We created a new programming language just for our interview process. Yes, we’re crazy!
7 years ago before we launched MomoCentral, we had this major problem — everytime we put up an ad on a job board, HUNDREDS of resumes would stream in! These were ads for software engineers.
We would then patiently call in the person for an interview one by one. We later got exhausted as most of them were “coders” who couldn’t solve simple algorithmic questions from a CS101 class. We are not hiring super coders like Google or Facebook, mind you. These candidates were straight out failing the most basic Computer Science questions you would learn in the first semester of college.
We said “OK! ENOUGH OF THIS!!!! We gotta do better”. We then thought of using one of the code test platforms out there but these also had limitations, namely, it does not test the speed and ability of a coder to learn a new programming language. You see, we wanted to hire not only coders who are familiar with today’s technology but those who are capable of learning any new technologies that spring up in the future.
For example, if Apple came up with a new programming language called “Swoof” tomorrow, a competent developer would be able to pick up the “Swoof” documentation, read it and in about 2–3 weeks become pretty competent in it. This is the calibre of people we are looking for.
My co-founder said “Why don’t we just create our own programming language?”.
Me: What did you just say? (making sure I did not hear wrong)
Him: Ya, like our own programming language, with our own documentation and interpreter. This way anyone who passes our code test would definitely have demonstrated the ability to read documentation and pick up a new language on the fly!
Me: Are you nuts?!?! no way! That won’t be worth the effort
I went home and somehow the idea kept stewing in my head and my co-founder is right. This is the most sure proof way of verifying the developer’s ability to learn a new language. This was vital in our quest to find competent, quality software engineers.
and… the MokoM language is born! (It is called MokoM because our startup before MomoCentral is called MokoMomo haha!).
We then saw our code test questions being leaked onto StackOverflow (HAHAHA!). Of course thanks to the help of our coder friends, it got downvoted to oblivion.
Then, something even more epic happened. Someone actually committed the full answers into Github!
The person even wrote us a nice Readme haha!
We only discovered this when answers submitted into our code test became EERILY similar to the extent you could tell it was a very bad attempt at plagiarism. We then did a search and found this. Thanks for sharing the knowledge haha!
Was the test useful?
To be honest, the test isn’t that hard. It is definitely NOWHERE close to the difficulty of Google and Facebook’s engineering interviews but it’s good enough to weed out the fake coders who lack basic coding fundamentals — 95% of them to be exact! Yes, somehow our code test has a 95% fail rate and I’ll repeat again, it is nowhere close to Google and Facebook’s interviews. Not even by a mile. It makes you wonder how many people are going around calling themselves coders :O !!
Our MokoM language isn’t hard to pick up either. It is very similar to Javascript and we’ve seen candidates complete the code test while eating pasta in 30 minutes (including time to learn our MokoM language)! While other weaker candidates struggled for 2.5 hours.
What else our code test uncovered?
When we created the code test, we honestly were looking for candidates with 3 qualities:
- Ability to pick up any API documentation and learn a new language
- Have algorithmic thinking
- Have the ability to Google for answers
What we didn’t expect was this code test would end up being a personality filter as well. Except for a few bad apples, most of the candidates who pass our evaluations (including video interviews and live code tests), do honest, hard, work. Some of them have been full-time with our clients for over 2 years (and counting). Some of them got bought off our platform with full-time employee contracts, complete with equity and relocation packages. Some of these companies are very reputable, well-funded companies (YCombinator startups, Series A startups, etc).
Are we crazy?
Some people will say yes. We think of it more as, we had to do what we had to do. 7 years, 1000+ clients and 450+ freelancers on, I’ll say we will stick and continue to use this code test system! :)
If you’re curious to try it out yourself, even if you’re not a coder, give it a go at https://momocentral.com. If you pass, you’ll maybe get to say hi to me and my co-founder in the video interview stage! ;)
See ya soon!
