On Interviewing as a Junior Dev

by mlrtime • 12 years ago

89 91 12 years ago

_RPM• 12 years ago

I did a code challenge that involved ranking soccer teams, and while going over the code a developer at the company asked me if I needed the rules of the game explained to me. While it's a good thing to make sure the candidate understands what the problem is, companies need to be aware that these things carry extra cultural baggage and asking a female candidate if they understand a basic sports rule (or any other male dominated theme) comes across as belittling and sexist.

As a male, I don't even know the rules of soccer, so I would have gladly wanted to hear the rules of the game so I could implement the solution correctly.

atmosx2• 12 years ago

I think too that there's nothing sexist about being explained the rules of soccer. Also I get the feeling that the OP is a little too over her head. At some point I thought it was Ken Thompson writing the blog post.

Anyway, I'm glad that turned out good for her, also some stats are interesting (2 responses out of 10 online approaches is a good number IMHO).

I'm considering pursuing a remote dev career but I'm writing only ruby code right now, have some personal projects which I need to polish and started learning JavaScript. I would be interested to read more stories on the same topic but with much less verbosity.

xKingfisher• 12 years ago

Yeah, I know I would want the rules explained to me. Personally, I think that it is a positive that an interviewer doesn't assume any extraneous knowledge on the candidate's part, since it prevents the candidate being in a position where they may feel anxious or embarrassed about asking for help or clarification, and lets them focus on demonstrating the coding abilities. It also presents a way to clear up any ambiguities right at the start.

Replace soccer with something like curling, or analyzing corn yields, or whatever obscure topic an interviewer wants to use to frame a question, and the interviewer's question comes across as perfectly valid thing to ask.

tomlock6• 12 years ago

Unfortunately, our culture generally views sport as a male domain. While you and I are probably aware that there's nothing intrinsically "male" about sport, it can feel a little weird for someone to treat you as if your understanding is aligned with the gendered assumption. Anyone, if they don't understand the rules of the game, could still ask what they are. Would you feel weird if someone assumed you knew the rules because you were a man? How could you tell if they assumed that because you were a man, or because of some other reason?

I think the point the developer is trying to make is that all this could be avoided by using another context in the challenge. Not using a different challenge is at least somewhat displaying that they didn't think how this situation might make someone feel.

Perdition2• 12 years ago

Not using a different challenge

Like what?

Even something like maths can be claimed to be "viewed generally as a male domain". And once you start accounting for ethnicity and social background I think you would find it incredibly difficult to come up with something that had no possibly offensive cultural baggage.

Actually, maybe the challenge could be to design a challenge that was neutral.

P.S. Considering soccer's limited popularity in the US I doubt most candidates would know the rules.

DanBC• 12 years ago

Or the could the company frame the help-giving to make it clear that this is offered to everyone?

butwhy4• 12 years ago

So.. the company asks a candidate if they understand the game, and just because the author of this post is female, she wildly speculates that they must only be asking her because she is female. This is ludicrous. Sounds like a feminist.

tomlock6• 12 years ago

Whether you like it or not people make assumptions about other people based on their gender. Companies that are sensitive to that fact are less likely to pose code challenges that align with a common assumption about gender, which aligns with the gender of the majority of developers. They are also less likely to ask questions that also reflect that assumption. For this developer, this code challenge was a red flag.

rurounijones4• 12 years ago

she wildly speculates that they must only be asking her because she is female

Not sure what article you were reading but all she doesn't say anything of the sort. She simply points out that companies need to realize some questions may come with extra cultural baggage which could be misinterpreted.

gedrap5• 12 years ago

Totally agree. There's absolutely nothing sexist about it at all. I am male and there loads of sports I have no idea about the rules.

Now, let's say I stumble across this bit before I interview her. Red flag: tends to treat things as sexist when they clearly are not. Meaning a potential law suit or what not for nothing. Sorry, too big of a liability.

jarek8• 12 years ago

Now, let's say I stumble across this bit before I interview her. Red flag: tends to treat things as sexist when they clearly are not. Meaning a potential law suit or what not for nothing. Sorry, too big of a liability.

Eh, that works both ways.

"Red flag: assumes I will sue the company based on one blog post they misunderstood. Meaning a potentially shitty company afraid of a lawsuit exposing their shittyness. Sorry, too big of a risk."

Congrats! You're not a match. I doubt either of you will spill many tears.

uptownJimmy• 12 years ago

I'm male and pretty athletic, and I would definitely need the rules of soccer explained to me. That game was not played where I grew up.

philliphaydon2• 12 years ago

I played soccer as a kid a local team, and I would need the rules explained to me 15 years later...

anullptr2• 12 years ago

100% agree.

