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Ask HN: What should an ideal developer interview process look like?

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Re: Ask HN: What should an ideal developer interview process look like?

#191

Post by klenwell »

vtesucks wrote: post #44
klenwell wrote: post #42

I notice a lot of these answers focus on the technical or coding challenge. As a hiring manager, that's critical, but technical competency only accounts for about a third of the qualities my team is evaluating in a candidate. I've given this question a lot of thought over the last couple years as I've lead teams that have needed to get organized and expand quickly. Here's my summary taken from a Google Slides present…

Your answer shows you are experienced . How do you test for inter prrsonal skills?

In the final interview, the candidate meets with 3 to 4 of us on the team and we talk for about an hour. Our team comes in with a set of prepared questions which address past work experience, company culture, team practices and relationships. We make sure it's the same group of interviewers for a given position and we don't robotically stick to the script but try to cover the same ground with each candidate so we're making fair comparative evaluations.

Also, I suspect our job description and pre-interview process (requesting a cover letter, asking a couple short-answer questions in a personal message as soon as we receive an application) succeed in filtering out candidates who aren't thinking about a job as a social inter-personal commitment.

Re: Ask HN: What should an ideal developer interview process look like?

#192

Post by vinceguidry »

Interviewing is an adversarial process, as such, there can be no ideal way to conduct it. It's like asking for the best way to have a divorce. Any imposed solution means at least one person is leaving something on the table, and so it won't be ideal.

Re: Ask HN: What should an ideal developer interview process look like?

#193

Post by fsloth »

vinceguidry wrote: post #192

Interviewing is an adversarial process, as such, there can be no ideal way to conduct it. It's like asking for the best way to have a divorce. Any imposed solution means at least one person is leaving something on the table, and so it won't be ideal.

Why is it adversarial? I figure it's about the candidate trying to find a position that is suitable for him or her, and the employer is trying to find the correct person to fullfill a specific role.

If the role does not fit the candidate, certainly it's advantageous to both that the candidate does not get hired.

Re: Ask HN: What should an ideal developer interview process look like?

#194

Post by MattHeard »

ghaff wrote: post #185
raygelogic wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

this comment misses the point and is why we don't give take-home work to senior developer candidates. they are in high demand and will not spend their free time on homework, when many other companies will gladly hire them without making them jump through hoops.

Furthermore, just because you can bang out something in an hour or two doesn't mean that you will spend only an hour or two when you know you'll be competing against people who put a lot of effort into the task. In my case, I do a lot of writing these days and, if someone were to ask me to write a thousand word analysis on some topic I was familiar with, I certainly could knock that off in a few hours. But, assuming…

Given that job searching is often a numbers game, a one-hour homework assignment is a lot of work when multiplied over dozens (or 100+) applications.

Re: Ask HN: What should an ideal developer interview process look like?

#195

Post by mcv »

azangru wrote: post #187
weliketocode wrote: post #177

Many people here will disagree with what I'm about to say, but if you're going to give a coding challenge... I like hackerrank/codility style coding challenges. gasp They're timed. They're run against a standardized test suite. And they have support for many languages. It's really unfortunate the number of companies that give custom take home coding challenges that run the gamut. The problems with which are manifold:…

When we were looking for a developer for our team, we created a set of small coding challenges testing the candidate's knowledge of the most relevant aspects of the language. We wrote automated tests for these challenges, and the main bulk of our interview was having the candidate solve them. The advantages to that approach, as I see it, are: - the developer is tested for knowledge that is most relevant for their cur…

The advantage of using something like codility, or making it a take-home thing, is that they can do it in their own time, free from the stressful environment of an interview.

Re: Ask HN: What should an ideal developer interview process look like?

#196

Post by mcv »

vinceguidry wrote: post #192

Interviewing is an adversarial process, as such, there can be no ideal way to conduct it. It's like asking for the best way to have a divorce. Any imposed solution means at least one person is leaving something on the table, and so it won't be ideal.

I disagree. A good interview is not adversarial. I tend to have really pleasant conversations during interviews. An adversarial attitude from the prospective employer would probably be a deal breaker for me.

Re: Ask HN: What should an ideal developer interview process look like?

#197

Post by MattHeard »

tomca32 wrote: post #150
g105b wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Senior people will be able to do the two hour coding homework in way less than two hours. If someone can't manage this as part of an interview process, it might be a sign of their time management abilities.

My experience is quite opposite. I used to be much faster 5+ years ago. I would just jump to a conclusion, execute, and see what happens. I rarely start anything these days without thinking about the problem thoroughly. It results in longer development times, but better designed, and more robust software, or so I hope.

This is the difference between building a solution that works today and building a solution that works tomorrow. A good interviewer would prefer the latter, but would recognise that it takes longer.

Re: Ask HN: What should an ideal developer interview process look like?

#198

Post by username3 »

inertiatic wrote: post #186

After getting burned a few times too many, wasting days of work building entire applications (at worst) or even simply a few hours (at best), I won't be doing anything longer than a 20-30 minute fizzbuzz take home exercise. I will also never waste a day of leave on a company, unless it's the opportunity of a lifetime and I feel I have an almost guaranteed job offer if I jump through that hoop. My ideal interview proc…

What’s your rate?

Re: Ask HN: What should an ideal developer interview process look like?

#199

Post by JustSomeNobody »

vinceguidry wrote: post #192

Interviewing is an adversarial process, as such, there can be no ideal way to conduct it. It's like asking for the best way to have a divorce. Any imposed solution means at least one person is leaving something on the table, and so it won't be ideal.

It's not. Or at least it should not be. The negotiating (for money/benefits) ... sure (maybe?). But not the actual interview. You want to find people you want to work with. This isn't about raiding a village for slaves.

Re: Ask HN: What should an ideal developer interview process look like?

#200

Post by aplummer »

I wanted to add my 2c that in the mix with whatever else you have, I love a take home.

It’s actually building something in my element, IDE, docs, just like real life. You get a chance to show you care with the details.

A whiteboard interview is not like RL as your entire career is on the line so shouldn’t be the main KPI, your brain is not working as usual. I don’t even hate presenting to groups or anything, although I do hate presenting unprepared.

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