FYI: TripleByte is emailing old referrals
I referred a friend to TripleByte in 2017 back when I was actually using the service. He received an email a couple of days ago claiming I referred him again. I've submitted an account deletion request so my friends stop getting spammed but figured I'd let you all know.
81 comments
I worked at Triplebyte until I was laid off in April due to COVID. I’ve disagreed with many company decisions (including opt-out public profiles) but I’ve never questioned Ammon’s integrity. I remember him as an honest person (at times perhaps to his detriment) and if he claims this this is unintentional, then I believe him.
Independently, from what I remember of those parts of the company codebase, my prior would be that this is a bug, not malice.
Independently, from what I remember of those parts of the company codebase, my prior would be that this is a bug, not malice.
can you elaborate about the opt-out public profiles?
I never ever used Triplebyte, yet they seem to have some kind of a shadow profile of me? the only way I know is since I saw that they shared my details with Facebook[0]
Definitely feels like —- whatever their intentions are —- they do seem to use some scummy “growth hacking” techniques with little respect to privacy.
[0] https://blog.gingerlime.com/2020/whos-sharing-my-data-and-wh...
I never ever used Triplebyte, yet they seem to have some kind of a shadow profile of me? the only way I know is since I saw that they shared my details with Facebook[0]
Definitely feels like —- whatever their intentions are —- they do seem to use some scummy “growth hacking” techniques with little respect to privacy.
[0] https://blog.gingerlime.com/2020/whos-sharing-my-data-and-wh...
We don’t have shadow profiles or anything like that
That still doesn't explain how my details were shared by TripleByte with Facebook, when I never gave my email or any details to TripleByte. I don't think I even visited your site...
FWIW from that thread I got the feeling that Ammon truly did not comprehend what the problem was and came back a few days later apologizing and reversing the decision.
Some months ago Triplebyte was planning to make every candidate’s profile public unless the candidate took action to opt out. After outcry on HN, they reversed the decision (made it opt-in) and Ammon emailed out an apology.
I really don’t know the details of Triplebyte’s growth strategy—I never worked with that team.
I really don’t know the details of Triplebyte’s growth strategy—I never worked with that team.
Have met Ammon and used the service. I agree it’s likely not malice but absolutely negligence. Ammon is in way over his head and has failed at recognizing that. Should have learned from the layoffs (COVID was an excuse but appears either Ammon personally had early knowledge of the impending lockdowns or the layoffs had been planned for weeks prior). Way way way too much leverage, and the lever rightfully bit back.
[deleted]
> Independently, from what I remember of those parts of the company codebase, my prior would be that this is a bug, not malice.
Indeed. I'm not associated with the company at all but this seems like a pretty typical bug for mailing lists. Anecdotes elsewhere in this thread about people who were referred and/or interviewed but who've not received any spam seem to back that up(?).
TripleByte did legitimately screw up by planning to make profiles public by default. I was upset with that but also very, very impressed when (after a day of reflection and sleeping on it) they reversed course with a heartfelt apology. To me that's the kind of earnestness that I want in companies that I do business with. Some people continue to criticize them for ever imagining the plan in the first place or not immediately reversing course the same day as the initial backlash - but to me, I think the vast majority of humans generally come around the next day after sleeping on it rather than in the moment.
TripleByte doesn't give me the "sociopathic company vibe" at all.
If anything, I've been happy that I can recommend companies like this to colleagues/friends/old classmates who didn't go to top CS schools. A lot of students from the lesser schools have quite a bit of difficulty getting an interview at FAANG companies even after doing the leetcode grind because their resume simply cannot stand out in the online application system -- and without a strong alumni network to help with referrals, they're on their own.
TripleByte (and similar services) do a pretty good job of at least getting you an interview if you've studied hard enough, regardless of your previous academic/professional background. That's a really powerful leg up for a lot of passionate and driven people who didn't go to the best schools.
Indeed. I'm not associated with the company at all but this seems like a pretty typical bug for mailing lists. Anecdotes elsewhere in this thread about people who were referred and/or interviewed but who've not received any spam seem to back that up(?).
TripleByte did legitimately screw up by planning to make profiles public by default. I was upset with that but also very, very impressed when (after a day of reflection and sleeping on it) they reversed course with a heartfelt apology. To me that's the kind of earnestness that I want in companies that I do business with. Some people continue to criticize them for ever imagining the plan in the first place or not immediately reversing course the same day as the initial backlash - but to me, I think the vast majority of humans generally come around the next day after sleeping on it rather than in the moment.
