Live data from Hacker News

Ask HN: Balancing interviewing and day job?

news.ycombinator.com

21–23 of 23 posts

Re: Ask HN: Balancing interviewing and day job?

#21

What really gets me is the time it takes to do the interview. I get needing 2-3 to confirm prowess and answer all of the logistics of the working relationship, but it seems like there is waste somewhere. I'm probably just impatient, but I'd welcome feedback on if that's just a Me thing or if most people find nearly half a day spent interviewing to get old pretty fast.

Where I worked for over a decade, full day interviews were the norm as multiple PMs had to approve of the candidate and be willing to fund the person on their projects.

Re: Ask HN: Balancing interviewing and day job?

#22
I "worked from home" a lot while interviewing.

Additional reasons I did't go in included having errands to run and not feeling well. Depends on your current job though, my employer at the time had, and probably still does, a very lax time off policy. It was enough to drop a message in a public channel saying you wouldn't be in that day due to an appointment.

Re: Ask HN: Balancing interviewing and day job?

#23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, it's not just you. Spending half a day to interview because some higher up wanted "top tech talent" is beyond ridiculous. (Not average people that can still do the job, oh no, it HAS to be "TOP tech talent".) There is no reason why the interview should take more than 2-3 hours (and that's on the extreme side) where everyone involved just sits in the same room and takes notes.

The bigger issue is what happens when someone commits terrible code and makes bad architectural decisions. Firing someone is hard, but firing code that is in active use is even harder and in some cases not possible.

True. I have had cases where prior poor judgement has placed whoever I was working for in a hard spot.
Post reply on HN