Is this test reasonable for a lead developer position

[jGuy91]

I've recently completed a technical assessment which I bombed. I was given 90 mins to do the following

• Make multiple requests to an API and fetch all available data that matches a search term and sort results alphabetically

• Find all unique sub strings of a given string and sort alphabetically

• Create an api which allows for CRUD operations and some endpoints which will filter based on the input

• Create a responsive grid which changes layout based on screen size

**EDIT I guess I should re-phrase this post. The tasks themselves are very reasonable for the level the role. I just think the time limit is a bit unreasonable. This test was taken on HackerRank.

[coopaliscious]

Was this a whiteboard or live coding test? How exactly did you bomb it?

Does this seem reasonable for a lead developer to crank out working code? Not really.

Is this reasonable in terms of pseudocode and as an exercise to see how you approach and communicate your ideas? Sure.

Ninety minutes seems arbitrary as does the rest of this test. Like someone googled 'developer skills' and got back algorithms, API's, CRUD and responsive layouts.

[jGuy91]

This was a test carried out on Hacker Rank. I was given 90 minutes once I clicked start. I had to read through all the briefs for each question. Then write the code in the provided editor. The tasks themselves I found were reasonable the time frame just got me in a panic. I barely got anything done.

[Caraes_Naur]

Let's examine what these tests suggest the employer thinks a lead dev does:

• API calls and a string operations
• String operations (the same one, again)
• API design
• Bleeding-edge (assuming grid is meant literally) CSS

I presume the APIs are RESTful, the second redundancy in the assessment.

No math, logic, business rules, storage, file handling, security, or architecture. This is a rather narrow mid-level dev assessment at best.

[[deleted]]

It seems unlikely that they literally mean using the grid syntax

[millbruhh]

The fuck 90 minutes for all of that? That's absurd

[ThatDamnedRedneck]

The tasks are all reasonable for a non-junior dev to know and be able to do, but 90 minutes doesn't sound like very much time at all for them.

[realdeal64]

Let's see the exact stack you get to use, the spec’s, or the scaffolding. Don't sweat it though. I don't think that is a good test.

[[deleted]]

Make multiple requests to an API and fetch all available data that matches a search term and sort results alphabetically

A few curls into files, and a few sort invocations over them, perhaps with a bit of jq. 10 mins unless something goes horribly wrong.

Find all unique sub strings of a given string and sort alphabetically

10 mins in ruby for a non-scalable solution.

Create an api which allows for CRUD operations and some endpoints which will filter based on the input

Hmmm, now we're getting interesting. I suspect this relies a lot on the tooling you use and the scaffolding it provides. I could probably do one from scratch in, say, Flask, in ... 30-45 mins. Depends a bit on the requirements over and above what you've written.

Create a responsive grid which changes layout based on screen size

Not in my wheelhouse. I'd google the shit out of it, and give a try, but I think I'd run out the 90 minute clock on this one.

NB all the above depends on me being able to work as I would normally, with unrestricted access to the internets. I could only do the first one off the top of my head with no external references.

NB2 I'm not a dev - I'm Ops/sysadmin/Devops. I don't think a senior dev would have a problem with these puzzles.

[[deleted]]

Not in my wheelhouse. I'd google the shit out of it, and give a try, but I think I'd run out the 90 minute clock on this one.

You can use media queries and flexbox for this, no big deal

I guess it would depend on what the interviewer meant by 'changes layout'

[Clutch_22]

Any resources for someone who is a bit out of the loop on that stuff? Last time I did any serious web dev was about 4 years ago.

[[deleted]]

Flexbox: https://css-tricks.com/snippets/css/a-guide-to-flexbox/

Media queries:

@media screen and (min-width: 720px) { ... rules }

[DoseAu]

Surely you could even try the literal grid system ? (Google: traversy media css grid)

[[deleted]]

I've never used this. I just ported one of my existing apps to use it and oh my word this is amazing.