It's nothing to so with sex. If they were implementing rules for the TV game show Countdown would there be an issue there? I doubt it. You shouldn't have to be scared of checking if someone is familiar and briefed on the subject matter.

pkaye• 12 years ago

On rescheduling, the candidate should also be considerate of the interviewer. Too many times, candidates have scheduled a interview for early morning (because they don't want to take time off from their current job) then while I'm driving to work early, call 20 minutes before to say they are "sick" and cancel. If you feel you are getting sick, try to cancel much earlier so as not to inconvenience others.

forrestthewoods• 12 years ago

$95,000 for someone with 6 months school + 6 month internship is fucking insane. Holy shit!

e12e2• 12 years ago

If you subscribe to the idea that colleges/universities teaches how to think - and how to study, and not a (set of) subject, she has a BS+1 year of programming specialization.

sqrt17• 12 years ago

If you look at Nordstrom's interviewing site (linked in the article), you see that they require people to have some technical background but also general communication skills. All the talk about "t-shaped" people boils down to the fact that in their line of work, understanding requirements (including non-technical descriptions given by a customer) is a non-negotiable requirement of the job, whereas purely technical excellence isn't as useful to them.

In that sense, having good communication skills and some programming experience, on top of being good at "getting stuff done" is better than what they'd get out of an average CS graduate. Put in other terms, current CS curricula don't serve these companies well, because they yield people who are deeply technical, but bring neither good communication skills nor necessarily familiarity with the tools used by them.

onion2k• 12 years ago

It seems high but if you're in a competitive, well-funded market with a limited supply of capable developers then salaries will only go up..

hereonbusiness• 12 years ago

I guess that would be the gross salary. What would be the typical net salary for someone who earns that much in SF or Seattle after taxes and deductions (health insurance, ...)?

seanmcdirmid4• 12 years ago

Employers usually provide health insurance at that pay level. Your take home in Seattle will be whatever you make minus federal and payroll taxes, so around 60%.

peteretep2• 12 years ago

That's a pretty impressive starting salary range for a junior.

a) You must have interviewed exceptionally well, and be in practice "not really" a junior (which would imply Ada are doing an incredible job, and is freakin' awesome), or be bringing to bear some other skills

and/or

b) Salary range where you are is broken

You said the range you got offered was $75-$95, which in Great British Pounds is £47-£60,000, and I've absolutely no reason to doubt you. BUT: you can get a reasonable senior developer in the most expensive city in the world (London) for £60,000.

Tehnix• 12 years ago

The pickyness about jobs doesn't exactly scream junior dev either. Most I know would be glad to just get a job, and then after they've got some experience on their CV, they can be picky.

bshimmin3• 12 years ago

And it seems like Amazon was willing to offer a $20K signing bonus, so add another £13K to that. A junior developer in London would probably feel they'd done very well to get half of that.

rurounijones4• 12 years ago

Looking at the resume I have trouble considering her a "Junior" dev, seems much more experienced than that.

e12e2• 12 years ago

Well, looking at her CV, she has a BS, and some real world experience. Couple that with self-motivation, and the interest to do another year just to get started in CS -- that would probably place her in a different category from "went to Uni, graduated". Which is one definition of junior dev.

That said, looking at her github profile, it does give me a "junior dev" feel (not really a bad or good thing, in and of itself. Better to hire a promising junior dev, than a poor "senior" dev, I think).

If nothing else, I'm much more looking forward to my own prospects if/when I start looking for a job in earnest...

I've never quite got the salaries in the UK/London -- those that I've seen advertised or on sites like glassdoor. They seem unreasonably low?

Granted, I'm looking from Norway which has a decidedly strange/flat pay structure -- starting salary for a junior dev here would (probably?) be around a little below the median wage, to 1.5 the median wage (across all categories of jobs[1]) -- and the effective ceiling not that far above.

I do find it interesting that with her clearly limited programming skills/experience, she was valued so high. I don't think it is unreasonable, but it doesn't really match what I've seen elsewhere -- I'm surprised so many companies clearly seem to see what they need, and are willing to compensate accordingly.

[1] http://www.ssb.no/a/aarbok/tab/tab-190.html Norwgegian table. So for a single person 25-30 years old, in 2011, median income after taxes come to 264 200 NOK, or ~37K USD/23.5K GBP. Almost double that for income before tax.

jarek8• 12 years ago

London software salaries are low compared to the Bay Area or Seattle. Comparable or a little bit lower than Toronto software salaries.

