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Tech Interview Torture Chamber

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Re: Tech Interview Torture Chamber

#131

Post by throwanem »

orless wrote: post #88
jarsin wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

During the part where I get to ask them questions I always ask about their current project and whats it built in. Even at the big guys they always reply with the same frameworks everyone else uses etc. Then I say something like oh so your project is using framework x so you're not coding your own libraries from scratch using graphs etc. One interviewer took it personal and hung up on me haha.

Everyone cooks with water.

And yet so many ask for a chemical description of condensation from hydrogen and oxygen gases right down to the quark level, complete with working example.

Re: Tech Interview Torture Chamber

#132

Post by anjc »

rguzman wrote: post #69
CriticalSection wrote: post #11

Surprised I don't see my main pet peeve - early reference check. Before I even talk to anyone I'm asked to provide three phone numbers of three former managers. So I have to call them up, make sure the number is still working, and ask for the favor that they can give me a reference in case anyone reads my application. All of these other things are on me. References I have to call two or three (or at one company, six)…

> Surprised I don't see my main pet peeve - early reference check. the right way seems to be to give a heads up, early on, that references will be needed and be explicit about when they will be contacted. this ensures that the process doesn't block for a couple of days on the candidate contacting their references.

The problem isn't your references blocking the process, it's that your references have to be bothered even if the company will have no interest in you, and that you have to go chasing them up every time you make a speculative application

Re: Tech Interview Torture Chamber

#133

Post by sverige »

WaxProlix wrote: post #118
sverige wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've actually gotten to the point where I just skip applying to jobs when I'm redirected to one of those portals. Fuck 'em. The only exception is when I think it's a company I really, really want to work for, and there aren't many of those any more.

If you really [think that you] want to work somewhere, and this is what I've done in the past, you can just look up their recruiters on linkedin or something and cold call them - most recruiters or HR departments are overjoyed at this kind of personal attention, and can even get you some perks and recognition along the way. Plus you just send a nice email (your cover letter essentially, but not as forced) and attach…

Great suggestion. I have gotten jobs through networking, but I've never cold called a recruiter for a specific job.

Re: Tech Interview Torture Chamber

#134

Post by alexandercrohde »

UweSchmidt wrote: post #83

It is on everyone who is not in a desperate job seeking situation to push back on any practice you deem wrong. Expect a respectful and fair treatment throughout and when you're being manipulated, take the initiative. If you can tell the interview isn't going well, why not leave on your terms? "My experience and expertise is in A and B, and it seems the job is more about C and D, maybe this isn't a good fit? Ok thanks…

This is actually something I did one time, and I'm glad I did. I was enduring a scala phone-screen and the interviewer kept asking questions of the form "What's the #1 reason people use recursion?" "What are the 3 common examples of monads?"

When he told me the main value of recursion was avoiding state I disagreed with him [e.g. a chess engine is highly-recursive potentially but shares state]. He kept going with all-or-nothing questions and then responding to my answers with "eh..."

Eventually I said, "Hey can we put this on pause for a second? I'm not sure how you think this interview is going, but for me it's not feeling like it's going so well... I feel like the questions I'm getting asked are really put-you-on-the-spot type questions and then you're disagreeing with my answers but not explicitly so I don't even get a chance to explain my position.

After a while he said "Listen I need you to prove to me why you're better than 9 other candidates," at which point I knew I couldn't work with this person at a personality level. To that I said "Well I need you to prove to me that you're better than 9 other companies." For some reason he kept talking and eventually went to "Can I give you some advice?" I said "Look man, I'm not too sure why we're still talking honestly. I want to be honest, I think at this point it's pretty clear you don't want me to work for you and I don't want to work for you either." He said "You don't want to work for me?" Apparently he couldn't even tell that he had gone so far over the line that I confronted him, something I had never done in an interiew in my entire career before.

"Nooo," I chuckled. In the end, I'm glad I only had this awful experience when I was 30, because if I had been new to engineering at the time I might have blamed myself.

Re: Tech Interview Torture Chamber

#135

Post by ryandrake »

krzrak wrote: post #102
ryandrake wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> That is, scheduling the in-person interview. If a company is flexible, I could take an extended lunch and have an interview (or better yet, go after normal business hours). Good point. Having to always blow a vacation day on an interview seriously limits the number you can do per month/year. Want to do 10 interviews a month? You've blown half the month right there.

> Want to do 10 interviews a month? You've blown half the month right there. Probably I wouldn't want to hire someone who does 10 interviews per month.

Go on...? Not sure I'm making the connection. I've done that many in a week during tough times.

Re: Tech Interview Torture Chamber

#136

Post by anjc »

endymi0n wrote: post #42
spcelzrd wrote: post #5

We all agree the tech interviews are broken. I suspect that the next trend in tech interviews will be worse in just a slightly different way. We got rid of the "Why are manholes round?" questions, now we have live coding tests.

Having gone through about a hundred interviews on the employer side and a dozen on the employee side myself, I think I can drill down the essence of the problem to: "Everything that can be standardized is a bad predictor of hiring success." In the end, I now have a continuously A/B-tested scheme that I'm pretty happy with, but still most of it is intuition. Which is very applicable to the job itself: Intuition is not…

> We got rid of the "Why are manholes round?" questions, now we have live coding tests.