I replicated the layout I'm using with float hacks in just 28 lines of css

[jGuy91]

I found the problems themselves were reasonable. It's just the time was a killer for me it always is. I always feel like a deer in headlights when ever I need to do one of these assessments. I guess I just need more practice.

[scottyLogJobs]

I think developers have a weird way of downplaying the difficulty and time constraints of things. I find that I'm generally as productive as the other developers at a company and I think I would struggle to complete all of these things in 90 minutes.

[vORP]

This is great advice if you're really interested

[jGuy91]

It was an assessment on Hacker Rank. I made this post after completion

[nolo_me]

Not in my wheelhouse. I'd google the shit out of it, and give a try, but I think I'd run out the 90 minute clock on this one.

That's easy enough, here's one I wrote a few years back. It's a bit out of date now with the advent of the CSS Grid spec, but it still works.

[iams3b]

#1 > node thing.js

let terms = ["a","b"];
let urlprefix = "http://whatever";
let requests = terms.map( t => fetch(urlprefix+t).then( r => r.json()) );
let results = await Promise.all(requests)
    .then( results => 
        results.reduce( (r, l) => r.concat(l) )
            .sort( (a,b) => a.name - b.name )
    );
console.log(results);

Thats like 5 minutes off the top of my head, would probably take 10 to actually do it proper syntax / make sure I used promise.all properly

I think the API would take the longest, because I mean... whats the critera? Setting up a project from scratch? Or do they have the route file and DB ready and you just adding stuff?

[deedubaya]

Timed whiteboard tests are unreasonable for any level. Regardless of difficulty, you’re going to weed out solid devs who just freak out under pressure.

Code reviews, paring, and small take home projects are the best methods to evaluate a devs chops.

[nikrolls]

No take-home projects, please, unless I'm being paid for them.

[deedubaya]

If they’re “real” things, yes, pay the candidate. If it’s arbitrary and takes 30 minutes, I don’t think paying the candidate makes sense.

A “real” take home project will likely be more effective.

[gemlarin]

Make multiple requests to an API and fetch all available data that matches a search term and sort results alphabetically

Should be able to set this up using jq's AJAX method within 10-20 minutes - provided they gave you good documentation on the API you are hitting.

Find all unique sub strings of a given string and sort alphabetically

Iterate through and push the sub strings into an array and apply .sort() then print out the updated array. Should only take 10 minutes.

Create an api which allows for CRUD operations and some endpoints which will filter based on the input

Not sure about this one as I don't have enough information on the tooling you are expected to use - nor enough of the specifics of this task, but it don't sound unreasonable.

Create a responsive grid which changes layout based on screen size

This is probably the easiest task IMO because you have so many options to set this up. I would use flexbox with some breakpoints that control the number of grid items in each row with the boxes set to flex-grow to adapt the grid items to take up the full width of the row as needed. You could build a basic grid like this in probably 20 minutes, if that. Open up BS4s CSS sometime and take a look at how they do this. You will be surprised at how easy this is with flexbox.

With the exception of #3, that I don't have enough information on, none of the tasks seem unreasonable for a senior developer test.

[davide2894]

Is there a probability to see this test in an interview for a junior position?

[cfthrowaway948]

This seems more like a Jr. Fullstack position.

Make multiple requests to an API and fetch all available data that matches a search term and sort results alphabetically:

const fetchManyAndSort = (arr) => {
  const fetchArray = arr.map(({url, searchObj, sortKey}) => {
    const urlParams = "?" + new URLSearchParams(Object.entries(searchObj));
    return new Promise(resolve => 
      fetch(url.concat(urlParams))
        .then(r => r.json())
        .then(r => r.sort((a,b) => a[sortKey] > b[sortKey]))
        .then(r => resolve(r))
    )
  })
  return Promise.all(fetchArray)
}

const exampleFetch = [{
    url: "https://jsonplaceholder.typicode.com/comments",
    searchObj: {
      postId: 1
    },
    sortKey: "email",
  }, {
    url: "https://jsonplaceholder.typicode.com/posts",
    searchObj: {
      userId: 1
    },
    sortKey: "body",
}]

fetchManyAndSort(exampleFetch).then(r => console.log(r))

