Clojurians Log v2
clojure-uk 2026-10-01
morning, chilly morning, looking to brighten up later ☀️
morning
I got rejected for a role a couple of weeks ago, it's was using Kotlin and I failed the technical test as I didn't understand the code they provided well enough, it was super simple code and maybe I should have figured out what it did earlier but the syntax really threw me, plus the code was (purposefully) not well factored. The test was to guide someone, pretending to be a junior programmer, to refactor the code. Anyway I asked to be considered for a less senior role instead as I loved the company but they said no as I failed the tech test, so sad as it was essentially trivial. Anyway, rant over. Just frustrated.
that sucks.... I declined the earlier this week to continue with a test. it would take several hours and test my knowledge of Java and design patterns. and I am not an expert in either.
I hate technical tests. As a hiring manager, I won't give them to candidates, and I've pushed back every time I've encountered them. They don't tell you anything useful about how software engineers actually do their job.
agreed, I've conducted a lot of interviews over the years and I know how arbitrary decisions made based on coding tests can be. It's like half an hour to an hour and you see so little and in an artificial situation. Personally as an interviewee I like giving a presentation, and I've got one of those tomorrow, looking forward to it.
I remember I had an interview where they left the room and I had to answer code questions with paper and pencil. When they came back they asked if I used my phone and then hinted that I could have if I had the initiative 🤣
I am sorry to hear that, mon ami. When I was looking for work last year I fell foul of badly conducted code tests that completely failed to understand my experience or wider understanding of software development and focused on language specific gotchas. That is all to say that I feel your pain. FWIW, I think that coding tasks that are designed specifically to show the candidate's level of understanding, and to provide a starting point for a discussion about methodology are worth having, but they need to be designed carefully.
I had one where I didn't use a certain trick (and I could explain why I didn't) and that was it. no more. First it felt really bad later I realised I dodged a bullit.
Morning All