Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

How to Interview Engineers When You're Not Technical – Part II

greghausheer.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

21–30 of 94 posts

Re: How to Interview Engineers When You're Not Technical – Part II

#21

Post by lostphilosopher »

dominotw wrote: post #10
FalconSensei wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Hiring managers should definitely not be assuming that all programmers do apps in their spare time. It baffles me how much this is an assumption. Like all the developers should not have any hobby that doesn't involve coding.

but don't you think its a fair guess that someone who hobby is X might be better at X than someone whose hobby is Y.

Could go either way, right? I've seen folks who have side projects spend most of their work day working on their side projects. They might be "better programmers" (also debatable), but if they don't get their work done - does it matter? I've seen folks who do really solid work for 8 hours and then go home and do other things, some of those folks have said that the separation is helpful so they can really be at their "programming best" at work.

(I say this as someone who generally have multiple programming side projects going on at any given time and also freelances...)

Re: How to Interview Engineers When You're Not Technical – Part II

#22

Post by crimsonalucard »

ape4 wrote: post #20
crimsonalucard wrote: post #7

I consider myself good at programming in general. But let's say the interviewer was hiring me for a technology stack that I'm pretty much clueless about... let's say assembly language or cobol... Even then I can bullshit my way past all of those questions, and I'm sure most people who can't program can also do the same too.

"What's the one thing you would not compromise on as you write code?" Its not hard to figure out the right answer to that one: "I never compromise. Must be perfect." But of course that's not true. There are always pathological conditions that can reasonably ignored especially in the first release.

That's easy. Just say I will never compromise on writing unreadable and messy code. I will also never compromise on documentation. That's just a disservice to my team members and disrespectful to anyone who will ever read or modify the code.

That bullshit will work for both technical and non-technical people. Of course do I do follow my own mantra all the time? Does anyone follow it at at all times? No.

You need some kind of coding question at the very least to measure coding ability and a non-technical person just can't do that.

Re: How to Interview Engineers When You're Not Technical – Part II

#23

Post by j45 »

MisterBastahrd wrote: post #13

I'm a good enough developer who has worked on enough projects that if someone tries to tell me that I need to show them personal projects I'm working on, then that ends the interview. I used to be a recruiter, I know how to conduct an interview and sit on the other end of that desk, and I know what I won't put up for in the workplace. My personal time is my personal time. If there's a good work-related reason for me…

Another angle of this question is often to elicit what kinds of problems you have solved in your personal time, ideally technical, but not necessarily so.

I have had great conversations with someone who has built an automatic pet feeder that lead to the work.

It shows a different facet of one's personality. This, in turn may come in to play when creative problem solving is involved. Quite often even non-technical problem solving around the home can transfer to work

It can delineate the difference between a developer who sees what they do as a profession, vs those who started with it as a passion and continue to solve problems.

Re: How to Interview Engineers When You're Not Technical – Part II

#24

Post by BurningFrog »

FalconSensei wrote: post #5
mcfunk wrote: post #3

Some good questions in here, with one exception: > Programmers are unique. They're one of the few professions where outside the boundaries of their working hours they choose to do the same exact thing they do at work: programming. Hiring managers should definitely not be assuming that all programmers do apps in their spare time. It's one thing to expect them to have a code sample (anyone should), but many strong prog…

> Hiring managers should definitely not be assuming that all programmers do apps in their spare time. It baffles me how much this is an assumption. Like all the developers should not have any hobby that doesn't involve coding.

I don't think I've ever run into that assumption.

Then again, maybe those shops just don't hire me, so I don't get exposure to it...

Re: How to Interview Engineers When You're Not Technical – Part II

#25

Post by BurningFrog »

rhombocombus wrote: post #11

As a professional programmer I spend almost all of my free time NOT programming, but I do spend it taking care of my family and social obligations instead. While I love what I do I would love it less if I did too much of it.

Right I love programming. But I do it 8 hours a day. That's quite enough!

