Ask HN: When did 7 interviews become “normal”? • Hacker News Board

Re: Ask HN: When did 7 interviews become “normal”?

#101

Post by QuarterReptile » Sat, Apr 02, 2022, 4:38 PM UTC

rednerrus wrote: post #73

bradleyjg wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is my answer as well. The two rational pairings are: hire fast, fire fast and hire slow, fire slow If for legal or cultural reasons you can’t fire fast, that leaves you with only one choice.

Managers should be honing the hiring process. If your team is clear about what they're looking for and thoughtful about how to get at it, you should be able to figure out if a candidate is a good team and technical fit in a couple of hours.

Maybe this is the honed hiring process.

Re: Ask HN: When did 7 interviews become “normal”?

#102

Post by kjeetgill » Sat, Apr 02, 2022, 4:38 PM UTC

dleslie wrote: post #58

mabbo wrote: post #44

Having been an interviewer at a FAANG for many years, I can explain some of the logic behind it. I'm not saying this logic is valid , but it's how we got here, imho. First: we no longer trust the hiring manager alone, because probably they aren't a strong developer. We instead trust strong developers that are well trained at evaluating good devs. At the same time, we don't want to thrust a dev onto a hiring manager,…

What I'm reading here is that even as an experienced interviewer you struggle to make the format effective and equitable. Sounds to me like the format isn't worth keeping; time to hire more, and fire fast?

I never understand answers of this format: "status quo has flaw of some known, finite impact" time to "completely ridiculously overcompensate, overreact, and make arbitrary move?"

I can't even fathom in what ways you think "time to hire more, and fire fast?" is more "effective and equitable"? You just shove even more risk onto individuals who might be getting their footing still.

You're just turning a 8-9 hours commitment to an interview into a 6 month commitment. Sure, you get paid but you also have to deal with churn and burn.

I mean, did you think stack ranking was a good idea?

Re: Ask HN: When did 7 interviews become “normal”?

#103

Post by newbamboo » Sat, Apr 02, 2022, 4:38 PM UTC

Prop 13 should be repealed.

Re: Ask HN: When did 7 interviews become “normal”?

#104

Post by greggman3 » Sat, Apr 02, 2022, 4:39 PM UTC

imtakmo wrote: post #12

I entered the software industry as a developer about 4 years ago, and I have been running interviews for the past 2 years or so. Interview hell is all I have ever known. Could you elaborate on how things worked differently in the past? I legitimately have no idea what a developer interview "loop" would look like without 5 to 7 interviews, but I desperately hope it can exist.

From 1983 to 2008 my interviews were basically, talk to some one who's doing the hiring. No testing. Get hired. Most of those companies were relatively small. All but 2 were under 50 people. Only 1 of the 12 or so even asked any technical questions to see if I knew anything.

Also, none of them were specialized. No one asked are you a Front End Programmer? Back End Programmer? UI Programmer? Graphics Programmer? etc... It was just "programmer", do whatever is programmers do.

That part today I really dislike. The teams have gotten giant and you often have to choose some speciality position.

Re: Ask HN: When did 7 interviews become “normal”?

#105

Post by lbrito » Sat, Apr 02, 2022, 4:39 PM UTC

Oh brother, wait until you find out about leetcode!

Re: Ask HN: When did 7 interviews become “normal”?

#106

Post by StupidUser123 » Sat, Apr 02, 2022, 4:39 PM UTC

mabbo wrote: post #44

Having been an interviewer at a FAANG for many years, I can explain some of the logic behind it. I'm not saying this logic is valid , but it's how we got here, imho. First: we no longer trust the hiring manager alone, because probably they aren't a strong developer. We instead trust strong developers that are well trained at evaluating good devs. At the same time, we don't want to thrust a dev onto a hiring manager,…

I’m a HM at a big tech company with this format as well. Honestly, I really like it. I don’t want to hire the wrong person, it’s expensive and it makes my job awful for a while. It’s great getting data points on several programming interviews, system design, etc. That makes my sell interview so much easier because I can trust the process to assess their technical skills. You need multiple people because you’re constantly training up new people and need to calibrate everyone fairly.

Scaling any process to thousands of people is always hard.

Is it annoying for candidates? Yeah, but we pay you a lot of money, and it does actually work for us. Is it perfect? No, but it does work.

“Hire and Fire fast” doesn’t actually work well if you want to give people a chance to succeed. Also people tend to keep low performers around too long. Best to avoid this as much as possible.

Re: Ask HN: When did 7 interviews become “normal”?

#107

Post by 8ytecoder » Sat, Apr 02, 2022, 4:39 PM UTC

angarg12 wrote: post #74

mabbo wrote: post #44

Having been an interviewer at a FAANG for many years, I can explain some of the logic behind it. I'm not saying this logic is valid , but it's how we got here, imho. First: we no longer trust the hiring manager alone, because probably they aren't a strong developer. We instead trust strong developers that are well trained at evaluating good devs. At the same time, we don't want to thrust a dev onto a hiring manager,…

I was going to say this. To add more: a single person (HM) might have biases for or against certain candidates. More people in the loop brings in diversity and helps to keep interviewers honest and consistent. Also these roles are usually high stakes and the cost of a bad hire is too high.

Most orgs use a veto model. If not everyone is a strong hire, the candidate is rejected. The bias is still there, just not a positive bias now. It’s a strong negative bias. And obviously most people don’t want to come across as “too easy”. Essential you’re positively reinforcing to reject more and more candidates and make the whole process a nightmare.

Re: Ask HN: When did 7 interviews become “normal”?

#108

Post by TameAntelope » Sat, Apr 02, 2022, 4:39 PM UTC

dleslie wrote: post #58

mabbo wrote: post #44

Having been an interviewer at a FAANG for many years, I can explain some of the logic behind it. I'm not saying this logic is valid , but it's how we got here, imho. First: we no longer trust the hiring manager alone, because probably they aren't a strong developer. We instead trust strong developers that are well trained at evaluating good devs. At the same time, we don't want to thrust a dev onto a hiring manager,…

What I'm reading here is that even as an experienced interviewer you struggle to make the format effective and equitable. Sounds to me like the format isn't worth keeping; time to hire more, and fire fast?

Have you ever been fired before? It sucks.

I’d much rather not get hired then get fired “fast”.

Re: Ask HN: When did 7 interviews become “normal”?

#109

Post by monster_group » Sat, Apr 02, 2022, 4:39 PM UTC

KerrickStaley wrote: post #50

monster_group wrote: post #31

Most tech companies now do around 4-5 interviews. It has been like that for at least 7-8 years (probably more) but I just found out that not all companies are like that. After being subjected to these demeaning Leetcoding interviews I went through a refreshingly pleasant experience. It was an interview with just one person. They gave me a technical open-ended problem and two weeks time. After two weeks I had to do a…

I would argue that 30 hours invested in interviewing at a single company is a lot more work than you put in doing a couple phone screens and a one-day onsite. I personally abhor take-home projects because they tend to balloon in scope (I'm a perfectionist and want to put the best foot forward). With an on-site loop, when you're done you're done.

I agree and initially I refused but the problem space was interesting and I wanted to get in it so I did it.

Re: Ask HN: When did 7 interviews become “normal”?

#110

Post by baskethead » Sat, Apr 02, 2022, 4:40 PM UTC

1) Talk with recruiter

2) Phone Screen

3) 4 tech interviews (2 coding, 2 systems design)

4) 1 behavioral interview, sometimes.

To be honest, this isn't egregious. Given how much we are paid this doesn't seem so bad. Whether or not the coding and systems design questions actually provide signal is a different question though.