A couple of years ago Amazon would make a standard offer of 90k USD (~55k GBP at today's rates) to new graduates hired as SDE in Seattle, plus a 10k bonus if they stayed a year.

Of course there's differences like Amazon giving everyone only 10 paid vacation/annual leave days, 15 days being considered pretty good, annual bonuses aren't common at the larger U.S. companies, etc.

I personally think London is worth it, but the money difference is there.

wldlyinaccurate• 12 years ago

My jaw always hits the floor when I see the salaries they offer in SF/NY. Then I remember that working in the UK I typically get twice as much paid annual leave as most people in the USA, usually with the option to purchase more leave. I think I'll always choose more time off over more money.

xixixao• 12 years ago

This is purely UK vs US difference: From my experience, companies in the US can pay over $100k to fresh graduates. The same companies pay 30% less in the UK. So the $95k translates to $40k, which is what you'd expect.

nandemo3• 12 years ago

I'd say it's US vs rest-of-the-world difference.

I recently applied to a senior dev position at the Tokyo branch of a certain American company, which shall remain nameless. They pay 120~160k in the US. They offered me 60k.

nvarsj• 12 years ago

Starting out, yeah, but generally in the UK experienced guys go into contracting - which pays similar to top US rates. Thats what I ended up doing after moving here a year ago. My take home pay doubled. That includes a month of vacation, and 7.5 hr days.

nandemo3• 12 years ago

b) Salary range where you are is broken

Depends on the point of view.

I'd say the salary range where you and I are (i.e. not in the US) is broken.

Despite all the talk of "programmers can work from anywhere", labour is still a very inefficient market.

hcho2• 12 years ago

Apples to oranges comparison, really. Give up the job security aspect of British jobs and you'll find out companies are more willing to pay numbers close to what's seen in the US.

UK-AL• 12 years ago

You have no job security(No right for tribunal) until 2 years in. They can literally make anything up, and fire you for no reason if that's what they feel like.

gambiting2• 12 years ago

I am a junior C++ programmer and I make ~27k USD/year in the UK. Those salaries in US make me question myself what I am doing with my life(but then again, I have mandatory 25 days of paid leave a year + unlimited sick days + free healhcare + have no student debt, so maybe it's not that bad )

bshimmin3• 12 years ago

That can't be London, can it? £17K would have been low even 10 years ago in the capital...

pookieinc• 12 years ago

This article was interesting to read from my standpoint. I'm currently unemployed and am currently looking for a jr. dev position as well.

Background: Received CS degree, have worked for 3 years as a full-stack developer internationally with lots of code written, and am now looking in the Bay Area for front-end developer position.

Red Flag 1: Asking me to dedicate over ten hours to a code challenge before meeting anyone on the team. Relatedly, the code challenge not having anything to do with the role for which I am applying or the skills I would be using on the job.

Along the same lines, I've now worked on around 6 coding challenges (2 of which I would say had nothing to do with front-end development) and after spending somewhere between 4-10+ of my time, I've gone from the mentality of "coding challenges are good because I can learn from them" to "... another one? I need money, not more work." While coding challenges are a good way of gauging one's skill level, asking for a coding challenge that will take longer than a 2-3 hours should not be required, mainly with regard to the respect of the developer looking for the job, as well as to the company and their time to check it. I've received (and completed) challenges that took over a day to complete. Worst of all is when you submit it and you receive a "Sorry, we have decided to pursue other candidates response" without working with you to understand where your code could be strengthened.

Green Flag 3: Tailoring the interview process to the candidate. When I feel that there is an attempt to ensure that there is a good mutual fit for a role in a company, I have a much more positive view on the company and their hiring practices.

I just wanted to emphasize this Green Flag.

The other important item I found surprisingly relatable was this:

And of course, as they always say, it's really about who you know and using those connections.

Start-ups aside, I've found it incredible difficult to get on the radar of bigger companies, when it comes to applying from their site. I can understand hundreds or more are applying and they may not be able to get back to everyone and that's understandable, I just didn't realize how emphasized connections were. The only interviews I've had with bigger companies (i.e. Facebook/Google, etc.) have been through connections. Other companies w/o connections... well I didn't get past the coding challenge to have that interview.

trentmb• 12 years ago

I don't know how to get on the radar of any companies. I'd love to be given a coding challenge.

