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0 pointstheamk1y ago0 comments

The 2nd line of assignment, "The project is to build a minimal, terminal-inspired email client".

I agree that "inspiration" can be subjective, but in this particular case the solution was so much off that it'd be hard to argue otherwise. There is nothing terminal-like in it, and the tool is not usable as an email client either. Instead of doing login screens and user management, author should have made a page to view individual email or added folder (just 3, inbox/sent/trash, would already be a great improvement)

And if you want to ignore the requirements and work off position description... the position is titled "Email Backend Engineer", and the candidate's solution offloads actual email operations (storage, transfer) to third-party services. I suspect that even if candidate provided the same UX, but would have backed it with SMTP, IMAP, TCP/IP (not via http library), DNS MX lookup, resilient storage etc... then they might have passed.

But author failed to do either serious front-end work (required by question) or serious back-end work (required by job posting), so result was entirely predictable.

0 comments

4 comments · 1 top-level

MeetingsBrowser1y ago· 3 in thread

For every comment in this thread that says the author did too much, there is another saying the author clearly did not do enough.

Plenty of comments here have strong, but conflicting, opinions about which set of features are obviously in or out of scope. That alone indicates to me that this is a badly worded take home test.

Even ignoring that, the author told Kagi exactly what they were going to do in advance.

Applicant: I'm going to spend a week building X

Kagi: Sounds great!

Applicant: After a week, I have built X

Kagi: Not at all what we are looking for. Rejected.

I don't see any way to interpret this interaction positively.

theamkOP1y ago

I don't see much disagreement in the comments here? However there seems to be some people who only read the blogpost and did not actually follow the link to the original assignment [0].. you can tell their response by the lack of mention of "terminal inspired" features. Sadly this happens during discussions sometimes, especially when original author did not mention all the relevant facts in the post.

anyway, the exchange went like this:

Kagi: "please build terminal-inspired email client, you can choose which email flows you'd like to implement."

Applicant: I am going to spend a week building it, using golang, AWS, TMPL etc... I am also going to fit it onto 2 html pages.

Kagi: Sounds great!

Applicant: After a week, I have built something using golang, AWS, TMPL etc.. It has nothing to do with terminal, and does implement any of the email flows completely.

Kagi: Not at all what we are looking for. Rejected.

I don't see any way to blame Kagi for that exchange. Who would have thought the candidate decided to ignore half of the requirements?

[0] https://archive.md/A95Ju#selection-549.5-549.63

rsynnott1y ago

> For every comment in this thread that says the author did too much, there is another saying the author clearly did not do enough.

Both can be true (they arguably did too much extraneous stuff, but didn't do what they were actually asked for).

Mind you, this is a pretty ridiculous take-home question, and I'm sure they lose plenty of good candidates to "life is too short" at this point.

freediver1y ago

That is the point. The difficulty of take-home assignment as a second screen is meant to increase with the number of candidates applied so that after this screen, you always end up with 4-5 that you can then interview in a meaningful way.

If only 10 candidates applied, take home could be a 5 min task. If 50 apply, you need something that will leave only those that are really commited to working at Kagi and ready to go an extra mile (and we may be looking for resourcefulness and determination as desireable traits, given how ambitious and difficult Kagi's core mission is).

j / k navigate · click thread line to collapse

0 comments

4 comments · 1 top-level

MeetingsBrowser1y ago· 3 in thread

For every comment in this thread that says the author did too much, there is another saying the author clearly did not do enough.

Plenty of comments here have strong, but conflicting, opinions about which set of features are obviously in or out of scope. That alone indicates to me that this is a badly worded take home test.

Even ignoring that, the author told Kagi exactly what they were going to do in advance.

Applicant: I'm going to spend a week building X

Kagi: Sounds great!

Applicant: After a week, I have built X

Kagi: Not at all what we are looking for. Rejected.

I don't see any way to interpret this interaction positively.

theamkOP1y ago

anyway, the exchange went like this:

Kagi: "please build terminal-inspired email client, you can choose which email flows you'd like to implement."

Applicant: I am going to spend a week building it, using golang, AWS, TMPL etc... I am also going to fit it onto 2 html pages.

Kagi: Sounds great!

Applicant: After a week, I have built something using golang, AWS, TMPL etc.. It has nothing to do with terminal, and does implement any of the email flows completely.

Kagi: Not at all what we are looking for. Rejected.

I don't see any way to blame Kagi for that exchange. Who would have thought the candidate decided to ignore half of the requirements?

[0] https://archive.md/A95Ju#selection-549.5-549.63

rsynnott1y ago

> For every comment in this thread that says the author did too much, there is another saying the author clearly did not do enough.

Both can be true (they arguably did too much extraneous stuff, but didn't do what they were actually asked for).

Mind you, this is a pretty ridiculous take-home question, and I'm sure they lose plenty of good candidates to "life is too short" at this point.

freediver1y ago

j / k navigate · click thread line to collapse