"I have all the time in the world for interviews. Is there anything more you'd like to say, ask or discuss that you've not had the chance to so far?"
Ask HN: What are the best interview questions you've been asked?
41–50 of 63 posts
Re: Ask HN: What are the best interview questions you've been asked?
#42I like to ask people to tell me about good software and how it's made. A surprisingly high number of people have never put any thought into this. I also like to ask about bad software and lastly what makes a good developer. If a candidate blanks on all 3 questions, it is not a good sign.
Re: Ask HN: What are the best interview questions you've been asked?
#43For a sys admin, devops, sre or whatever you want to call us this week, I like the following question for senior level people What has been your biggest screw up to cause a production outage and what did you take from that? If they say they never caused an outage or give some answer that isn't a screw up, I know one of two things 1) They arent senior level to be put in charge of handling major changes on production 2…
I like this, but I want to follow up by asking what your idea of a "good" answer is, what a "bad" idea is and how you would see through a bullshit answer.
For me a good answer is a story about a human screw up that took down production and then the follow up is talking about steps they took to make sure it never happened again.
The big thing I'm looking for is mistakes are good learning experiences for people and if you make a mistake its time to reflect on the mistake to make sure it never happens again.
So I want to hear how they made sure that mistake or anything like it won't happen again.
Re: Ask HN: What are the best interview questions you've been asked?
#44"Here are 4 projects we're currently working on and that you might be involved with if you work here. On a scale from 1-5 how interested would you be to work on them. Briefly explain your reasoning" Or any variation on "here's a real problem we are actually having. Do you have any ideas about how one might go about solving it?" and bonus worst question: "do you have kids/what does your family life look like?"
I'm pretty sure that last question is illegal in the USA
Re: Ask HN: What are the best interview questions you've been asked?
#45I tend to ask about the technology and architectural choices candidates made in their projects. If they were not involved in the decision making, what they thought of it. What they could do differently. What's the testing strategy. What challenges they enjoy.
Re: Ask HN: What are the best interview questions you've been asked?
#46A very senior guy comes in the room where I am with a very concentrated look on his face and my resume in his hand. On my resume its mentioned that I have a lot of experience bringing security relevant concepts to inexperienced people. So he describes a problem hes actually working through when he was "interrupted" to come interview me. He was trying to terminate an SSL connection, modify the stream (for video manipu…
A very senior dev had to be explained he couldn't do a man-in-the-middle attack on an encrypted stream without the server's private key? With all due respect and I don't know much about security but something seems off, maybe you haven't explained the whole story or maybe I'm getting something wrong.
senior means different things in different places. More and more developers are considered "senior" just because of experience building basic web apps, doesn't mean they have a deep understanding of http/s, public/private key cyrpto, etc...
Not a good thing, but thats how it is some places.
Re: Ask HN: What are the best interview questions you've been asked?
#47Final interview - this one with the CEO, Mr. Big runs a $4B company.
I know you've met with the senior leadership team. What questions do you have for me?
It's a brilliant question, both disarming and straight to the point. He's looking for how I think. Can this guy solve my problems?
Re: Ask HN: What are the best interview questions you've been asked?
#48one i really enjoyed solving: given an array of size (n - 1), containing all but one of the numbers between 1 and n, find the missing number in linear time and constant space.
"All the integers between 1 and n should add up to (n(n+1) / 2) so just iterate over the array keeping a running sum, then at the end subtract from (n(n+1) / 2) to see the integer you are missing. It's constant space and requires just a single sum you track.
But hey you know what, actually, fuck these requirements, they're pretty bad.
This is a stupid and wrong solution and the actual correct way to do it (which is guaranteed to work) is to sort the list in-place (or into a copy, if you need the original), then iterate through from the beginning, making sure it starts with one, that every value is in there, and that it is missing one and only one number. On the second missing number or if after sorting it does not start with 1, or if any value is not an integer, or if any value is repeated, then say that the array does not meet the promises, and you can even error with the exact way in which it fails. This is much better and in-place sort is pretty fast. Quicksort, which I will use, requires pointers and is not actually constant space (despite being an in-space sort) but because it's better and we should use it.
So, with all due respect, fuck the requirements, that is going to be our solution. I realize it misses both your linear time and constant space requirements, but I really feel these requirements are stupid and lead to a brittle solution - this solution is better and is the one I stand by. Sorry. :)"
How'd I do? Would I get the job? (Probably NOT.)
Re: Ask HN: What are the best interview questions you've been asked?
#49A very senior guy comes in the room where I am with a very concentrated look on his face and my resume in his hand. On my resume its mentioned that I have a lot of experience bringing security relevant concepts to inexperienced people. So he describes a problem hes actually working through when he was "interrupted" to come interview me. He was trying to terminate an SSL connection, modify the stream (for video manipu…
> I got the job. It was the only interview I've had where I really felt they were asking me something relevant to the work and the kind of work I would be required to do.
This is the interview method espoused in Reinventing the Interview:
https://www.amazon.com/Ask-Headhunter-Reinventing-Interview-...
I was lucky to stumble on this when I was young and it has been very useful in thinking about both being interviewed and interviewing.
Re: Ask HN: What are the best interview questions you've been asked?
#50One that I've been asked and now use routinely is:
"If you were to start on Monday, what do you feel most confident about, and where will you need help?"