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Comment by neilv | Hacker News Reader

> So anyhow, this guy who I’d worked alongside for years, who’d seen plenty of my code and wanted me to join his company, was going to make me do this homework to get an offer.

Had your friend delegated the engineering hiring decisions/process to someone else, and was trying not to step on their toes?

Or friend had instituted the process, and didn't think it would go well with the other people, if you looked like a nepotism hire who bypassed the process?

Or friend was trying to put you in your employee place (where you had to meet his process), or otherwise was getting a bit full of himself, or a bit sleep-deprived and nutty?

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> Or friend was trying to put you in your employee place (where you had to meet his process), or otherwise was getting a bit full of himself, or a bit sleep-deprived and nutty?

This would be a strange take. CEO shouldn't be letting people in on the nod. If hiring is someone else's job, CEO shouldn't be overriding. At best suggesting candidates but saying that it's totally the hiring manager's call.

If a candidate didn't pass a hiring process because they didn't put effort in as they felt they should get the job due to connections, I would agree with the company's decision.

The purpose of a hiring process (as in take home assignment) is to see that the person is competent to do the job. It was already established that he was. So following a formal process is a stupid waste of time (on both ends) that has nothing to do with strengthening the company and is simply an unnecessary ego trip. The company disqualified itself.

How was it established?

They mean it was established by the CEO's experience with him as an engineer.

To the company it was never, and as high a recommendation as the CEO would be; most people would agree they did the right thing. Unless you're hired before a hiring manager or whomever is doing the hiring you should follow the process. If you treat it like a joke because you feel entitled by your connections then be willing to accept the outcome.

You are describing the HR person's ego trip.

That person should be fired, for being unprofessional and for inability to adapt to a trivial non-standard situation ("normally we test the applicant's technical competency with a take-home test; now it already has been established; so I need to stop wasting everybody's time and spend my time doing something actually useful".)

Obviously, HR could still be useful in establishing a culture fit, but even then it's pretty much a formality since the CEO worked with and recommended the guy.

I think the fundamental difference is just that you think that the technical competency has been established, and the hiring manager did not. Given the candidate did the exercise, but did it badly, I think the hiring manager was right.

None of the other stuff you're saying is relevant. No point doing armchair psychoanalysis.

The only thing the candidate did wrong was to even start the assignment. Either communicate that it is a waste of time and refuse to do it, or decide to do it and do it properly. No point in half-assing anything in life.

Indeed. That's why the HR person (or whoever it was) wasn't on a fireable ego trip. They just enforced their normal process that they use to not let people slip in through nepotism.

The process that they designed. This means they can change it and the excuse "I am simply following the pre-determined process" will not work.

Clearly, the process (of cutting technically incompetent people while letting through the technically competent ones) is not working properly; that alone is fireable incompetency ("You had only one job and you failed at it!").

Another fireable thing is that HR does not understand that they are under the CEO, they are implementing the CEO's vision, in the way he envisioned. But instead of that, HR is indeed ego-tripping.

If I was a hiring manager who set up a hiring process to evaluate candidates, and someone did poorly on it but the CEO came and said "no no, hire this person anyway, I know they failed but it's fine" I would quit.

If I were a CEO trying to build a successful company and found a willing competent worker, whose hiring would fail because of the hiring manager's ego and inability to adapt and do what's right, I would consider it a purposeful sabotage and would fire the drag-downer.

Sure, but I think it's likely you haven't worked on high performing teams if you think this.

Not an argument.

You keep assuming ego. No ego is required to make sure people are put through the same hiring process.

Tbf the hiring already said they don't have the position open, and rather than doing something about it, the CEO asked OP to make another homework, which is also not a guarantee. Another round of interview may be fine, but another homework, that's laughable.

OTOH, it may be that the company already have one or some super programmer, that he/she carry the company to success. Having OP, if we assume is another super programmer, may halt the company rather than improve it.

It's one possibility, and I would bet money that it happens sometimes. I itemized it last because it seems the least-likely of those possibilities.

I think it's kinda intuitive that this could happen. Startups tend to require early people to figure out and apply a ton of diverse skills. You can guess many founders will think "I'm hiring my friend, and I don't know how the power dynamic will work out". And some percentage of those will then think, "...so I should establish from the start that they're the employee, to avoid problems later." And from there you get the dance-for-our-approval tests that so many techbros have cargo-culted.

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