TripleByte doesn't give me the "sociopathic company vibe" at all.
If anything, I've been happy that I can recommend companies like this to colleagues/friends/old classmates who didn't go to top CS schools. A lot of students from the lesser schools have quite a bit of difficulty getting an interview at FAANG companies even after doing the leetcode grind because their resume simply cannot stand out in the online application system -- and without a strong alumni network to help with referrals, they're on their own.
TripleByte (and similar services) do a pretty good job of at least getting you an interview if you've studied hard enough, regardless of your previous academic/professional background. That's a really powerful leg up for a lot of passionate and driven people who didn't go to the best schools.
>> I'm not associated with the company at all but this seems like a pretty typical bug for mailing lists
Same, and I've done this on a 100k subscriber mailing list before on accident.
Same, and I've done this on a 100k subscriber mailing list before on accident.
Ok, we’ve looked into this. The problem was a bug in our reminder email. We only intended to send the reminder 3 times, but it was going out every 6 weeks forever. We’ve turned off all reminder emails for now (and will audit them after the holidays). Had I realized this was happening sooner, we would have fixed it sooner. I’m absolutely NOT trying to spam / growth hack our way to anything. I don’t think that would even work. Our goal is to help people who are strong programmers but don’t have credentialed resumes get jobs. We only succeed by helping engineers. It’s clear from some of the replies here that I’ve lost the trust of a part of this community. I feel pretty bad about this. I’m going to do an Ask HN post next year and get everyone input on what Triplebyte should do to help engineers and not be spammy. If anyone has any thoughts now and would like to talk, please email me at [email protected]. I promise to listen to anyone (I’d especially like to talk to people critical of us). Have a wonderful Christmas, everyone!
I'm looking into what's happening with this email. We definitely did not decide to re-email people invited a long time ago as a growth tactic. That would be shitty. I think the email is a reminder that's supposed to be sent a few times after someone is invited. I'll update when I know what's happening.
It seems pretty amazing to me that apparently some X000ish people have apparently been getting spammed by a company for multiple years and not a single one of them decided to contact the company and ask them to stop it. It's like a real world example of the bystander effect, writ large.
The effect of noreply@
loosetypes(1)
See my comment below. You have been emailing me every two month for more than two years.
Similar thing here, every couple months for a year, original invitation over two years ago. I haven’t personally been all that bothered by it honestly - it seemed pretty likely that my friend is not sending a new invitation every couple months like clockwork, and presumably I can stop it by clicking once on unsubscribe. But probably it would be better to be explicit that it is not a new invitation.
Same, I think I either set up a filter or routed to spam after being unable to stop the emails using their unsubscribe system.
An interesting piece of advice that I saw in another HN thread about good company behaviours stuck with me over the years. When someone unsubscribes from your mailing list, delete their email address from your database. Don't retain it marked "inactive" or "unsubscribed" so that you can accidentally or on purpose start emailing them again later. Really delete it, so that you no longer have it and CAN'T make that error.
But then it can be accidentally re-added to the mailing list since there's no history of the opt-out.
If the person chooses to opt back into the mailing list (all mailing lists should be double opt-in) then of course they can be re-added. There is nothing wrong with quitting a mailing list and re-joining sometime later, if that is what you want to do.
But then we can't "accidentally" re-enable it later?!
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.
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.
> 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.
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.
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.
> from the last place they worked at
If you're a fresh graduate or self-taught like myself, getting your foot in the door is tough.
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.
If you're a fresh graduate or self-taught like myself, getting your foot in the door is tough.
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.
> If you're a fresh graduate
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…
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…
[deleted]
Why would they trust the people I tell them to ask about me any more than they would trust me myself?
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…
It's like some are surprised that there are many ways to skin a cat, and different corps have different preferences…
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 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.
> 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.
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.
Playing devil's advocate in response to commenters here. I found the Triplebyte interview process a breath of fresh air. Rarely have I found an interview more aligned with day to day work, and not the same old algorithm puzzle bs peddled in most tech interviews.
Yeah, a friend referred me in July 2018. They have emailed me every two month since then. The subject line of their current email template says "[My friend] thinks you’ll pass Triplebyte’s coding quiz" and the email starts with "[My friend] is using Triplebyte and suggested we contact you".
They reached out to me about an interview that didn’t go hot for me at a startup out here. It was rather unprofessional, whether or not it was orchestrated by the startup.
If I want to talk to a recruiter I’ll talk to one, and I definitely didn’t consent to having my information shared with any third parties or “partners.”
They are sketchy.
