company requires project before interview. thoughts?
Posted by The_King_Kira@reddit | ExperiencedDevs | View on Reddit | 42 comments
I applied for a Software Engineer role with Rangr Data. After an online screening test, I was given 1 month to complete the project. This stage involves learning Palantir Foundry and creating a CRM (Customer Relationship Management) application on that platform. The emails from them in response to my application state that their process is:
- Initial Screening Test: a quick multiple-choice set of questions to test your thinking [20 to 30 minutes]
- Work Sample Test: a chance for you to demonstrate your skills with a real problem, typically using Palantir Foundry, adapted to the role you are applying for.
- Interview(s): we ask you relevant questions and you get to ask us important questions, to see if there is a good fit
I received the email giving credentials to access Palantir Foundry. I am interested in doing this project to potentially interview for this role. My first software developer position hired me after I did a project, so this isn't that far-fetched. However, something feels a bit fishy about this. What experiences does everyone have with this company, or at least something similar? I don't see much about them online. I'm concerned that they might have me learn Palantir, take my project, then ghost me. I don't want to get scammed just because I want to get a job.
Only-Cheetah-9579@reddit
it's unethical for them to ask for free work like this.
Your time is valuable, any coding challenge that takes longer than an hour is a complete disregard of your time.
don't do it and find something else, the chance of getting hired is low anyways.
imonthetoiletpooping@reddit
Post on Glassdoor. F this company
fibgen@reddit
Lol, it's probably a government agency
Just-Ad3485@reddit
He said the name of the company in the post, you could have googled it faster than you could have posted your comment lmao
xzlnvk@reddit
Yea what the fuck? This is insane. At my company I give a 1-2hr simple coding project with instructions explicitly not to perfect it or spend a bunch of time on it, and then we just talk about it during the interview. No live coding or any of that bullshit. Certainly not one month worth of work. Also Foundry is a beast itself.
The_King_Kira@reddit (OP)
Yeah, a small coding project is what I did for my first coding job. However, this feels different. This has an apparently larger scale. Maybe if someone already has experience in Palantir Foundry it is a quick and easy project? What feels odd is that the email with instructions directly states that they expect me to do some learning. It felt strange.
Choice_Supermarket_4@reddit
Are you hiring because I absolutely cannot do live coding interviews without having a panic attack, but I'm still a pretty decent developer.
justUseAnSvm@reddit
Get some beta blockers.
If you are crashing out in interviews, that's negatively affecting your life, and IMO it's justified to use something to help.
Also, practice. Not untill you get it right, but until you can't get it wrong!
edgmnt_net@reddit
Honestly, none of these options seems realistic, at least for the kind of jobs I'm used to. I'd much rather have a live evaluation but open-ended and based on the actual codebase I'll be working on, or at least not a from-scratch, toy project or random leetcode stuff. You could likely select devs better by watching them use their tools, assess VCS proficiency, scan code and so on, at least for the more experienced staff that should be able to demonstrate some ability to work their way through stuff like that. No need to arrive at any concrete result, just see if they can find their way around.
I haven't seen that done properly yet, but I've been lucky to go through more casual and open-ended discussion type interviews. I don't mind them probing deeper, I don't mind giving extra information to improve my chances or steer off into side topics.
xzlnvk@reddit
No process is going to be perfect. I just like to respect people’s time, and not make them code under pressure without their normal tools which is 100% unrealistic. Unfortunately a lot of companies do exactly that and it sucks.
My opinion is that any sufficiently technical person can sniff out another one with a one hour conversation. By doing a SMALL (1-2hr max) coding assignment ahead of time (which mimics a real life project), we can walk through it during the conversation. It’s usually something like a crud API with a couple endpoints, but one where the requirements are such that you need to make some nontrivial decisions on things like concurrency, security, and/or performance.
We can then walk through the code live and have a discussion about design decisions and stuff like that. We can talk about potential areas for improvements and/or new requirements. For example, if you wrote a chat room app we might talk about how you handled concurrency, and then maybe go on to talk about implementing access control in the future.
As a result, I consequently don’t care if you vibe coded the entire thing. Our discussion will quickly prove if you understood it, and if you can make thoughtful engineering decisions going forward.
Again, it’s not perfect (nothing is), but seems to be a good balance of providing signal while being respectful of people’s time and dignity.
rsquared002@reddit
I second what this man just asked
justUseAnSvm@reddit
Palantir Foundry?
0% chance I'd learn that for a interview. Just not worth it, since the way I justify take homes is if the educational experience outweighs the level of pissed off I'd be when they ghost me.
For this, it sounds like a month long, free work project. Pass
The_King_Kira@reddit (OP)
Yeah, the idea of a take-home project isn't strange in itself, but it's the apparent scale of the project and the expectation to learn a whole platform. Maybe the project is easy if I already have experience in Palantir Foundry? Maybe they're accepting the possibility of learning it because of the low number of people who have experience with it? Even so, jobs should account for the time it takes to learn their system and process. This overall feels like an employer to avoid.
sachiperez@reddit
If you are ok spending one month on a project, knowing you’re not gonna get any benefit, what kind of employee would you be? I wouldn’t hire you if you completed that task.
