basecase_com

I've decided to simplify the recruitment process, due to some criticisms in this thread (some I would disagree with, some fair). New applicants will follow this process:

1. New applicants receive an outline of the salary range, the working environment, our products, and the remaining recruitment process (our "FAQ").

2. "Software architecture" test (3.5hrs - 6hrs avg, 9hr max)

3. ~2 1hr interviews

4. Offer

The 'software architecture' test document has also been expanded, so that more information is provided on what we're looking for exactly.

Since everything is disclosed in step 1, people can make an informed decision on whether to proceed. This differs with the previous process in that one needed to pass a screening test before receiving this document.

Notes:

-) All applicants receive explicit accept / rejection emails (this has always been the case)

-) I will try to reduce the review time for the tests (I'm involving more people)

Regards,

Diarmuid / CTO of BaseCase

Hi wayn3,

To clarify - m00dy did get a response from our recruitment manager ~9 business days after submitting his application. What I acknowledged is that we could have done better is in responding immediately to the submission of his solution, instead of simply reporting the result 9 business days later.

And I responded to you 3 weeks after you sent in your solution, because it took me that long to have a chance to your solution. I wasn't actually aware of the HN posting at the time.

In any event, given all the issues raised here, I'm changing our recruitment process (I've added a comment below). I hope this addresses concerns.

I'm not trying to 'win' an argument here, I'm trying ensure BaseCase has a reasonable process that provides the outcomes I need while being transparent to participants. I therefore am trying to get a fair understanding of you and other's criticisms of the BaseCase recruitment process and making amendments that seem reasonable.

Regards,

Diarmuid

Hi m00dy,

I'd like to clarify one thing - none of your communications with BaseCase were 'automated' on the BaseCase-side. Every email that was signed-off by a person was manually sent by someone on our team. For 'common' emails, we do use email templates, but a person actually decides to send the template, not a bot.

(Technical detail: the second software test uses an email bot to time the test, but this bot is not reporting your recruitment status in any way, it's just sending the test and receiving your solution. It identifies itself as a bot in communications.)

I have asked our recruitment manager to send an acknowledgement email after every test submission (they usually do, but in your case you're right that they didn't).

Regards,

Diarmuid

Thanks for the feedback. Our recruitment process is:

1. Screening test (~10-20min)

2. Outline of salary range, working environment, product, and of remaining recruitment process (our "FAQ").

3. Final "software architecture" test (3.5hrs - 6hrs avg, 9hr max)

4. ~2 1hr interviews

5. Offer

Note that after the 10-20min screening test we disclose the rest of the process in detail as a matter of course.

I understand that you might disagree with this process but I think it's reasonably transparent to participants. We've hired several people in the past year and I hope to continue to hire into the future.

Out of curiosity, how would you structure an ideal recruitment process? I'm genuinely interested in alternative methods of assessing people's ability to write high-quality code. (I've found CV/portfolio-based assessments unreliable, but it may be that I haven't done them "right").

If you have any additional criticisms of the process I'm open to discussion. Hiring is tricky and I'm sure we can do better.

Regards,

Diarmuid / CTO of BaseCase

Hi m00dy,

Did you have any issues with the BaseCase recruitment process? I'll try my best to answer any questions you may have.

Glancing at the logs, I think you are objecting to the fact it took ~9 business days to review your solution? I agree that this is long (and longer than usual). I can confirm that I'm restructuring how we handle our recruitment process to speed-up the review process (more people are being involved in the process).

As a courtesy, I would ask that you refrain from posting solutions to our screening tests here. It defeats their purpose, and potentially wastes multiple people's time (both mine and the applicants).

Regards,

Diarmuid / CTO of BaseCase

BaseCase | Berlin, Germany | Software Engineer | http://basecase.com | Remote, Visa

Our primary product is a sophisticated web application which allows non-developers create interactive presentations.

We're looking for talented front-end and back-end developers. Our technology stack is Javascript / jQuery / HTML5 on the back-end, and Python / MySQL on the back-end. But you don't need experience in our stack - we know a good developer can learn on the job. You can apply here:

-) https://basecasecareers.recruiterbox.com/jobs/fk0hffr

Currently our biggest 'gap' is on the front-end, so I'd like to particularly encourage Javascript/UI/UX experts to apply.

We're also looking for OpenERP / Odoo developers, to ensure our smooth operations:

-) https://basecasecareers.recruiterbox.com/jobs/fk0hiy9/

We can support remote workers, and are willing to assist in obtaining a work visa for Germany if required.

We have been profitable for several years, so we can offer very competitive salaries, with stock options.

Some relevant background videos:

-) http://basecase.com/company/careers

-) http://basecase.com/platform/video/

Our hiring process involves 'offline' programming tests followed by ~2 interviews.