Re: How to Interview Engineers When You're Not Technical – Part II

#26

Post by BurningFrog »

ape4 wrote: post #20
crimsonalucard wrote: post #7

I consider myself good at programming in general. But let's say the interviewer was hiring me for a technology stack that I'm pretty much clueless about... let's say assembly language or cobol... Even then I can bullshit my way past all of those questions, and I'm sure most people who can't program can also do the same too.

"What's the one thing you would not compromise on as you write code?" Its not hard to figure out the right answer to that one: "I never compromise. Must be perfect." But of course that's not true. There are always pathological conditions that can reasonably ignored especially in the first release.

Engineering is practical work. Of course you compromise among all your mutually unreachable goals.

Re: How to Interview Engineers When You're Not Technical – Part II

#27

Post by dominotw »

FalconSensei wrote: post #18
dominotw wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

but don't you think its a fair guess that someone who hobby is X might be better at X than someone whose hobby is Y.

I see your point, and I partly disagree. First because, they are doing it for fun, to solve things they want to make it work. That doesn't say they are learning something, or following clean code guidelines. But let's assume they DO. They are better at coding. But are you sure coding is the only skill you want? I've seen my fair share of developers that lack "real world" experience, to the point they cannot see that…

yea ofcourse, if someone is better at skills you are looking for then by all means coding hobby is irrelvant.

But what if all else being equal, why would you not choose coding hobby candidate.

Re: How to Interview Engineers When You're Not Technical – Part II

#28

Post by MisterBastahrd »

j45 wrote: post #23
MisterBastahrd wrote: post #13

I'm a good enough developer who has worked on enough projects that if someone tries to tell me that I need to show them personal projects I'm working on, then that ends the interview. I used to be a recruiter, I know how to conduct an interview and sit on the other end of that desk, and I know what I won't put up for in the workplace. My personal time is my personal time. If there's a good work-related reason for me…

Another angle of this question is often to elicit what kinds of problems you have solved in your personal time, ideally technical, but not necessarily so. I have had great conversations with someone who has built an automatic pet feeder that lead to the work. It shows a different facet of one's personality. This, in turn may come in to play when creative problem solving is involved. Quite often even non-technical pro…

The guys who try to heal people with crystals are way more passionate about their jobs than the people who went through med school. Passion doesn't equal talent. I'll choose the guy who gets his job done on time and under budget all day long over the guy who needs to reinvent the wheel because he saw a blog post and thought the idea would be cool to implement on company time.

Re: How to Interview Engineers When You're Not Technical – Part II

#29

Post by kemiller2002 »

PragmaticPulp wrote: post #14
mcfunk wrote: post #3

Some good questions in here, with one exception: > Programmers are unique. They're one of the few professions where outside the boundaries of their working hours they choose to do the same exact thing they do at work: programming. Hiring managers should definitely not be assuming that all programmers do apps in their spare time. It's one thing to expect them to have a code sample (anyone should), but many strong prog…

Please read the article further down. The author explicitly says: > It's OK too if an engineer doesn't have any side projects. I always ask about side projects to give candidates an opportunity to highlight their side projects, not because we require candidates to have side projects. I'm sure some hiring managers out there have side projects listed under their "must have" criteria, but in my experience the good hirin…

One thing that I've never disliked about hiring managers asking for side projects, is that when I work on one, I do what interests me. I like trying new things, experimenting on stuff that I don't know how it will turn out. When I get bored or I hit a dead end, I stop. A lot of it is unfinished and messy. It's for me, not anyone else. My time is valuable, especially outside of work.

Re: How to Interview Engineers When You're Not Technical – Part II

#30

Post by nsxwolf »

dominotw wrote: post #10
FalconSensei wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Hiring managers should definitely not be assuming that all programmers do apps in their spare time. It baffles me how much this is an assumption. Like all the developers should not have any hobby that doesn't involve coding.

but don't you think its a fair guess that someone who hobby is X might be better at X than someone whose hobby is Y.

I write hobby code sometimes but I don't write unit tests for it and I almost never go back to refactor it. Once I achieve my initial goal, I tend to be bored with it and set it aside.
Post reply on HN