> In the end, I can read much more real-world success from a quick coding challenge

The only determinant of on-the-job performance is an on-the-job trial. Quick coding tests can be gamed also.

Re: Tech Interview Torture Chamber

#137

Post by louthy »

noir_lord wrote: post #114
bsvalley wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I like your first point, though your 2nd and 3rd points tell me you haven't applied for a while :) They've all adopted the google model, small or big companies it doesn't matter. You start with a 45 minute technical phone screen (algorithm/data structures), sometimes a second tech phone screen, an onsite of at least 5 hours with at least 3 to 4 45-minute technical screens (algo/data structures) as if it wasn't enough…

That sounds pretty awful. I've been programming for half my life and I'd fall over on that stuff.

I've been programming 3/4 of my life and I'd fall over on that stuff. I'm a CTO of 12 years and I'd fall over on that stuff. I have a successful open-source project [1] which is all algorithms and data-structures, and I'd fall over on that stuff.

At some point interviewers must get it, that these artificial test environments bear no relevance to how we write code in the real world, and putting these false constraints on a candidate just creates stress, and in no way communicates their competence.

Luckily for me (as an interviewer) I do get it. And I suspect that's part of the reason why I've not had a developer leave my company in the 12 years we've been running. I do a first interview, which I keep super chilled and chatty, just trying to get the candidate to relax. I'll focus on projects on their CV, asking high-level questions. Again, no stress. Then if they say anything interesting about a part of a project I may drill down a bit more to make sure they understand the subject they're talking about. Which is slightly more stressful, but if they're competent, they'll know.

I very rarely go into algorithms and data structures. It'll usually be if I'm concerned about a junior dev not having enough CS knowledge.

I then send them an email post interview (if I think I want to see them again for the second interview). The email will have a link to a partially complete project, I ask them to finish it based on a written spec. It shouldn't take more than 45mins - 1hour.

The request in the spec is intentionally a bit obscure. I put at the end of the spec that "If you have any questions or problems, please email me. You won't be marked down for this." The obscureness of the test is to see who emails me to ask for help. That for me is a real positive sign.

So I'm trying to create a real world test:

* A spec to follow

* Programming in a comfortable environment

* Access to dev resource (Google/Stack Overflow/Their friends)

* Access to their boss for advice

And to avoid anybody trying to game it and blag their way with code that they didn't write, I quiz them about their decisions in the second interview.

It works amazingly well. My dev team is something I'm super proud of. A good team of people who collaborate well and believe in the product. No hierarchy or in-fighting. It's a happy place to be. So I endorse this method :)

[1] https://github.com/louthy/language-ext

Re: Tech Interview Torture Chamber

#138

Post by ar15saveslives »

paulannesley wrote: post #113
ar15saveslives wrote: post #59

I would say that the alternative to that crappy process is something like "gradual hiring" (sorry, I'm the guy whose accent can be spread on bread) - you just start working with a guy, giving him basic isolated tasks, and as he successfully progresses with his work, task are getting more and more complicated (salary, permissions as well). After few months of such freelance-ish work you can know for sure that this dud…

> you just start working with a guy, giving him basic isolated tasks, and as he successfully progresses with his work, task are getting more and more complicated (salary, permissions as well). After few months of such freelance-ish work you can know for sure that this dude is compatible with the team, able to solve problems, able to learn. And only then he becomes an employee with offer, benefits and SO. Careful not…

Are you triggered?

Re: Tech Interview Torture Chamber

#139

Post by schwap »

logfromblammo wrote: post #82
CriticalSection wrote: post #11

Surprised I don't see my main pet peeve - early reference check. Before I even talk to anyone I'm asked to provide three phone numbers of three former managers. So I have to call them up, make sure the number is still working, and ask for the favor that they can give me a reference in case anyone reads my application. All of these other things are on me. References I have to call two or three (or at one company, six)…

My resume states point blank that references will not be provided until after the prospective employer agrees in principle that I meet the technical job requirements. I send out a lot of resumes, and I am more protective of my references time than I am of my own. I don't want people wasting their time with useless phone calls because of me. Strangely enough, whenever a company gets past that point in the interview pr…

I just go with the simple "References available on request" and have had the same results (nobody ever ends up asking for them).

Re: Tech Interview Torture Chamber

#140

Post by brutus1213 »

louthy wrote: post #137
noir_lord wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That sounds pretty awful. I've been programming for half my life and I'd fall over on that stuff.

I've been programming 3/4 of my life and I'd fall over on that stuff. I'm a CTO of 12 years and I'd fall over on that stuff. I have a successful open-source project [1] which is all algorithms and data-structures , and I'd fall over on that stuff. At some point interviewers must get it, that these artificial test environments bear no relevance to how we write code in the real world, and putting these false constraint…

I've been on both ends recently. It makes no sense. I had one start up invest in 4 phone screens before deciding to pass on me. I was stunned they passed because I aced all of their phone screens (which were not trivial btw). As an interviewer, I have been giving candidates questions slightly above fizbuzz and they keep failing! And this is candidates who have written multiple years of professional programming experience on their resume. I think there are a lot of low quality software devs out there. In an attempt to filter them, people are putting insanely high bars - makes no sense!
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