I last tried Triplebyte in 2015, so indeed, a lot must have changed since then, which is why I didn't want to get into any specific details about my experience at the time, as it's probably no longer representative.
For what it's worth, my issue with the process I went through was the significant workload required for the take-home project I chose.
Some background: I semi-specialize in frontend work because I enjoy building great products and user experiences.
Out of the 4 take home projects you offered at the time, only 1 had anything remotely product-oriented: a _multiplayer_ snake game. The take-home projects were estimated to take at most 3 hours, which seemed about right for the other 3 project options, but definitely not for this one, which involved non-trivial frontend work and realtime networking in the backend, which seemed like more of a whole-weekend kind of deal at the very least. Nevertheless I chose this project because the other projects simply didn't interest me at all, and probably wouldn't have given me any opportunity to showcase any product chops because they didn't involve any non-trivial frontend work.
I was also interviewing outside of Triplebyte at the time, so I didn't have a whole weekend to burn on this project. In the end, I worked on it for the estimated 3 hours and had a decently working & polished frontend but couldn't finish the backend component, so that's what I went to the interview with and was rejected for not being able to finish.
In the end I think this was an issue of project selection/scope. I don't think 3 hours was a very honest estimate for the time commitment required for the project I chose, and any project that takes more than 3 hours feels like too much more time commitment than most would be willing to accept.
My personal recommendation for take-home project selection would be to offer the same project choices you'd offer candidates who take the real-time interview path, but simply expect more polish, better code quality, architecture and testing.
Though take that recommendation with a grain of salt, because you guys have probably put way more thought into this than I have. Nevertheless I'd love to hear how your project selection process has evolved since then.
For what it's worth, my issue with the process I went through was the significant workload required for the take-home project I chose.
Some background: I semi-specialize in frontend work because I enjoy building great products and user experiences.
Out of the 4 take home projects you offered at the time, only 1 had anything remotely product-oriented: a _multiplayer_ snake game. The take-home projects were estimated to take at most 3 hours, which seemed about right for the other 3 project options, but definitely not for this one, which involved non-trivial frontend work and realtime networking in the backend, which seemed like more of a whole-weekend kind of deal at the very least. Nevertheless I chose this project because the other projects simply didn't interest me at all, and probably wouldn't have given me any opportunity to showcase any product chops because they didn't involve any non-trivial frontend work.
I was also interviewing outside of Triplebyte at the time, so I didn't have a whole weekend to burn on this project. In the end, I worked on it for the estimated 3 hours and had a decently working & polished frontend but couldn't finish the backend component, so that's what I went to the interview with and was rejected for not being able to finish.
In the end I think this was an issue of project selection/scope. I don't think 3 hours was a very honest estimate for the time commitment required for the project I chose, and any project that takes more than 3 hours feels like too much more time commitment than most would be willing to accept.
My personal recommendation for take-home project selection would be to offer the same project choices you'd offer candidates who take the real-time interview path, but simply expect more polish, better code quality, architecture and testing.
Though take that recommendation with a grain of salt, because you guys have probably put way more thought into this than I have. Nevertheless I'd love to hear how your project selection process has evolved since then.