Cheers,

Diarmuid Glynn / CTO

Cheers. It's important to me to convey that we're utilizing the HN "Who is Hiring" threads in a fair and reasonable manner.

I'll do my best to answer any other questions people may have.

Diarmuid

  > Well, since you seem to know who I am, you
  > probably know which challenge I was given.
  > Do you really think its not an OO problem?

I think that after OO, ~functional solutions (ie: 90% pure functions, 10% non-pure) would be the next most popular. Such solutions can be quite elegant.

  > Otherwise, you can probably have some of
  > your other engineers review these tests if
  > you are too busy to do it yourself. Not
  > like this is rocket science. They can at
  > least weed out clear failures like me :D

As for getting other engineers to help with the review process: I've been reluctant to do so in the past for a variety of reasons, but after 8 years (!) I'm actually considering it.

Cheers,

Diarmuid

Thanks for the frank feedback.

You raise a valid point: I should make more explicit what I am evaluating in the solution. I will update the relevant document so that future applicants have a clearer idea of what they're being 'graded' on.

Regarding the other points you raised, I disagree with many of them, but I think I'd chalk it up to 'reasonable people can disagree on these things'. If you would like me to respond to a specific item, let me know and I'll do my best.

Best of luck,

Diarmuid

In the May 2016 thread, a number of questions / criticisms were raised about our recruitment process at BaseCase:

-) https://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=basecase_com (scroll down a bit)

Unfortunately, I was only made aware of this after the thread had closed for commenting. For that reason, I thought it best to reply here to the issues raised.

Firstly, I'd like to say that recruitment is hard, and reasonable people can disagree on what constitutes the 'best' strategy.

With that in mind, I think the main issues raised in the thread were:

1. Rejection email not sent

2. 9hr coding test is too long

3. Coding test is 'pointless OO', not suitable for a senior position

I'll address them one-by-one.

1. Rejection email not sent

One of the posters (wayn3) mentioned they didn't receive a rejection email. I've checked our logs, and he's right that when he wrote his comment we hadn't sent the rejection email, but we subsequently did. So - wayn3: apologies for taking so long to send a rejection notice (3 weeks / May 10). It doesn't usually take me so long to review a solution, but sometimes it does happen due to other commitments.

But I would like to say that to the best of my knowledge, we never "drop" conversations, we make it clear if / when we reject a candidate.

2. 9hr coding test is too long

9hr is the time limit, not the expected duration. The amount of time required is usually 3.5hrs - 7hrs, with an average of about 6hrs for a good solution.

3. Coding test is 'pointless OO', not suitable for a senior position

I'm not looking for OO code specifically. Candidates can submit any kind of solution and I'll review it.

But to some extent the criticism is accurate - the test isn't technically very challenging, and it doesn't have any 'tricky' questions. This is however intentional: the day-to-day of software engineering is writing high quality, easy to maintain code for (mostly!) straight-forward problems. Logic tricks / fancy math are only rarely required for the work we do at BaseCase.

Put another way, the programming test tries to be a 'work sample' tests, simulating something more like the code you would actually write at BaseCase (without requiring you to learn all about our architecture).

This isn't to say that work at BaseCase is boring or humdrum, it's just that the challenges are related to designing high quality, easy to maintain software. To evaluate someone's ability to do this, I need to review a couple of hundred of lines of code they've written to solve a straight-forward problem.

If anyone has any questions please add them in here and I'll try to answer them.

Diarmuid Glynn / CTO

BaseCase | Berlin, Germany | Software Engineer | http://basecase.com | Remote, Visa

Our primary product is a sophisticated web application which allows non-developers create interactive presentations.

We're looking for talented front-end and back-end developers. Our technology stack is Javascript / jQuery / HTML5 on the back-end, and Python / MySQL on the back-end. But you don't need experience in our stack - we know a good developer can learn on the job. You can apply here:

-) https://basecasecareers.recruiterbox.com/jobs/fk0hffr

Currently our biggest 'gap' is on the front-end, so I'd like to particularly encourage Javascript/UI/UX experts to apply.

We're also looking for OpenERP / Odoo developers, to ensure our smooth operations:

-) https://basecasecareers.recruiterbox.com/jobs/fk0hiy9/

We can support remote workers, and are willing to assist in obtaining a work visa for Germany if required.

We have been profitable for several years, so we can offer very competitive salaries, with stock options.

Some relevant background videos:

-) http://basecase.com/company/careers

-) http://basecase.com/platform/video/

Our hiring process involves 'offline' programming tests followed by ~2 interviews.

Cheers,

Diarmuid Glynn / CTO

BaseCase | Berlin, Germany | Software Engineer | http://basecase.com | Remote, Visa

Our primary product is a sophisticated web application which allows non-developers create interactive presentations.

