Things I Learned from a Job Hunt for a Senior Engineering Role

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Last time I was interviewing, the first place I interviewed was at a company where I knew the director of engineering from a previous role. I went there to have an informal talk with him and some devs. Later when I sent my resume I was rejected right away. Luckily for me he told me that I came across like a know-it-all crappy dev. He told me why I came across like that and I realized that he was right. It probably saved me a ton of grief in later interviews because I knew what things I needed to do and not do.

I respect your opinion but I find this strategy very strange. (Or maybe I don't exactly understand what you're saying.)

In my view, it would be a dream scenario if the next 10 programmers I hire were all superior to me. If I was the worst programmer on the team, that would be an ideal outcome. Yes, I've been programming for 30+ years but I'm also self-aware of my limitations. This gives me the ability to recognize better programmers and learn from them. If I'm not hiring interns, I do expect (or at least hope) that they are better than me.

Am I competent enough to write a "do/while" loop and knock out FizzBuzz in 5 minutes?!? Sure, but that doesn't mean there aren't better programmers than me. I would consider it a great business skill if I'm able to consistently attract superior programmers -- either to work with me or for me.

Larry Page attracted programmers better than him (e.g. Jeff Dean). Yes, Larry earned a masters degree in computer science but his java programming (the rudimentary 1996 crawler) wasn't considered very good. His employees rewrote the whole thing in C++ and made it scale for billions of pages. Bill Gates hired superior programmers. Mark Zuckerberg hired superior programmers. Etc. etc.

In my case I am a senior JavaScript developer who doesn't like the straightjacket stupidity that is popular large monolithic frameworks. The demand for this skill is stupid ridiculous. If you want a new job simply put your resume online in one of those job boards like CareerBuilder or Monster. Within 2 weeks the recruiters will discover it and I expect to get 6-8 responses eagerly pushing me into interviews once my availability is "discovered". After those initial responses I might get another 10 or so serious asks for my time.

Most people who do web work, in my experience, actually cannot code. If you are a strong coder the interviews are largely a meet and greet, because you probably have a strong answer for everything in your comfort zone and immediately shut down questions about areas where you are weak.

You have to consider that web jobs are generally considered low barrier to entry and so half the people that apply are grossly under-qualified and many that are qualified are just learning to code and incredibly far away from "senior" level. As a senior, an actual senior, expect to enter the job jumping potholes and dodging landmines from the incompetent code already in place. This doesn't mean that I think highly of myself, but rather many companies don't know how to develop or hire strong web developers yet, in the meantime, they still expect work to get done somehow like a mistake mosaic.

As far as salary goes I have generally made more time I have gone somewhere else. Because the demand for senior web developers is ridiculous stupid many employers suspect if you are interviewing with them then you are probably actively interviewing with 3 or 4 other prospective employers, and so if they believe you are a competent senior there is a rushed hurry to get a hiring decision back to you as soon as possibly, often in the same day you interviewed. With that rush comes high salary offerings, which I guess is an effort to outbid the suspected competition.

If you are interviewing in the corporate world and actually are at the senior level age is irrelevant and the preference skews a bit older. Nobody is going to believe you are actually an awesome senior developer if you are under 24 years old unless you are a brilliant child prodigy who has been inventing new software techniques for the last 8 years. I am on my way out of my thirties and my age has not hindered any demand for me.

As far as interviews go what has done me well is honesty. This means telling prospective employers things that might make them throw up in their mouths. I don't like large blunted frameworks and so I prefer to get much of the nonsense out of the way early on. If the disdain for the safety scissors is a deal breaker then don't waste my time and I won't waste yours. Since the demand for seniors is ridiculously stupid I am fortunate to be less afraid of being so blunt and immediately honest.

I hope your not impugning the motives of those who issue take-home assignments. Existing practices for hiring are objectively bad at selecting qualified candidates, and most people are just trying to do better. There is some evidence that take-home assignments are an improvement above the norm.

Also, consider that such assignments can serve as a "blind-audition" and can help eliminate bias from the interviewing process. And there are lots of ways in which loading everything into the interview unfairly penalizes certain types of otherwise qualified candidates. What's left, referrals? That's definitely biased, even if it also tends to have a lower false positive rate.