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Ask HN: What should an ideal developer interview process look like?

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Re: Ask HN: What should an ideal developer interview process look like?

#51

Post by chillacy »

oceanghost wrote: post #47

Counterintuitively I think the problem with hiring is actually a problem with firing. Hear me out. Everyone is so focused on finding this mythical perfect candidate, instead of giving people a chance. Which is really another way of saying "We're afraid to fire people." Culturally, we should hire and fire more freely. I once got a call from a company that said I was an absolute perfect fit for what they were doing-- w…

So instead of giving you a 6 month trial run followed by employment they should give you a permanently temporary gig? Because a job where they hire and fire freely sounds a lot like how companies treat contractors.

Re: Ask HN: What should an ideal developer interview process look like?

#53

Post by chillacy »

lawnchair_larry wrote: post #35
mav3rick wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Language quirks are the worst thing to ask in an interview. Please don't do it, it's barely a step above memorization.

I think it depends how you do it. When I interview, part of what I do is try to find quirks that they know about, but not count the ones they don’t know about against them. I think you can quickly get a sense of depth, potential, curiosity, and passion if you can get them talking about quirks and their opinions on those quirks. For example, if someone says that they once attached a debugger to the JVM to confirm a pa…

How has that been working out for you? I used to think the same and I'd ask a "programming passion question" right before a simple coding question, and then I'd run into these amazing bullshitters who could talk shop but couldn't write fizzbuzz. But they'd come up with a bunch of excuses as they were writing the code as to why ("oh my company uses this other framework so I forgot how to write a for loop"). So sadly I stopped paying attention to that part. I only ask it to make the candidate comfortable before we dive into code.

Re: Ask HN: What should an ideal developer interview process look like?

#54

Post by pmontra »

austincheney wrote: post #50

The interviewer should ask the candidate, in the candidate's own words, to walk through solving a problem proposed by the interviewer. No whiteboard. Just a simple conversation. The candidate must be provided the opportunity to organize their thoughts with notes on paper and have a short pause of time to think through an answer. Problem solving is a fairly universal thought experience not limited to writing code. The…

I strongly second this approach. I would also check some code but only as a tie breaker. I've seen people writing such messy code with useless random variable names, inconsistent style, etc. That can be fixed. Attitude at problem solving is harder to teach.

Re: Ask HN: What should an ideal developer interview process look like?

#55

Post by pmiller2 »

eli wrote: post #14
wonderwonder wrote: post #12

In my current role I had what I consider the best interview I have had to date. I had a brief non technical video interview with the software director. Then I was assigned a programming task, essentially to create a site focused on a specific task using a given set of technologies. Once done, I sent the interviewer the url to the site and a link to the code on git. The next day I had a code review and video interview…

I've considered this approach, but I worry that it consumes too much of the candidate's time. That it ends up favoring people who have the time and the financial freedom to do a full day of unpaid work.

How is that any different from taking a whole day to do a normal onsite interview? Doesn’t that also favor those with the ability to take a day to jump through hoops?

Re: Ask HN: What should an ideal developer interview process look like?

#56

Post by pmontra »

rococode wrote: post #43
lawnchair_larry wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For #3, it’s not really a red flag. I am guessing you are a fairly recent grad? Most people who learn algos & DS never have to implement them on the job, and often haven’t actually written their own since their CS classes. If the question is any deeper than “what are some good and bad choices of algorithms for this problem”, you’re selecting more for who has just graduated or has been grinding leetcode and doesn’t ha…

Yeah, I'm currently a grad student so there's definitely some bias haha. The kind of question I had in mind would be along the lines of "say you have a tree, how could you find the nearest common ancestor of two nodes in that tree?". I actually got this question during an interview recently, and I felt it was of a suitable difficulty where I could figure out a solution without any specific knowledge other than what a…

A more realistic question is this. Italy is mandating XML business to business invoices starting from 2019-01-01. You're given the spec and a database schema. The question is "which fields are we missing and how should we ask customers for those information?" Extra bonus if you know GDPR and suggest which fields are sensible information, not that I'm expecting that somebody out of school can make that assessment.

Algorithms, who cares. Maybe as a tie breaker.

Re: Ask HN: What should an ideal developer interview process look like?

#57

Post by onion2k »

eli wrote: post #14
wonderwonder wrote: post #12

In my current role I had what I consider the best interview I have had to date. I had a brief non technical video interview with the software director. Then I was assigned a programming task, essentially to create a site focused on a specific task using a given set of technologies. Once done, I sent the interviewer the url to the site and a link to the code on git. The next day I had a code review and video interview…

I've considered this approach, but I worry that it consumes too much of the candidate's time. That it ends up favoring people who have the time and the financial freedom to do a full day of unpaid work.

At my company we pay the candidate at a typical freelance rate.

Re: Ask HN: What should an ideal developer interview process look like?

#59

Post by emmanuel_1234 »

gpm wrote: post #41

Speed. Obviously not a complete answer, but I think it's a component that isn't being mentioned here. Disclaiming that I don't have much experience (still in university). One of my internships went from "applying -> interviewing -> accepting" in under 24 hours. Impressed the hell out of me. It was really the reason why I ended up accepting their job. 24 hours is obviously abnormally fast, but a week or two doesn't ne…

That can only work if you have a large number of available positions (typically, low-paid interns). In other cases, you have one position and try to hire the best candidate for it. Interviewing enough candidates takes some time, if only because not everybody is available at the same time.

Re: Ask HN: What should an ideal developer interview process look like?

#60

Post by thaumasiotes »

chillacy wrote: post #51
oceanghost wrote: post #47

Counterintuitively I think the problem with hiring is actually a problem with firing. Hear me out. Everyone is so focused on finding this mythical perfect candidate, instead of giving people a chance. Which is really another way of saying "We're afraid to fire people." Culturally, we should hire and fire more freely. I once got a call from a company that said I was an absolute perfect fit for what they were doing-- w…

So instead of giving you a 6 month trial run followed by employment they should give you a permanently temporary gig? Because a job where they hire and fire freely sounds a lot like how companies treat contractors.

That's already the way almost all jobs are. Being "hired" isn't a protection for your job. It just means you're getting automatic tax withholding.

I was a formal full-time employee at NCC Group until just a month ago, when they fired me with no warning, no explanation, and no severance.

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