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The anatomy of the perfect technical interview from a former Amazon VP

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Re: The anatomy of the perfect technical interview from a former Amazon VP

#71

Post by rhizome »

RogerL wrote: post #38
Matt_Mickiewicz wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When Google pushed out their interview-results data this year, one of the big findings was that there is NO SUCH THING as a good interviewer. To quote the NY Times interview with Laszlo Black of Google - "Years ago, we did a study to determine whether anyone at Google is particularly good at hiring. We looked at tens of thousands of interviews, and everyone who had done the interviews and what they scored the candida…

I think that is perhaps telling. Google doesn't interview you on your experience, but whether you can can solve network/graph algorithms taken from Knuth exercises. I would expect a random mess from that. It sounds like this person actually drilled down into what the candidate actually knew. I think it is far more useful to ask somebody about what they actually did. Are they excited and engaged by it, did they come u…

Google doesn't interview you on your experience, but whether you can can solve network/graph algorithms taken from Knuth exercises.

I believe this is a backdoor method to requiring a college degree for positions that do not require one within labor law.

Re: The anatomy of the perfect technical interview from a former Amazon VP

#72

Post by nilkn »

Terretta wrote: post #57
jpalioto wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Less about needing money and more about being ambitious. Hungry for success I should say.

Whether hungry for money or hungry for success, you're then missing hiring candidates who aren't "hungry" because they have a proven track record at having done very well financially from a series of successes. At this point, they don't need money or validation, they just figure they can help you solve things and are talking to you because they enjoy solving new things. Hungry is overrated when what you need is focus…

Someone who has sufficient self-made wealth to retire, or nearly retire, but who is still looking to work for you as a developer I would certainly describe as "hungry" in this context. But I'm mostly interpreting that term to mean "passionate" about the intellectual and creative aspects of the job.

Re: The anatomy of the perfect technical interview from a former Amazon VP

#73

Post by chris_mahan »

dylangs1030 wrote: post #29
kenster07 wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Re Wall Street: It's unfortunate that some of our brightest are tempted into playing multi-million dollar poker, rather than focusing their energy on producing any significant long-term value. I believe software engineering wages will continue to rise over time, and will eventually reflect the true value the industry produces.

I have no shame in admitting that I would rather use high-level mathematics and programming to play "multi-million dollar poker" on Wall Street than join half of the startups and big tech companies and have a boring job churning out insignificant apps at a desk. In fact, the way you phrased it, being a quant sounds really fun :) you don't want to play multi-million dollar poker? I mean, sure, meaning and existentiali…

Which is why I work for a large bank, in toxic assets resolution, where the stakes are still in the billions of dollars.

Re: The anatomy of the perfect technical interview from a former Amazon VP

#74

Post by wpietri »

pekk wrote: post #62
iyulaev wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's one thing this article misses, and one thing I totally disagree on. Hiring for prior experience - the author emphasizes this, and based on my experience this should be de-weighted. The issue is that as soon as you start to define an area of experience, your hiring pool shrinks dramatically. Consequently you are more likely to pick a less powerful engineer. Another, bigger downside here is that companies are t…

Being partly facetious here: I don't know how you actually propose not to hire jerks. The industry is full of jerks. Jerks are doing the interview much of the time. The industry wants people who claim to be the best, and that's hard to do while also selecting for niceness.

Personally, I have a bias against subjects who claim to be the best. Some of the best people I've worked with, would say things like, "Oh, I guess I'm ok at that" and then blow me away. It's the Dunning-Kruger effect [1] in action.

Because of that, I generally avoid people to self-evaluate versus others. I think it's ok to ask them to compare on purely internal things (e.g., "What languages are you strongest in"); people seem pretty good at that.

I think that approach makes it a lot easier to hire nice people; niceness and humility are correlated.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning–Kruger_effect

Re: The anatomy of the perfect technical interview from a former Amazon VP

#75

Post by tptacek »

pnathan wrote: post #33
evanjacobs wrote: post #21

In my 10 years at Amazon, I interviewed lots of engineers and I think Amazon's interview process is fatally flawed. Of course Amazon is still able to hire good candidates but I believe it is in spite of this process and not because of it. Here were the most frustrating aspects of interviewing for me: 1. Bar raisers don't ask questions that they themselves don't know the answer to. I believe this is what Roseman is re…

> There is no room in the Amazon interview process to "try out" a candidate for a week or two in a real world setting to see how they perform. When looking for work, I have no room for companies that want to do this: I already have a job and commitments. Also, I might not even be in the same state as the company I am talking to.

This is such a popular and I think corrosive meme that I think it's a service to the community when people pipe up and point out the obvious, which is that many/most people can't even afford to do try-outs, let alone be happy about the idea. Thanks!

Re: The anatomy of the perfect technical interview from a former Amazon VP

#76

Post by wpietri »

jotux wrote: post #36
pnathan wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There is no room in the Amazon interview process to "try out" a candidate for a week or two in a real world setting to see how they perform. When looking for work, I have no room for companies that want to do this: I already have a job and commitments. Also, I might not even be in the same state as the company I am talking to.

How is trying out a practical for anything other than unemployed new grads? I see this constantly suggested but I don't know a single person who would even consider quitting or taking vacation time to go work for a prospective company.

Depends a lot on the person. If somebody has done consulting or contract work, it's a pretty natural thing. I've done it both as an employee and an employer.

Re: The anatomy of the perfect technical interview from a former Amazon VP

#78

Post by scrabble »

jotux wrote: post #36
pnathan wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There is no room in the Amazon interview process to "try out" a candidate for a week or two in a real world setting to see how they perform. When looking for work, I have no room for companies that want to do this: I already have a job and commitments. Also, I might not even be in the same state as the company I am talking to.

How is trying out a practical for anything other than unemployed new grads? I see this constantly suggested but I don't know a single person who would even consider quitting or taking vacation time to go work for a prospective company.

The only way I'd consider doing this is taking vacation if I'm being paid a rate that is significantly higher than my current rate.

Otherwise, just ask for a coded solution to some specific problem or user story and I'll work on it after hours and send it in.

Re: The anatomy of the perfect technical interview from a former Amazon VP

#79

Post by afandian »

saraid216 wrote: post #23
afandian wrote: post #4

"No matter how many times they say it, most still make decisions based on gut feel, basic credentials, GPAs, ivy league educations, flashy company names - even SAT scores. Roseman objects." What's a Roseman object? Is it some psychological classification of the means by which we just things? Of course, I mis-read it. Shame, that could have been an interesting topic.

I didn't know "just" was a verb. Is that when we do something but only barely competently?

It's not a verb, it's a typo.

Re: The anatomy of the perfect technical interview from a former Amazon VP

#80

Post by afandian »

lsb wrote: post #8
afandian wrote: post #4

"No matter how many times they say it, most still make decisions based on gut feel, basic credentials, GPAs, ivy league educations, flashy company names - even SAT scores. Roseman objects." What's a Roseman object? Is it some psychological classification of the means by which we just things? Of course, I mis-read it. Shame, that could have been an interesting topic.

If it's confusing to parse, let me expand it: Neil Roseman strenuously objects to that assertion.

I understood it perfectly about half a second after I misunderstood it. I just thought I'd share my experience, as I found it amusing.
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