We're looking for talented front-end and back-end developers. Our technology stack is Javascript / jQuery / HTML5 on the back-end, and Python / MySQL on the back-end. But you don't need experience in our stack - we know a good developer can learn on the job. You can apply here:

-) https://basecasecareers.recruiterbox.com/jobs/fk0hffr

Currently our biggest 'gap' is on the front-end, so I'd like to particularly encourage Javascript/UI/UX experts to apply.

We're also looking for OpenERP / Odoo developers, to ensure our smooth operations:

-) https://basecasecareers.recruiterbox.com/jobs/fk0hiy9/

We can support remote workers, and are willing to assist in obtaining a work visa for Germany if required.

We have been profitable for several years, so we can offer very competitive salaries, with stock options.

Some relevant background videos:

-) http://basecase.com/company/careers

-) http://basecase.com/platform/video/

Our hiring process involves 'offline' programming tests followed by ~2 interviews.

Cheers, Diarmuid Glynn / CTO

BaseCase | Berlin, Germany | Software Engineer | http://basecase.com | Remote, Visa

Our primary product is a sophisticated web application which allows non-developers create interactive presentations.

We're looking for talented front-end and back-end developers.

Our technology stack is Javascript / jQuery / HTML5 on the front-end, and Python / MySQL on the back-end. But you don't need experience in our stack - we know a good developer can learn on the job. You can apply here:

-) https://basecasecareers.recruiterbox.com/jobs/fk0hffr

Currently our biggest 'gap' is on the front-end, so I'd like to particularly encourage Javascript/UI/UX experts to apply.

We're also looking for OpenERP / Odoo developers, to ensure our smooth operations:

-) https://basecasecareers.recruiterbox.com/jobs/fk0hiy9/

We can support remote workers, and are willing to assist in obtaining a work visa for Germany if required.

We have been profitable for several years, so we can offer very competitive salaries, with stock options.

Some relevant background videos:

-) http://basecase.com/company/careers

-) http://basecase.com/platform/video/

Cheers,

Diarmuid Glynn / CTO

BaseCase | Berlin, Germany | Software Engineer | http://basecase.com | Remote, Visa

Our primary product is a sophisticated web application which allows non-developers create interactive presentations.

We're looking for talented front-end and back-end developers.

Our technology stack is Javascript / jQuery / HTML5 on the front-end, and Python / MySQL on the back-end. But you don't need experience in our stack - we know a good developer can learn on the job. You can apply here:

-) https://basecasecareers.recruiterbox.com/jobs/fk0hffr

Currently our biggest 'gap' is on the front-end, so I'd like to particularly encourage Javascript/UI/UX experts to apply.

We're also looking for OpenERP / Odoo developers, to ensure our smooth operations:

-) https://basecasecareers.recruiterbox.com/jobs/fk0hiy9/

We can support remote workers, and are willing to assist in obtaining a work visa for Germany if required.

We have been profitable for several years, so we can offer very competitive salaries, with stock options.

Some relevant background videos:

-) http://basecase.com/company/careers

-) http://basecase.com/platform/video/

Cheers,

Diarmuid Glynn / CTO

BaseCase | Berlin, Germany | Software Engineer | http://basecase.com | Remote, Visa

Our primary product is a sophisticated web application which allows non-developers create interactive presentations.

We're looking for talented front-end and back-end developers. Our technology stack is Javascript / jQuery / HTML5 on the front-end, and Python / MySQL on the back-end. But you don't need experience in our stack - we know a good developer can learn on the job. You can apply here: https://basecasecareers.recruiterbox.com/jobs/fk0hffr

We're also looking for OpenERP / Odoo developers, to ensure our smooth operations: https://basecasecareers.recruiterbox.com/jobs/fk0hiy9/

We can support remote workers, and are willing to assist in obtaining a work visa for Germany if required.

We have been profitable for several years, so we can offer very competitive salaries, with stock options.

Some relevant background videos:

-) http://basecase.com/company/careers

-) http://basecase.com/platform/video/

Cheers,

Diarmuid Glynn / CTO

BaseCase | Berlin, Germany | Software Engineer | http://basecase.com | Remote, Visa

Our primary product is a sophisticated web application which allows non-developers create interactive presentations.

We're looking for talented developers. Our technology stack is Javascript / jQuery / HTML5 on the front-end, and Python / MySQL on the back-end. But you don't need experience in our stack - we know a good developer can learn on the job.

We can support remote workers, and are willing to assist in obtaining a work visa for Germany if required.

We have been profitable for several years, so we can offer very competitive salaries, with stock options.

