference interviews before being matched with a generous list of companies that matched my preferences, both small and large. The people I worked with (shoutout to Michelle and Buck) also kept in constant contact throughout the entire process, ensuring that things were going smoothly from the company-side after matching. All in all, I heartily recommend Triplebyte to anyone who's looking to streamline their search process, and to see how much better the interview procedure can become.
Took the quiz just over a year ago, and passed the phone interview. I stated my preference to avoid very small / early stage startups, and got interviews at Asana, Apple, and a medium-sized startup. Accepted the Asana offer, where I have been working for a year.
I think Triplebyte was really useful for me because I didn't have a CS degree and didn't have any work history directly in tech, so I couldn't get through resume screens via direct applications and didn't really know many people who could refer me. So Triplebyte had high value in getting me actual the actual technical interviews. I'm not sure how valuable it would be for others who don't have trouble with this, but given the minimal time investment (a few hours for phone interview), it's probably worth a shot regardless.
After the initial quiz, I had a ~2 hours interview with a human, which included a 1h "pair programming" challenge, random technical questions on my field, general CS questions and architecture (system design) type of questions.
Once I passed that step, my talent manager (the person who helps facilitating the discussion with the companies) told me IIRC that about 1 in 5 passes the human test.
Based on my skill set and preferences, the system "offered" some 30-something companies, and I chose to have an introductory call with ~10 of them. Each company has some background information, what they're good for (in TripleByte's opinion), their general size and their engineering size. Some companies (the bigger names) have additional steps before the on-site, like another pair-programming session or take-home exercises.
From those calls, 5 on-site interviews stemmed, and 4 of those resulted in an offer. TripleByte also helped arranging the on-site all in the same week, so if you're remote you don't have to fly back and forth all the time.
Top notch service, imo