If I want to talk to a recruiter I’ll talk to one, and I definitely didn’t consent to having my information shared with any third parties or “partners.”
They are sketchy.
TripeByte emails have been going straight to /dev/null for years now. I kept getting stupid referral notices, even from friends that claim they never invited me.
Just another data point.
I've interviewed with TripleByte twice. Once very early on, and one a year or two back.
I haven't received a single spam email from them all this time.
I've interviewed with TripleByte twice. Once very early on, and one a year or two back.
I haven't received a single spam email from them all this time.
This service is sketchy to the max. The public profile issue was the last straw.
The low quality candidates passing through is due to poor quality controls and the ease of gaming the system by cheating
The low quality candidates passing through is due to poor quality controls and the ease of gaming the system by cheating
When I did their process a few years ago, there was a fairly challenging online quiz that could obviously be gamed by (say) having a more knowledgeable friend looking over your shoulder and giving you answers. If your score was above X, you were invited for a live (in person or video) interview. That one would have been harder to game. If you didn't score high in enough areas, they told you what areas to brush up on and I think there was a 1 month wait before you could try again. So you had to be pretty strong to get through this phase (I got through).
It sounds to me like they must have since lowered the bar for getting through the process, so weaker candidates now get through; and at the same time, it sounds from other comments that they must have stopped having the interviews done by real engineers (which was expensive). So it sounds like they have become just another recruiting agency. That is disappointing. My initial experience with them was great. I do feel slimed by something that happened later but will see if I can talk to Ammon about that.
I agree that the public profile thing was outrageous. I put it off to the intoxicating effect that money has on business people, that makes them do idiotic things if they think that might get them more of it. We programmers get similarly intoxicated by (say) access to fast enough computers, so I didn't stay angry after the error was fixed.
It sounds to me like they must have since lowered the bar for getting through the process, so weaker candidates now get through; and at the same time, it sounds from other comments that they must have stopped having the interviews done by real engineers (which was expensive). So it sounds like they have become just another recruiting agency. That is disappointing. My initial experience with them was great. I do feel slimed by something that happened later but will see if I can talk to Ammon about that.
I agree that the public profile thing was outrageous. I put it off to the intoxicating effect that money has on business people, that makes them do idiotic things if they think that might get them more of it. We programmers get similarly intoxicated by (say) access to fast enough computers, so I didn't stay angry after the error was fixed.
I’ve known Ammon for about 7 years now, and through hundreds of interactions with him know him to be one of the most humble and earnest people I know. He really cares about helping engineers from non-traditional paths (like he is himself), and works long hours year after year even though he was already a successful founder before he started TripleByte. I believe him when he says that he did not decide to re-email people invited long ago as a growth tactic.
Dont buy it they spammed the shit outta me even after I unsubscribed
Perhaps it was a bug in their software. Bugs happen from time to time.
TB raised a huge red flag when they said "[I] received one of the highest scores on the quiz they ever saw."
I immediately thought: they tell this to everyone, this is some sort of deceptive tactic, and I cannot trust them.
I never followed-up because I wanted nothing else to do with people who were patronizing and lying to me.
I immediately thought: they tell this to everyone, this is some sort of deceptive tactic, and I cannot trust them.
I never followed-up because I wanted nothing else to do with people who were patronizing and lying to me.
I found their quiz very easy except for a couple of questions, which I think I answered correctly anyways. I got the same message. You have probably hit the max score as well.
Yes, it was basic. And self-esteem head-pats don't do much for me except arouse a feeling of being patronized and raise suspicions.
All-in-all, this doesn't seem to do the clients justice if they don't throughly test to see what prospective candidates are made of by pushing their real-world problem-solving abilities, intuition, knowledge, and expertise.
My conclusion is to dissuade the use of TB as a candidate or as a hiring manager.
All-in-all, this doesn't seem to do the clients justice if they don't throughly test to see what prospective candidates are made of by pushing their real-world problem-solving abilities, intuition, knowledge, and expertise.
My conclusion is to dissuade the use of TB as a candidate or as a hiring manager.
If you mean the online quiz, that is a screening funnel for the video interview, which (as of some years ago, don't know about now) was fairly involved.
The online quiz itself wasn't difficult if you knew what you were doing, but it seemed well designed to discern clueful candidates from those who needed to brush up. I know people who took it and didn't pass.
The online quiz itself wasn't difficult if you knew what you were doing, but it seemed well designed to discern clueful candidates from those who needed to brush up. I know people who took it and didn't pass.
cercatrova(5)