If this sounds interesting, apply here: https://basecasecareers.recruiterbox.com/jobs/fk0hffr Some relevant background videos:

-) http://basecase.com/company/careers

-) http://basecase.com/platform/video/

Cheers,

Diarmuid Glynn / CTO

BaseCase | Software Engineer | http://basecase.com | Berlin, Germany | Remote, Visa

Our primary product is a sophisticated web application which allows non-developers create interactive presentations.

We're looking for talented developers. Our technology stack is Javascript / jQuery / HTML5 on the front-end, and Python / MySQL on the back-end. But you don't need experience in our stack - we know a good developer can learn on the job.

We can support remote workers, and are willing to assist in obtaining a work visa for Germany if required.

We have been profitable for several years, so we can offer very competitive salaries, with stock options.

If this sounds interesting, apply here: https://basecasecareers.recruiterbox.com/jobs/fk0hffr

Some relevant background videos:

-) http://basecase.com/company/careers

-) http://basecase.com/platform/video/

Cheers,

Diarmuid Glynn / CTO

BaseCase | Software Engineer | http://basecase.com | Berlin, Germany | Remote, Visa

Our primary product is a sophisticated web application which allows non-developers create interactive presentations.

We're looking for talented developers. Our technology stack is Javascript / jQuery / HTML5 on the front-end, and Python / MySQL on the back-end. But you don't need experience in our stack - we know a good developer can learn on the job.

We can support remote workers, and are willing to assist in obtaining a work visa for Germany if required.

We have been profitable for several years, so we can offer very competitive salaries, with stock options.

If this sounds interesting, apply here:

-) Software Engineer: https://basecasecareers.recruiterbox.com/jobs/fk0hffr

-) Senior Software Engineer: https://basecasecareers.recruiterbox.com/jobs/fk0hff4

Some relevant background videos:

-) http://basecase.com/company/careers

-) http://basecase.com/platform/video/

Cheers,

Diarmuid Glynn / CTO / d.glynn@basecase.com

BaseCase: Berlin, Germany (REMOTE, VISA)

Our primary product is a sophisticated web application which allows non-developers create interactive presentations.

We're looking for talented developers. Our technology stack is Javascript / jQuery / HTML5 on the front-end, and Python / MySQL on the back-end. But you don't need experience in our stack - we know a good developer can learn on the job.

We can support REMOTE workers, and are willing to assist in obtaining a work VISA for Germany if required.

We have been profitable for several years, so we can offer very competitive salaries, with stock options.

If this sounds interesting, apply here:

-) Software Engineer: https://basecasecareers.recruiterbox.com/jobs/fk0hffr

-) Senior Software Engineer: https://basecasecareers.recruiterbox.com/jobs/fk0hff4

Some relevant background videos:

-) http://basecase.com/company/careers

-) http://basecase.com/platform/video/

Cheers,

Diarmuid Glynn / CTO / d.glynn@basecase.com

BaseCase: Berlin, Germany (REMOTE, VISA)

Our primary product is a sophisticated web application which allows non-developers create interactive presentations.

We're looking for talented developers. Our technology stack is Javascript / jQuery / HTML5 on the front-end, and Python / MySQL on the back-end. But you don't need experience in our stack - we know a good developer can learn on the job.

We can support REMOTE workers, and are willing to assist in obtaining a work VISA for Germany if required.

We have been profitable for several years, so we can offer very competitive salaries, with stock options.

If this sounds interesting, please contact careers@basecase.com.

Some relevant background videos:

  http://basecase.com/company/careers
   
  http://basecase.com/platform/video/

Diarmuid Glynn / CTO / d.glynn@basecase.com

BaseCase - http://basecase.com/careers

Location: Berlin, Germany

Our primary product is a sophisticated web application which allows non-developers create interactive presentations.

We're looking for talented developers. Our technology stack is Javascript / jQuery / HTML5 on the front-end, and Python / MySQL on the back-end. But you don't need experience in our stack - we know a good developer can learn on the job. We can support REMOTE workers, and are willing to assist in obtaining a work VISA for Germany if required.

We have been profitable for several years, so we can offer very competitive salaries, with stock options.

If this sounds interesting, please contact careers@basecase.com.

Cheers,

Diarmuid Glynn / CTO

BaseCase - http://basecase.com/careers

Location: Berlin, Germany

Our primary product is a sophisticated web application which allows non-developers create interactive presentations.

We're looking for talented developers. Our technology stack is Javascript / jQuery / HTML5 on the front-end, and Python / MySQL on the back-end. But you don't need experience in our stack - we know a good developer can learn on the job.

We can support REMOTE workers, and are willing to assist in obtaining a work VISA for Germany if required.

We have been profitable for several years, so we can offer very competitive salaries, with stock options.

If this sounds interesting, please contact careers@basecase.com.

Cheers,

Diarmuid Glynn / CTO / d.glynn@basecase.com