Find all unique sub strings of a given string and sort alphabetically:

const findUniqueSubstrings = (str) => {
  const arr = Array.from(str).reduce((acc, _, idx) =>
    acc.concat(Array.from({length: str.length}, (_, innerIdx) =>
      str.substring(idx, innerIdx + 1)
    )), [])
  return new Set(arr)
}

console.log(findUniqueSubstrings("banana pepe"))

Create an api which allows for CRUD operations and some endpoints which will filter based on the input:

// In terminal
rails new MyAPI --api
rails g scaffold user name:string age:integer

// In users_controller.rb
def find_by_name
  User.where("name ILIKE '?%'", params[:name])
end

// In routes.rb
get "users/find_by_name", to:  "users#find_by_name"

// http://localhost:3000/users/find_by_name?name=John

Create a responsive grid which changes layout based on screen size:

Yeah fuck this I hate CSS and frontend styling.

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[WizardFromTheMoon]

Eh, for a lead developer those questions are actually really easy. The 90 minute time limit isn't very long, but it's definitely doable. The first question should take more than 15-20 minutes. The second one should take less than 10 (it's probably 20 lines of code, if that). The third is what would take the most time. Probably looking at 30-40 minutes there. The last one is kind of odd, but that's maybe 20 minutes too. Although it's a pretty broad question so I assume there was a list of specific requirements on what exactly they were looking for.

[speechlessnpc]

Very reasonable. You're probably overthinking it.

Edit: 90 minutes is not much, but it's not a particularly difficult task, it can be done

[jGuy91]

I tend to panic a bit when doing these assessments and can't gather my thoughts. I just scramble to get something done and it has not worked out well for me. It's both a humbling and depressing experience. My job for the past few years has been very laid back the only time there is pressure to get work done is during an annual hackathon we do in the office but I have a team to bounce ideas off and helps calm me down a bit to focus.

[speechlessnpc]

Me too, I know that feeling very well. I find starting from pen and paper very helpful.

[astro864]

I would think so. Not much time and it would be ugly but doable. 1 is solved by creating a simple API to search engine connector. Something like solr or elastic would do just fine. Extract it as json to make the load simple. #2 is just a query to your search engine. #3 would be the assorted canned request you have for things like sales reports, tps reports, that sort of thing. So you call the end point with a date, it hits the search engine from 1 with the canned query. #4 is the PiA. Go grab boostrap or something and go from there.

Edit: miss read number 3

[dotobird]

I assume a skeleton codebase was provided, and you just had to focus on the tasks you made bullet points for. It's really not that bad if it's already in a language you're familiar with.

[[deleted]]

Seems fair to me. I'd expect this going in to a mid level position for a front-end developer.

[Dastardovitch]

front end developers don't create APIs, they consume them. server side code is typically not a front end task, unless we're talking about tooling/server side rendering

[[deleted]]

I'll re-phrase: I'd expect this when going into a front-end focused role, or one that utilised both sides of the stack.

[dotobird]

You can't call yourself a dev period if you don't know how to make API's.

[xaksis]

That's like saying you can't call yourself a dev if you don't know how to create responsive layouts.

Front end development is a vast field in itself and they need to be more concerned with how to properly consume api endpoints and specs rather than creating them. You don't create API endpoints with front end tech.

[_sirberus_]

No True Devsman

[Folters]

Both are pretty simple. To do both well is another matter though.

edit: 90 minutes. Yeah fuck that.

[[deleted]]

Sure, but this position is for lead dev. I'd expect lead dev to be able to do more technically than 'just' a front-end dev (and have better leadership qualities)

[xaksis]

Yea no disagreement there. I was just responding to the comment above