The_King_Kira@reddit (OP)
Yeah, it really rubbed me the wrong way the expectation they have. The other time I did a project alongside an interview, it was much smaller and less significant than this. RANGR Data is expecting a lot more, and I'm leaning towards moving away from this company.
reboog711@reddit
I would only consider this if I was desperate.
JagoffAndOnAgain@reddit
A month? Palantir? Hell no. My time and soul is worth more than whatever that job would pay.
EngineerFeverDreams@reddit
If you want the job, do it. If you don't, don't.
Assume that most people will respond to them with not willing to do it so your chances of getting the job are much higher. Then again, if they have a job opening up for months, they're in no rush to hire you.
RaisinTotal@reddit
I don't do coding interviews. Ever. They're a waste of time and they're a terrible way to evaluate developers. You wouldn't ask a mathematician to do long division to prove they are ready for a job.
nighhawkrr@reddit
If you can’t code they definitely are, but if you can they’re normally easy. It’s just nerves that mess legit coders up.
RaisinTotal@reddit
But that's kind of it. It doesn't measure anything useful. If it's an easy test, what are we measuring with it?
The best teams I've been on have been recruited by their leaders directly and were evaluated for attitude before skill. Code is the easy part and can be trained. 99% of the hard stuff at most jobs is communication.
angellus@reddit
Only if they are paying you like $20k for it. A month long take home means a month of actual work. So they better be paying. Any take home that takes longer then a few hours is likely just trying to exploit unpaid work.
chaitanyathengdi@reddit
20k? In what world?
mauriciocap@reddit
On the cheap side for delivering a working app in 1mo as a freelance job.
chaitanyathengdi@reddit
That's like a monthly salary of 20k. Wrong company to ask for that kind of money.
mauriciocap@reddit
The buyer decided to structure it as a one time gig, charging 6x what you would accept at a permanent job is customary to cover cost of sales, negotiating, billing, etc.
You are free to charge whatever you like and do it yourself, it's a free market both when you sell your time and have to pay rent, food, health, ... isn't it?
mauriciocap@reddit
"I'm sorry but that would be unfair to paying clients and I couldn't justify the opportunity cost to my loved ones"
minimal-salt@reddit
that doesnt sound like a sane question
aqjo@reddit
That’s a month you could be devoting to finding a legit job.
chaitanyathengdi@reddit
Ways for cheap companies to scam candidates:
Give an assignment with a 1-day deadline (which should actually take to the tune of a week to complete).
Give an assignment with a 1-month deadline (which no one in the company wants to do/is just a "test" which will be ignored).
Tell them you will only do it for compensation, or not at all.
Your time isn't theirs to waste.
__bee_07@reddit
We always say no to these companies, and many of colleagues are against it. The harsh reality is that they don’t check the code, the don’t give feedback and they don’t pay for this work .. it’s an easy no .. hope companies realize that is a waste of time and efforts for everyone
TheOnceAndFutureDoug@reddit
If you pay me my contract rates I'd think about it. For free? Never.
flavius-as@reddit
"I love the fact that you try to make this as realistic as possible. Please assign me a desk in one of your offices and a buddy for 1 month and I'll gladly participate. I am open to any other kind of arrangements which provide a balanced investment from both parties".
Acceptable-Hyena3769@reddit
Use chatgpt to do most of the work and spend like 3 actual hours on it. No more than that
The_King_Kira@reddit (OP)
The only issue with this is that completing the project too quickly can make them suspicious.
Acceptable-Hyena3769@reddit
If they ask, tell them you used chatgpt to streamline poc. Theyre probably expecting you to use ai because its absolutely absurd to expect anyone to learn some bullshit tech and make an app as part of an application. If you tell them you used chat gpt and they baulk at that, theyre fucking idiots and working from them is going to be an absolute hell anyways, so youve dodged a bullet. Just dont lie. Thats the important thing. Use what tools are available, give a reasonable effort (a few hours) and be honest about what tools you used, but be sure you understand what you submit
NastroAzzurro@reddit
You’re getting brewdogged
PredictableChaos@reddit
No. That would be my answer. I don't even like two hour projects, let alone an entire month.
And like you said, they'll probably just ghost you if they don't like your work. I'm not particularly worried about them stealing work for a project like this. It's more the time commitment.
To be honest, though, being a consultant at a small Palantir focused consultancy is not really my idea of a good career path. Of course, that's just me. You've got to decide if that's the kind of work you'd want to do.
rArithmetics@reddit
Please don’t do this. A month? Imagine how fucked up it would be to develop a month long project and not get this job.
ArchitectAces@reddit
If you have decided you will not develop a project, then explain one.
You can review recent pull requests and explain why they made the choices they did. Demonstrate your decision making process and take the hour for not actually coding it.
lucasb16@reddit
The level of proprietary abstraction valued by this company enough to make hiring decisions on is intense
abraham_linklater@reddit
Sounds like a huge waste of time