Applied online--submitted a résumé and cover letter. Received no confirmation, nor is there a log-on to check whether it was received, much less reviewed. I waited several weeks before hearing from HR. They sent a coding challenge, which they indicated I should allot two hours for.
This turned out to be easily the most inane coding challenge, in which I have ever taken part.
The code challenge, without revealing too many details, is the following. We are interested in predicting a given binary outcome. Here is a messy training set with a large number of records, and a huge number of possible explanatory variables, as well as, a similarly messy/large test set. Create a report of a given format which produces predictions for the test set, using the training set. Along the way, explain the decisions you made and why. You have two hours (stated several times throughout).
One assumes that coding challenges are designed to glean information about the candidate, and well-designed assignments reflect the information the employer wishes to infer. Given what little I saw, no one at Health Catalyst has taken the time to make any choices regarding the qualities they look for in a candidate.
Should a candidate be able to manipulate data at a large scale? Yes.
Should a candidate be able to communicate the rational for his or her decisions? Absolutely.
Is this the type of data that one would expect to encounter at Health Catalyst? I've no doubt.
Should a candidate be able to put his or her work in a presentable form? That's perfectly reasonable.
Should a candidate demonstrate his or her knowledge about code/statistics/machine learning? That is part of the job description--I don't see why not.
Should a candidate be able to accomplish all of the above in two hours time? Hold on--this is entirely unreasonable.
I accomplished what I could in slightly more than two hours (which I volunteered), and sent them what I had.
They ghosted.
