Trying out AngelList’s new Assessments

I’m a 19-year-old entirely self-taught programmer, and I’ve documented by experiences with Triplebyte’s Quizzes to get a good estimate at my skill. On Triplebyte, I scored 60th-80th percentile for a Generalist Engineer and 80th-100th Percentile among Entry-Level Generalist Engineers. Pretty good for having absolutely no academic training in Computer Science or programming!

Some time after I took the Triplebyte exam, I heard that AngelList had a new assessments system of their own. Upon creating an AngelList account, I found out AngelList had 5 different available assessments:

  • Frontend
  • Backend
  • Full-stack
  • Android
  • iOS

I decided to start with the Backend Quiz, because that’s what I feel I am strongest in. Unlike Triplebyte, using a search engine is allowed and encouraged. In AngelList’s view, it doesn’t matter as much if you don’t know a subject if you are good at Googling it and understanding what you found.

The results speak for themselves. Awesome.

24/30. OK… except that the average is only 15/30, so I’m 90th-100th percentile from AngelList’s perspective for Backend. Awesome.

Next up, because I was encouraged from this result… Full-Stack. Full-Stack being a mashup between Backend (which I’m very good at) and Frontend (which I’m wasn’t sure how good I was at yet). The results:

18/30 is weaker… but it’s still higher than the 13 average, and is 80th-90th percentile. From AngelList’s perspective, I have every right to call myself a “Full-Stack developer.” How about Front-end? How good am I at that, from AngelList’s perspective?

Also 18/30, but the average is 15/30 instead of 13/30. Because of that, I’m 70th-80th percentile.

Overall, the AngelList assessments show I’m better at software engineering than I thought – or AngelList is easier than it should be. However, considering the percentiles, it’s an amazing feeling, and I’d heartily recommend that other software engineers try out the AngelList Assessments. The more engineers that take the exam, the more accurate the percentiles get.

Published by Gabriel Sieben

Gabriel Sieben is a 21-year-old software developer from St. Paul, MN, who enjoys experimenting with computers and loves to share his various technology-related projects. He owns and runs this blog, and is a traditional Catholic. In his free time (when not messing with computers), he enjoys hiking, fishing, and board games.

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2 Comments

  1. Hi, Gabriel.
    I’ve read your post carefully.
    I’m very interesting in your post.
    Have you documented by experiences with Angellist’s assessments?
    Looking forward to hearing from you soon.

    Nathaniel

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