I got my current job through TripleByte three and a half years ago. The candidate experience is (was?) top-notch.
The opt-out public profile thing was a bad idea, but I think they handled it as well as they could have after the fact.
My company did stop using TripleByte after a period of success, not because they're expensive, but because we found that the candidates we were seeing straight-up couldn't program. I can't see how that happened, given the rigor involved in the process, but it's what we experienced. That was a disappointment to me because I'm a huge fan of the concept and I had such a positive experience as a candidate.
They must have really slipped their process then. I went through it some years ago. I don't claim to be the world's greatest programmer, but I've been around for a while and am good by most standards. The interview was fairly tough and the interviewer himself was technically strong and knowledgeable. I don't think anyone who didn't know what they were doing could have gotten through it. I passed, but friends of mine who weren't slouches didn't make it through the online screening.
> but because we found that the candidates we were seeing straight-up couldn't program
Not surprised, devs with experience and/or recs have no incentive to go through triplebyte and its ilk, with overtime leaving more of those who optimize for this kind thing.
I don’t think this is true. There are many devs with no network who are fine programmers. I bet that’s actually the majority of developers - those just aren’t the people that anyone knows, by definition.
> There are many devs with no network who are fine programmers.
With no work experience? They don't have anyone at all from the last place they worked who could vouch for their ability to write code/design systems/fix bugs?
I find that very hard to believe. Though I'm saying this from my experience, I have no "network" of people to rely on (and I'm not also on social media) unless you consider contact info of people I worked with in the past as a network.
Sure, if you have no experience, one would be tempted to go through the whole hiring filtration as a service, but as soon as you get a job, you can just let future employers ask anyone who worked with you in the past (while ignoring those that wont accept that) and provide contact info rather than jumping through the next hiring filtration as a service again. At the very least, you wouldn't rely on the hiring filtration hiring filtration as a service funnel as much.
Covered by "Sure, if you have no experience, one would be tempted to go through the whole hiring filtration as a service"
> self-taught like myself
I'm self taught as well, and a dropout. I just assume that's going to be a PITA everytime I want to find something because I have to filter out all the companies/people I don't want to work for and mostly because of the time it takes.
> And TripleByte's model is also to let you skip stages of the interview process IIRC, which is appealing no matter how much experience you have.
With companies who are interested in using their service (after you have already scanned, uploaded oneself and jumped through all the services hoops and agreed to be at the whim of whatever they decide to do with said data now and forever more into the future) and who have not yet run into the problems (i.e. incentivizing people gaming the system) that the person I originally responded to has run into and that many corps have run into with similar services in the past.
The part I want to skip is the part where a corp ignores the content of what I sent and sends a TripleByte link mixed with some boiler plate…
I’ve been in the industry for over 15 years, currently work at a F500. Every job I’ve ever gotten has been through blindly applying, including this one. I have no network to speak of - my colleagues who have seen my technical work number less than 15. Most of those are in the military.
I have been quite successful despite this lack of permanent connection. I literally can’t think of anyone I could contact who would give me a leg up for a job.
I've been in the industry for over 8 years, and remotely overseas for 5 years, for startups and generally small orgs (sub 100 people). I also blindly apply for jobs, some ask for recs, most don't and just use my work experience (which im sure others do for people like yourself as well), but people I worked on jobs with in the past do contact me about working on other things as well randomly over email.
> I literally can’t think of anyone I could contact who would give me a leg up for a job.
You can, you still have
> colleagues who have seen my technical work number less than 15. Most of those are in the military.
that you just choose not to leverage such "connection" explicitly, but its probably implied to some degree on your resume.
Idk, ask all the corps out there that still are ok with people who have recs from people one has worked with before/and or put up their resources/time hiring before…
It's like some are surprised that there are many ways to skin a cat, and different corps have different preferences…
The opt-out public profile thing was a bad idea, but I think they handled it as well as they could have after the fact.
My company did stop using TripleByte after a period of success, not because they're expensive, but because we found that the candidates we were seeing straight-up couldn't program. I can't see how that happened, given the rigor involved in the process, but it's what we experienced. That was a disappointment to me because I'm a huge fan of the concept and I had such a positive experience as a candidate.