When I was 35, I had a mid-20's startup CEO ask me if I still had it in me... what?
Dang, my 35yo self probably would have punched it in the nose and asked if it was good enough.
Ask HN: What are your personal red flags when you're interviewing at a company?
11–20 of 133 posts
Re: Ask HN: What are your personal red flags when you're interviewing at a company?
#12If they have an interview process that involves a take home project or something similarly time intensive. To me that screams, "I don't care about any family responsibilities you may have, I want a bunch of childless 20-twenty somethings I can burn and churn".
I failed one of those take-home projects (got about 1/3 of it in probably 3x the time) but felt it was a pretty good experience because it got me to try a kind of coding I'd always been interested in but never did.
I was asked a while back to do a 4–6 hour take-home project. I would have told them where to stick their 4–6 hour project, except it involved writing a Flask server, and I wanted to learn how to write a Flask server.
I wasn't offered the job, but I regret nothing.
Re: Ask HN: What are your personal red flags when you're interviewing at a company?
#13If they have an interview process that involves a take home project or something similarly time intensive. To me that screams, "I don't care about any family responsibilities you may have, I want a bunch of childless 20-twenty somethings I can burn and churn".
Don't forget desperate, because people with options would likely skip.
I've done plenty of code tests in the past, these days it would take A LOT to motivate me.
Usually I just say thanks, but no thanks if they insist on testing me.
Re: Ask HN: What are your personal red flags when you're interviewing at a company?
#14Justifying lower pay with "we just want people who truly believe in the mission"
Re: Ask HN: What are your personal red flags when you're interviewing at a company?
#15Pro-tip: Too many interviewers can be threatened by incoming talent being better than them.
Re: Ask HN: What are your personal red flags when you're interviewing at a company?
#16I prefer reasonably scoped take home assignment to leetcode "prove me you're awesome in 30 minutes" kind of interviews. Relying on these kind of signals as a main input is a sign that company didn't think through their hiring process and rather just cargo-culting. But all that are still secondary concerns: good people can make bad process work, bad people tend to ruin the best of processes. So for me the only importa…
Reasonably scoped is probably the tough part. There are a lot of things where you know the other person who is really banking on this job is going to spend days on.
That said, when I was a tech industry analyst, a writing sample--maybe a presentation--on a topic (probably of your choice) wasn't really a negotiable requirement and if you couldn't just pull one out of a folder that you could share, you were probably going to have to spend a bunch of time creating.
Re: Ask HN: What are your personal red flags when you're interviewing at a company?
#17When I was 35, I had a mid-20's startup CEO ask me if I still had it in me... what?
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Re: Ask HN: What are your personal red flags when you're interviewing at a company?
#18I prefer reasonably scoped take home assignment to leetcode "prove me you're awesome in 30 minutes" kind of interviews. Relying on these kind of signals as a main input is a sign that company didn't think through their hiring process and rather just cargo-culting. But all that are still secondary concerns: good people can make bad process work, bad people tend to ruin the best of processes. So for me the only importa…
I share the same feeling. Give me a reasonable take-home where I can flex my knowledge on some real-world stuff.
Some people I've worked with in the past scoff at this idea. When I ask them how they would prefer I evaluate technical ability they seem to all meander around the question basically saying you know a good hire when you see one.
It's tough to hire good people. I've been in the hiring process for Stanford graduates who could barely code in their take-home. I've also hired candidates who freshly changed their careers later in life and wowed us with their take-home. The 4 hour take-home for us has been wildly helpful in identifying the best hires, but I do get it can feel like a burden to some.
I just don't think I could really trust the outcome of leetcode. To me, I feel like anyone can grind leetcode for a couple months and ace a test on it. Does that mean they can create anything of value? Not really.
Re: Ask HN: What are your personal red flags when you're interviewing at a company?
#19Making fun of my side project.
An interviewer looked at me with this vicious, incredulous look when I described my side project in ~2019, which was a weather network built on the sensors inside phones. Guy said, “a weather app, really?! You think that’s a good use of your time in 2019? What makes you think a weather app is useful to make today?”
MFer, it was a good idea in 2011 and it’s a good idea today and it’ll be a good idea in 10 years.
And it wasn’t just a weather app omg! But he didn’t care, just kept pressing me for like 5 mins why I would ever think making a weather network service was useful. No amount of explaining the complexity or novel recently-developed techniques that made it possible would convince him I wasn’t wasting my time.
Re: Ask HN: What are your personal red flags when you're interviewing at a company?
#20DEI everywhere.