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How to Interview Engineers

blog.triplebyte.com

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Re: How to Interview Engineers

#61

Post by scottLobster »

blister wrote: post #58
scottLobster wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I suppose it depends on your 5-year goals and the position, but as an entry-level developer my first thought would be: "Well as I'm interviewing here I would obviously see taking this position as a step foreword for all the reasons we've discussed. Naturally I don't see this position as the job I'll work until I retire, and obviously I'll be looking for at least some mild expansion of responsibilities in the future.…

Dude, you absolutely should be trying to be a manager in 3 years, if you want to go down the management track. Depending on company size, you should probably be a team-lead or something by then. Junior developers that remain "solo" workers after 3+ years in the industry is a bad sign for value. If you've been developing for a while, at the very least you should be put in a leadership position from a project perspecti…

Depends on the industry. None of my current managers have anything less than 10 years experience, even at the lowest level (I'm at a big old defense contractor). First promotion from associate developer to staff developer typically comes after two years, and it's not due to lack of talent. Likewise our team leads and SMEs are often pushing 10-20 years and are still non-managerial. The program would likely fall apart for a few months if all of them just left at once, so I wouldn't say they lack value. :)

A manager with a scant 3 years of experience undervaluing a "solo dev" (whatever that is, unless you're talking about 1-person companies) with 10 years experience sounds like a good setup for an episode of Silicon Valley.

Re: How to Interview Engineers

#62

Post by dexterdog »

padobson wrote: post #9

Spending a week working beside an engineer (or seeing how they complete a substantial project) almost certainly provides a better measure of their abilities than watching them solve interview problems for 1 hour Trial employment is expensive for the company. [...] Trial employment (and large take-home projects) are expensive for the candidate. I can't help but think there's way to mitigate that expense among several…

So I pay for 1.6 hours of this candidate, but then if I want him I have to hope either nobody else wants him or that I am paying more than the others.

Re: How to Interview Engineers

#63

Post by timebomb »

Where I work, we'd be totally happy to ask interviewees how to reverse a binary search tree. As soon as an actual developer creates a pull request that does as such. Which hasn't happened yet. So we don't ask about things like that. And everyone seems happier.

Re: How to Interview Engineers

#64

Post by stephenbez »

mattnewton wrote: post #55
padobson wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When did you last switch jobs? I recently went through a round of employment where I quit my job at the beginning. Between updating my resume/social networks, brushing up on academic CS, finding leads, scheduling interviews and follow-up interviews and managing/negotiating offers, it was absolutely a full-time job. I can't imagine finding a new programming job while still working at the old job.

I think this is a crazy expectation. I last switched jobs while working at Apple last October. Having the BATNA of your current employment is crucial to the negotiation process and I can't imagine forgoing that- if you have no current income that's an insane bargaining handicap. Anyone with experience absolutely is not going to go for "quit your job, and maybe we'll give you a new one after a week, maybe it won't wor…

I had a YC company that wanted me to do a trial week. They wanted me to quit my job when I said I couldn't take off a week of vacation.

When I said no, they wanted me to come out Friday through Monday and since the whole company works on the weekend, they would get 4 days to work with me.

At that point I said I wasn't interested.

Re: How to Interview Engineers

#65

Post by pm90 »

supran wrote: post #59
jobu wrote: post #5

"15% dislike academic CS (and think that talking about CS is a sign that a candidate will not be productive)" That seems really weird. Academic CS isn't really necessary for most programming jobs, but I can't see how it would ever be a detriment.

I have a CS degree from CMU, and I've only run into that sort of attitude once. The interviewer nit-picked my solution to some character array manipulation question. I didn't get an offer. The interviewer wrote some snarky comment on his Twitter the day after my interview; something about "the difference between a computer scientist and engineer". Six months later his company was bought and chopped up. He got laid of…

I guess it depends on whether you want to agree to that stupid system. When I interview now, I rarely ever prepare, and I'm completely honest with the extent of how much I remember and don't with the interviewers. If, on learning this, they think of it as a deal breaker, I think its a good thing for both of us to not be working together. However, if they don't judge me, but are willing to provide that information and work with me on the solution, I am fine with it.

I had a really bad experience with this recently, where I had a final interview which went really well in 3 out of 4 interviews. In one of them the interviewer was expecting a very specific solution, and I believe that I said something like, sorry I don't exactly remember how tries work, and I believe that is what resulted in no offer.

At first I was disappointed greatly, since it seemed like a great opportunity, and I had a great interview and experience with the other 3. But in hindsight, I realized I would really not enjoy working with this person every day.

Re: How to Interview Engineers

#66

Post by supran »

padobson wrote: post #36
angryasian wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If I'm already employed, it be weird to take a week off just to work for another company. Also ramp up time takes at least a day or two. This whole process seems troublesome for both the employee and employer

When did you last switch jobs? I recently went through a round of employment where I quit my job at the beginning. Between updating my resume/social networks, brushing up on academic CS, finding leads, scheduling interviews and follow-up interviews and managing/negotiating offers, it was absolutely a full-time job. I can't imagine finding a new programming job while still working at the old job.

I've done this for nearly every job in the past. However, since moving to the Bay Area, I would never consider quitting my job just to look for another. As one commenter below said, you put yourself at a disadvantage when you're bargaining for compensation.

I can agree that it's pretty difficult to find a new job while still working. However, most companies let you work from home nowadays. You can just interview during that time. Is it ethical? Who cares? It's business; the nature of the beast.

Re: How to Interview Engineers

#68

Post by supran »

stephenbez wrote: post #64
mattnewton wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think this is a crazy expectation. I last switched jobs while working at Apple last October. Having the BATNA of your current employment is crucial to the negotiation process and I can't imagine forgoing that- if you have no current income that's an insane bargaining handicap. Anyone with experience absolutely is not going to go for "quit your job, and maybe we'll give you a new one after a week, maybe it won't wor…

I had a YC company that wanted me to do a trial week. They wanted me to quit my job when I said I couldn't take off a week of vacation. When I said no, they wanted me to come out Friday through Monday and since the whole company works on the weekend, they would get 4 days to work with me. At that point I said I wasn't interested.

That's outrageous. Starting the death march before you even get an offer.

Re: How to Interview Engineers

#69

Post by supran »

pacaro wrote: post #41
fwefwwfe wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A trial week seems like it would only work for more desperate candidates, ones who are currently unemployed.

It also doesn't work for people who want to interview speculatively. Looking at what else is around once in a while is a pretty decent due-diligence that you can apply to your career. You can even be honest about this with recruiters. "I'm not sure that I want to change jobs right now, but I'm open to persuasion." If trial weeks become commonplace, it starts looking like a form of structural lock-in.

This is why I heavily push to talk to nearly everyone on teams at the prospective company that I might be a good fit for. I spend 3-4 hours talking to various people over the course of 3-4 weeks. If the company doesn't allow me to talk to their employees, then I pass them up.

Re: How to Interview Engineers

#70

Post by emerongi »

supran wrote: post #53
Dzugaru wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> how many people can get into a train Can't speak for everyone, but I'd turn away and walked out the instant I hear this or similar BS (which is totally unrelated to "approaching new problems" or "stress management" in programming at least)

You're too forgiving. I turn down interviews when they list "linked lists, hashing, breadth/depth first search" on their study guide. I've never had to write a linked list EVER in my career, don't fucking bother me with that shit. Also, if the position is in a language where linked lists would be stupid (i.e. python), then I definitely reject that company. I can explain what everyone of them is, and why you'd want to…

I've written at least 5 linked lists in the past year. They're quite useful.
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