I have given up entirely on tretton37 – seriously, I wouldn’t be surprised if the company doesn’t survive until the end of the year – so now I’m looking for a new employer. That means phone calls and meetings and interviews – and coding tasks. The first one I did was a small and simple one – I think I banged it out in an hour and a half. The other company I’m in serious discussions with has a bigger task, so basically I’m spending most of today working. I started after a leisurely Saturday breakfast and decided that I will stop when it’s time to cook dinner, and whatever is left undone at that point can stay that way.

It’s a serious time investment, and I might not be willing to do this if I was interviewing with more companies. But I’ve only got three right now that I’m interested in, so I can invest a bit more in each one. And I actually prefer this to the other coding task, which was almost too simple, and for which the feedback I got was roughly “this looks really great!” and that was that. Makes me suspicious. Are they desperate? If my code – admittedly nice but nothing earth-shattering – looked so great to them, what kind of low expectations did they have? They say they’re selective but this coding task wouldn’t winnow out many candidates.

I want to be challenged, and I want colleagues who will challenge me.