Ask HN: I'm not a good programmer, but I keep acing interviews

Programming, as a craft, is about the aspiration to write perfect code, as defined by your values.

Programming, as a job, is about doing a job, as defined by the job's values.

It sounds like you're a great craftsman but poor at letting go of your values in order to align yourself to what a job needs. (disclaimer - often what a job needs is NOT what anyone would include in their values - no one is a garbage truck driver because they aspired to it).

2 choices - double down or fold. If you double down, you should hold out choosing a job until you find a company that shares your values. If you fold, you should find a job that meets your living standard needs with the least amount of expectations and then seek something outside of work that aligns to your values. You can find that community via Ask HN, looking at open source projects that you respect, going to meetups - a whole host of ways.

I would recommend you write down your programming values so that you know it. For each value, you may want to give some reasons why you value it - this exercise is, at the very least, good for introspection.

A few things here jump out to me...

Put your happiness and well-being first. It's easy for me to suggest that you take the new position and bank $$$ for 6-12 months and get out before the feelings of disappointment set in, but only you know whether this is something you want or am able to do. Do what you can to keep yourself out of a role that makes you not want to get up in the morning, or staring at the clock anxiously waiting to leave.

Don't feel bad about being able to find work for yourself, and don't feel bad if the role is not what you expected/wanted. Finding the right gig takes some skill of its own, and a lot of luck (or someone you know you can tell you what it's truly like there...)

It sounds like you are projecting from the roles/companies to yourself as a programmer and then as an individual. Never, ever conflate the competency of what you do with the type of person you are. You may write code a living, but the quality and performance of that code does not define who you are. No one is a perfect fit for every role and every company, and some roles and companies are plain toxic.

It sounds like you have stuck around at places too long. You've been exposed to the office politics, questioned/been questioned about your performance, realized it's not a good fit but have not moved on, etc. If it's not what you were expected, if it's not what you wanted, there's no shame in looking to move on. Imagine getting married to someone after going on a blind date. That's a lot like how jobs are acquired in IT, unfortunately.

It sounds as if you're getting opportunities for a job, and not to challenge yourself. You mentioned the money issues, the similarity between roles, etc. Sometimes this is outside of our control, but it wouldn't hurt to think of what you would like to do and prioritize that in new roles.

In the interview you too can ask questions. For example, "Is this job mostly about slogging through poorly documented Java framework code?" Maybe you can phrase it more politely. But then again a manager should welcome candor. "I want to do __________, __________, and __________. I hope that there's not much _________, _________, and ________."

Then again, you can't always trust the interviewer. Ideally you would somehow find people in that job at that company and ask them what it's like. I know it's odd, but a friend of mine who is a tech recruiter recommended it. Instead of waiting for a job posting, research which jobs and which companies you most want, and then try to network your way into them, job posting or not.

Regardless, you are right, why don't interview questions better line up with jobs? I think I'm in the opposite boat. I like cleaning up code but would probably flunk a flurry of theoretical algorithm tests.

Be sure that programming is what you most want to do, given that so many of the jobs are about keeping up old code. Is there anything that has some of the things you like about programming but less of the things you don't like?

If tech interviewer were trades interviewers, it would go somewhere along those lines:

For a welder position:

- "So, you are a welder."

- "Yes."

- "Good, so tell me how an IGBT transformer works."

- "I don't know, I can stick weld, MIG weld or even TIG weld aluminium, stainless, heck, even titatium"

- "That's not the question, I'm asking about an IGBT transformer"

- :facepalm:

That is, totally irrelevant questions for the job asked.

> One way to think about it is: A programmer's job is not writing code.

Yet, interview revolves around: implement a link-list/LIFO algorithm.