To give more context from an employee's point of view [just my opinion and might be completely wrong]
For a job switch, I need to spend time in three different stages:
---------------
Preparation:
Leetcode (Blind 75) : 150 hours
System Design + DBMS + OS + Networking : 100 hours
Behavioural Questions (preparing STAR format answers): 10-20 hours
------------
Application:
Avg time for sending 500 applications: 20 hours (Assuming 1 application every 2.5 minutes)
-------------
Interviews:
Let's say I got 25 callbacks and 10 of them asked for takehome.
Person to person interviews time: 25 * 3 = 75 hours
Takehomes: 10 * 6 hours = 60 hours.
-------------
All in all, I'm already spending 415 hours of unpaid work to get x% of salary increment. Not including the side projects or hackathons we may need.
So having a takehome exercise asking to make an active contribution to the company is....bad. Sure i can reject it but not everyone will. which is what led us into the multiple rounds of algo interviews hellhole.
I apologize if what I'm saying is harsh. All I want is for leadership to see us as humans with families and not monkeys jumping through hoops.
For a job switch, I need to spend time in three different stages:
---------------
Preparation:
Leetcode (Blind 75) : 150 hours
System Design + DBMS + OS + Networking : 100 hours
Behavioural Questions (preparing STAR format answers): 10-20 hours
------------
Application:
Avg time for sending 500 applications: 20 hours (Assuming 1 application every 2.5 minutes)
-------------
Interviews:
Let's say I got 25 callbacks and 10 of them asked for takehome.
Person to person interviews time: 25 * 3 = 75 hours
Takehomes: 10 * 6 hours = 60 hours.
-------------
All in all, I'm already spending 415 hours of unpaid work to get x% of salary increment. Not including the side projects or hackathons we may need.
So having a takehome exercise asking to make an active contribution to the company is....bad. Sure i can reject it but not everyone will. which is what led us into the multiple rounds of algo interviews hellhole.
I apologize if what I'm saying is harsh. All I want is for leadership to see us as humans with families and not monkeys jumping through hoops.