> This situation is not ideal. Preparing for interviews is work, and forcing programmers to learn skills other than building great software wastes everyone’s time. Companies should improve their interview processes to be less biased by academic CS, memorized facts, and rehearsed interview processes. This is what we’re doing at Triplebyte.
Thank you! This is a good write up and just like it concludes it's far from ideal.
I'd love to see more interviews based on real-world type things like maybe code a project, come in and explain the architecture, reasons for your data structures, performance questions, etc. Shows how you code and communicate and even better: work with others and maybe walk someone through extending your project or something similar.
Honestly though my biggest issue with interviews is the lack of response with a negative result. For instance one of my last interviews I spent literally months with the company interviewing on and off on the phone and in person. I never heard a SINGLE negative thing from anyone, always answered every question correctly, shot the shit with many of them and everything seemed perfect. Even the team lead asked me not to go after something else because he wanted me. Then I was ultimately declined with the only reason given was "lack of experience". But I had over 12 years of experience, all of the interviewers told me I went above and beyond, said they agreed and liked the solutions I came up with, that I talked through them well, etc etc. I was never able to get anything else out of that.
If something is wrong with a candidate and they don't fit that's perfectly fine. But please give them accurate and detailed feedback where possible. This leaves me absolutely nothing helpful and instead of possibly improving on something I'm left thinking they made a mistake or everyone just simply lied to me during the entire process. I was even exchanging some texts and emails with the lead up until I was given the negative result and then nothing.