Interviews have the benefit of appearing equal at least - everyone is asked exactly the same questions.
Discussions might run the risk of appearing to give some people an easier ride than others.
Don’t do interviews, do discussions
281–290 of 432 posts
Re: Don’t do interviews, do discussions
#282Earlier quoted context omitted.
The title is "Don't do interviews, do discussions". That's repeated in the main text. The author seems to be concerned about the feeling of "I am being evaluated". I think that's counterproductive because it's false - being evaluatated is the whole point of the conversation and it's better if both sides were honest about it instead of lying to each other and playing games.
The tone of an evaluation can change the experience and isn’t boolean.
Which is another way of saying "life isn't boolean" honestly.
Re: Don’t do interviews, do discussions
#283Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's hard to tell if it's hysterical without knowing the Cost/Benefit for the company. How empowered are new senior hires, and how expensive is the time of the team? At larger companies senior engineers are often phenomenally expensive and at smaller companies controls over potentially business ending operations are usually minimal. A friend of mine at a FAANG recently dealt with a bad hire. Their guess was that in t…
In your examples, did they go through a coding challenge / whiteboard process?
Across all examples I can think of - some yes, some no.
It's not material to my point either way. I was only arguing that for some company's being very afraid of bad hires may be sensible and dismissing their concerns as hysteria does not seem obviously correct to me.
Re: Don’t do interviews, do discussions
#284Earlier quoted context omitted.
There is a hysteria that's plaguing the world of tech: The fear that incompetent people might "BS" their way to a position. Everyone you talk with, has probably one or two anecdotal stories of such. "Yeah I worked with this CS grad that couldn't even write FizzBuzz" - yet we ignore the hundreds of other that do their work just fine. And this is fought with setting up ridiculous 8-part technical interviews where you'l…
Sadly this isn't some sort of mass hysteria but based on practical experience. Yes, it's hard to believe. New interviewers are routinely shocked the first few times they are asked to take a candidate through a coding test. That's why everyone should just ignore the advice in the article - it's wrong. If you want to hire competent programmers, you need to test them rigorously by watching them code, in front of you. Ev…
Then why ask candidates to solve a leetcode hard or two mediums in 45 mins? If you're afraid of people who can't code any program then ask for leetcode easy.
Re: Don’t do interviews, do discussions
#285Earlier quoted context omitted.
How is diversity of thought measured?
Lack of diversity of thought is easy to spot IMO. Bigger point is - you should ensure your processes are setup to at least try to achieve the kind of diversity you would like to achieve. Those processes may still fail, just like anything else.
I honestly don’t comprehend this answer. You mentioned unconscious bias in interviews:
> Having unscripted conversations is one of the best way to be swayed by unconscious bias in interviews.
Yet, lack of diversity of thought is “easy to spot”. Without being swayed by unconscious biases?
Re: Don’t do interviews, do discussions
#286I've finally reached a point in my career where I have a great paying job and like it well enough, and really don't give a shit what interviewers think. Paradoxically, I think I interview a lot better. I can steer conversation towards stuff I care about, and if they insist on being annoying, just thank them for their time and leave. Though this might just be a result of being pickier about who I interview with. If no…
I wonder how much "interviewing" is really testing the kind of performance anxiety that people without other good offers yet have. I experience this too as I not just as I progressed in my career, but even within one batch of interviewing. I've always tried to batch as many interviews as I can. By the third interview I am feeling much less anxious and just perform much better and by the fourth or fifth I am nailing t…
You definitely want to have a couple of warmup interviews to get back into practice, into shape. So queue up your "practice" companies first and save the ones you really want for later.
You can keep this shape up to some extent by doing a lot of interviewing of candidates at your current job. It really helps you understand what interviewers are looking for, what they expect, how a good interview should feel and flow.
But there are just some things you don't practice until your own interviews. So you'll want to have your answers to questions, and stories, and narratives all planned out. And make sure you practice them out loud, multiple times, until it's flowing naturally and easily.
And I just accept ahead of time that I'll fail 60% of the interviews that I apply for that I'd be perfect for. Sometimes things click and sometimes things don't. So make sure you've got warm leads and schedule your first rounds at an appropriate number of companies.
Re: Don’t do interviews, do discussions
#287Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Because the most common say to day issue is needing to think of an algorithm on the spot... Are you trolling? Everything that you do as an engineer is coming up with an algorithm. Algorithm is how you solve a problem, how you think about constraints and requirements.
You're being pedantic. You know what I mean. There's plenty of algorithms I know and I can see relevant business contexts to use them in. Do I know all of their implementations off the top of my head to regurgitate onto a whiteboard? No, because I don't need to. When the time comes I will just look that up. The easy part is the implementation. This isn't a school exam testing your memory.
When was the last time somebody asked you to implement some text book algorithm?
All the FAANG interviews I had were about some leetcode problem where you had to be familiar and use some algorithm, not write it from scratch.
Re: Don’t do interviews, do discussions
#288I wish I could a 2-3 hour interview where I (or the candidate) showcase one of my projects and explain the architectural details and decisions in addition to showing any cool/hairy/insane code that got the job done. We can discuss those things and see how to improve them, or laugh at the crazy solutions. Honestly how many times do I need to rehearse these dumbass algos (blah blah blah, so I'll optimize for space with…
The challenge with this approach as that many very competent people are not allowed to discuss their prior work in that level of detail. More practical variants of this approach use a straw man software design problem to talk to that will exercise diverse areas of experience.
Yep, 100% this. Particularly if you've worked for big firms in the past, those NDAs do not mess around.
Re: Don’t do interviews, do discussions
#289I can interview any developer and by asking the right questions prove they are an incompetent fraud.
It’s a simple matter of asking the right questions.
Who’s wrong and who’s right?
The interviewer is always right.
If you don’t know what I think you should know then you’re incompetent.
Re: Don’t do interviews, do discussions
#290Earlier quoted context omitted.
There is a hysteria that's plaguing the world of tech: The fear that incompetent people might "BS" their way to a position. Everyone you talk with, has probably one or two anecdotal stories of such. "Yeah I worked with this CS grad that couldn't even write FizzBuzz" - yet we ignore the hundreds of other that do their work just fine. And this is fought with setting up ridiculous 8-part technical interviews where you'l…
It's hard to tell if it's hysterical without knowing the Cost/Benefit for the company. How empowered are new senior hires, and how expensive is the time of the team? At larger companies senior engineers are often phenomenally expensive and at smaller companies controls over potentially business ending operations are usually minimal. A friend of mine at a FAANG recently dealt with a bad hire. Their guess was that in t…
> Their guess was that in the 6 months the bad hire was there they cost the company maybe ~5 million between wasted engineer time and delayed release schedules after people kept having to put out their fires.
I've worked with one or two of those, but I've also been on interview loops that rejected candidates who went on to massively successful careers at a different FAANG.
The cost of false positives is relatively easy to quantify, the cost of false negatives significantly harder. Which is higher?