Background: Received Math degree this past summer, 0 years as a full-stack developer. I had supporting coursework in CS, so I'm not completely unfamiliar with programming. All I want is an entry level job...

nobodyshere• 12 years ago

From my experience freelance at that stage is not an option at all, and the best option would be a beefed up github profile to show off your capabilities.

peteretep2• 12 years ago

What about getting on to something like IBM or Microsoft's Graduate Developer schemes?

chaoxu• 12 years ago

You could have taken a algorithms class. Since you are from Uiuc, ask people around you for a referral, which would land you a phone interview or coding challenge. Certain companies send out coding challenges. I think Dropbox do.

gedrap5• 12 years ago

You should change your attitude a bit. it sounds like you are desperate for a job, while you should be thinking that you need a job which would be mutually beneficial for both sides. The attitude helps a lot in various stages.

You can start by writing some toy application. Simple blog platform is a classic example. Push it to github. Bonus points if you have multiple applications using different languages/frameworks, that shows that you are not one of the devs that learn one thing and use it for the rest of the life.

Good luck.

Bahamut• 12 years ago

If you're in the Bay area (or any major city), go to the meetups, talk to people, and eventually you'll find someone able to help you as long as you're personable.

Most of all though, you need to teach yourself the programming used in practice though - web development is probably the fastest ticket to a job. This means some Git, HTML, CSS, JavaScript, and a backend language (PHP, Ruby, Python, Java/Scala are good choices) & framework (WordPress, Symfony, Ruby on Rails, Django, Node.js, Play framework are examples) or few. Try going through courses offered on sites like Code School or Treehouse. Scour the web for online tutorials, and try to veer from them to get yourself more comfortable with working with the technologies.

An aside, if you live in the Bay area, I've run into plenty of fellow Illini here - I am one myself. I am a math PhD dropout from U of I ('06 - '10).

Good luck - I started my career 2 years ago after 2 1/2 years of searching, so I understand the pain of the first search. A recruiter I met at a meetup helped me land my first job in 2 months - I spent a half a year attending several meetups a week before I ran into him.

atmosx2• 12 years ago

Networking can get you a job even with no experience at all (seriously, it's very much possible). Then of course, you will have to pay the piper probably (e.g. work more hours then the rest of the team to keep up) but from what I see here, most people learn programming on the job and stick to their specific company needs (internal policies, stacks, language, etc.)... Except from exceptional programmers, consultants and some other categories who love their job contribute to open source, keep their own projects and so forth..

cheepin• 12 years ago

I hate the coding challenges because they are hugely asymmetric in effort required between interviewer and interviewee. They usually come as the first or second step (after the phone interview), which means you aren't even really being seriously considered yet. You have to spend several hours working on it while they just have to send the email to whatever their challenge link is. Best case scenario, you wasted those hours because you were qualified to do what they assigned you to, and you simply move to the 'next round'. Worst case, you get rejected for any reason or even no reason.

I have seen a few done maybe correctly. They really have to either be short, or otherwise compensated. One company is paying a few hundred dollars for the result of the coding challenge if they like your result, and are using it to entirely replace the first rounds of interview (coding challenge => skip directly to onsite and collect $500). These cases seem to be outliers rather than the norm though.

Thanks Jeff Atwood.

jarek8• 12 years ago

My favourite is when the company rejects you with no feedback then asks that you do not post your code for the challenge in your portfolio

anullptr2• 12 years ago

Speaking as an interviewer at a corporation, referrals put your name higher on a list of people to interview, and they get you absolutely nothing else.

Internal recruiters/HR are also terrible. I've lost count of how many times we'll receive a CV from someone that applied online and then when we call them they tell us they applied months ago and aren't interested anymore. So don't feel too disheartened.

I can't get my head around coding challenges. When I was looking for a job when I wanted to leave my graduate position I encountered a few of these. Either it was homework that they reviewed (and printed out the wrong source code when interviewing me) or it was a C# written test when I'd never done any C# in my life. I'm not really a fan of super technical show-me-you-know-angulars-implementation-detail interviews, I think it's just an opprtubity for the interviewer to act like they're shit hot. If they've got (even a tiny amount of) programming experience, show they're interested, can work through simple problems and describe what they're doing they can probably pick up whatever the fashionable programmibg language/library is now.

On the topic of tailoring an interview, I think its nice to keep some common questions across candidates so there's some useful reference point and bechmark.

mikecmpbll• 12 years ago

I had to stop halfway through because the pretentiousness was overbearing.

neelborooah• 12 years ago

Although she did end up with good results, I too felt that her attitude was a tad too pretentious. But hey, whatever floats your boat.

TheOtherHobbes• 12 years ago

It didn't seem pretentious so much as unfairly entitled and demanding, and potentially insensitive to the needs and interests of possible co-workers.

