Update: I no longer work for the company and this challenge is no longer used, but I'll leave the gist here in case people want to practice.
Using Ruby on Rails we would like you to create a simple expert search tool. The application should fulfill the requirements below. The source code must be placed in a public repo on GitHub. The application should be deployable on Heroku.
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I enter a name and a personal website address and a member is created.
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When a member is created, all the heading (h1-h3) values are pulled in from the website to that members profile.
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The website url is shortened (e.g. using http://goo.gl)
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After the member has been added, I can define their friendships with other existing members. Friendships are bi-directional i.e. If Sasha is a friend of Ash, Ash is always a friend of Sasha as well.
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The interface should list all members with their name, short url and the number of friends e.g. Taylor http://goo.gl/3io1P (3)
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Viewing an actual member should display the name, website URL, shortening, website headings, and links to their friends' pages.
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Now, looking at Taylor's profile, I want to find experts in the application who write about a certain topic and are not already friends of Taylor.
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Results should show the path of introduction from Taylor to the expert e.g. Taylor wants to get introduced to someone who writes about 'Dog breeding'. Claudia's website has a heading tag "Dog breeding in Ukraine". Bart knows Taylor and Claudia. An example search result would be Taylor -> Bart -> Claudia ("Dog breeding in Ukraine")
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Optional: prefering h1 over h2 and shorter introduction paths when ordering results.
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Bonus points for not using Twitter Bootstrap or any other CSS framework (We want to see how you structure your CSS).
We encourage you to use gems and libraries for everything except the search, where we want to see your algorithm. We are looking for a simple, clean, elegant design, tests and all round understanding of the full stack e.g. Ruby, Rails, CSS (or SASS), HTML (or HAML), JavaScript (or CoffeeScript).
Hi! FYI, I stumbled across this challenge when googling "Rails Technical Challenges". I hope that you take my suggestion as something of value rather than criticism:
As an Instructor at a code school, the language in your challenge is quite gendered. This may discourage diverse people (especially women) from applying to your company.
I would suggest changing the names in your challenge to gender neutral names or using multiple types of names to emphasis users. If you would like to talk more about this, I am happy to at ilana@turing.io. Thanks!