But it's interesting to watch someone coming at it from that angle, instead of the usual 'give employers anything they want' view.

philliphaydon2• 12 years ago

Got further than I did. I got about 1/4 way through, skipped to the conclusion, then WTF at the salary.

gedrap5• 12 years ago

What I sometimes don't understand, is the emphasis on being a female / ethnic minority like in this post.

Sure, some people are intolerant, but if you go with 'maybe: being the only female / minority' it gives me a feeling that you expect some special treatment because of your gender or ethnicity.

It gives me a feeling that it is an employee who is a potential liability (e.g. the paragraph about sports 'asking a female candidate if they understand a basic sports rule (or any other male dominated theme) comes across as belittling and sexist'). Do I want a potential law suit or bad press because maybe some one didn't invite her to watch a football game after work or anything like that? Emmm that's a bit of risk.

I understand that sometimes it's tough to be in a minority but it doesn't mean you need to put so much emphasis on it. Just calm down and down assume people are racist by default. Because they are not.

Ntrails• 12 years ago

People basically are racist by default. We fear the different, the other, we seem to be wired that way. Society is training us to be tolerant, it is training us to be better.

Secondly, if your happiness in the place you spend half your waking hours is contingent on the people there not making you feel marginalised/belittled/stupid/irrelevant/worthless, and you have had bad experiences previously, I think it's reasonable for a key decision parameter to be "do I think the employees here are better than that"

davesnothere2• 12 years ago

Re: "potential law suit": Maybe just calm down and don't assume people are litigious by default...?

xiaoma• 12 years ago

Because Hsing-Hui and I gave our first conference talk in August, we mentioned during our talk that we'd be looking for jobs in October.

Wat? How the heck did she give tech conference talks before landing even a junior dev job? It sounds to me like she had some significant advantage most people trying to break into the industry don't.

jacalata• 12 years ago

She attended a year long coding boot camp. Many of the boot camps are very proactive about getting their students involved in meet up groups, and getting them to present - I've seen quite a few from Code Fellows at various Seattle meetups, for instance.

Yizahi• 12 years ago

Some thoughts about red flags in the article:

"Red Flag 3" is actually a simple fail of the recruiter (uncommon situation, need to thinks that +1 day is not enough etc.). This doesn't convey any information at all whether company is good or bad.

"Red Flag 4" is actually a Green Flag. F* open spaces! You are a developer, not a manager.

"Red Flag 5" also doesn't convey any useful information except that company has typical, average in the industry hiring process. This won't matter at all after I'll get hired.

throwaway9121• 12 years ago

You'd have to be crazy to hire this person. Let's check the boxes.

✓ Post dripping with entitlement

✓ Arrogantly rejects companies for reasons such as being located an an unhip suburb

✓ Finds offense in almost anything that happens in an interview

✓ Degree in Ethnography

✓ 6 month feminist coding bootcamp

✓ 6 month failed internship

✓ Fluffed up github with virtually no actual code

The lines of code to sexual harassment lawsuits/internet shitstorms isn't going to be good with this one.

MrDosu• 12 years ago

What got me is the drawing on the CV. That looked so amateurish I felt ashamed from afar. Nothing against ones art, but when putting it on the CV it should be at least mediocre.

tomlock6• 12 years ago

If you remove the "6 month feminist coding bootcamp" line, this post could be mistaken for a summary of the career of a young Steve Jobs. Hopefully this developer has found a company where she isn't harassed by sneering bros, and then actually has the time to write some code.

shamney• 12 years ago

would you really want to hire a young steve jobs for a junior software developer position?!

RestlessMind• 12 years ago

... when someone at a very early stage startup approached me....
When the developer mentioned her pregnancy as a negative to her potential employment, I immediately froze up and didn’t know how to handle the situation. It felt like I was supposed to agree that she might not be as dedicated or invested in the role because of her status as a mother.

I have a genuine question about this - "very early stage startups" seem to be the kind of places where every single employee can make or break the company. Are pregnant women a really right fit for such setting? I am a father myself and after watching my wife over the last few years of her pregnancy + motherhood, I can see the following reasons where pregnant women and an early stage startup can be a bad mismatch:

1. Women are allowed to take 15-17 weeks of leave in CA by law (2-4 weeks before delivery, 13 weeks after). If one of your employee is unavailable for ~4 months, won't that affect an early stage startup?

2. Early stage companies seem to be a high stress environment (my first hand experience, maybe anecdotal), where as pregnant women / new moms are advised rest (or at least avoid stress).

I might have my own startup one day, when I can come across candidates who are pregnant. So it would be good to know if there is any flaw in my thinking, or if I have missed anything.

On Interviewing as a Junior Dev

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