I will not do a tech interview • Hacker News Board

Re: I will not do a tech interview

#231

Post by mgkimsal » Wed, Aug 21, 2013, 6:31 PM UTC

sghill wrote: post #222

SomeCallMeTim wrote: post #193

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Of course not. Interview situations are very, very different than the others. Really? I disagree. There even exist situations (in the case of some positions) where you will be talking to a client of the company you're working for, effectively interviewing with the client, representing the company. And interviewing is a subset of "sales", which is important for working on many teams -- including selling management on…

> There even exist situations (in the case of some positions) where you will be talking to a client of the company you're working for, effectively interviewing with the client, representing the company. What positions would require you to prove the technical capability of your company at this level? I've been working for a consultancy for a few years now. I can't recall a time when a client asked me to describe a clo…

Pre-sales support engineers.

Re: I will not do a tech interview

#232

Post by cgag » Wed, Aug 21, 2013, 6:31 PM UTC

tyree732 wrote: post #190

Fishkins wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For me, the interview has always been way more stressful than anything I've had to do on the job. I think lots of people feel the same way (partially based on what I've seen performing interviews myself).

I'm sorry to hear about how stressed you get during interviews, but unfortunately the stress you demonstrate during technical interviews is a useful heuristic when determining whether or not a candidate would be a good fit for a company. Is a good signal all of the time? No. Is it a good signal most of the time? Probably.

I really can't imagine what would lead you or anyone else to think that's a good signal. I guess maybe it could possibly be good if you're hiring someone to do cold calls or something.

Re: I will not do a tech interview

#233

Post by nkuttler » Wed, Aug 21, 2013, 6:32 PM UTC

nknighthb wrote: post #226

nkuttler wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I find it very bizarre that anybody would say something like this. Are you afraid of people who are more confident than you? Would that deter you even if they demonstrate superior technical skills?

I take it you've never heard the word "overconfident"?

People who don't freeze in interviews are overconfident according to j_baker, I got that, I just don't understand how he came to that conclusion.

Re: I will not do a tech interview

#234

Post by dmatlack » Wed, Aug 21, 2013, 6:33 PM UTC

bobbbinsIII wrote: post #178

bqe wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Basic computer science knowledge (and yes, B-Trees qualifies) cannot be learned in 20 seconds. Most of this knowledge is actually a prerequisite to being able to search Google properly.

how often does a normal software developer find himself in a situation where he has to know about B-Trees in depth?

When he works for the company that this whole conversation is stemming from.

Re: I will not do a tech interview

#235

Post by thedufer » Wed, Aug 21, 2013, 6:33 PM UTC

justincormack wrote: post #120

maxk42 wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just replying to state my shock at how many people are defending poor interview performance. If you freeze up during interviews because it's "high stress" then maybe you need to practice going on more interviews until it doesn't bug you any more. When you're a developer -- especially at a senior level -- you need to be able to work well under stress. Hell -- you need to be able to do that for nearly any job in the wo…

Why? Interviews are an unnatural situation. I have hired people who did not interview well but were great at the work.

But have you also hired people who did not interview well and weren't great at the work? The goal of interviewing is to avoid false positives, not to avoid false negatives.

Re: I will not do a tech interview

#236

Post by bigtunacan » Wed, Aug 21, 2013, 6:33 PM UTC

ap22213 wrote: post #145

crazygringo wrote: post #62

Granted, there are a lot of bad tech interviews out there (asking about algorithms that nobody ever uses) ... but I do not understand this. Imagine someone's being hired for a front-end position, and we don't have months to get them up to speed. I'm going to ask them to explain how a closure works. How they deal with AJAX. What they think about "!important". Things to be careful about with floats. How CSS precedence/…

This is weird. I would definitely fail your interview. Yet, at the same time, I've shipped over a dozen products, dozens of releases, consistently, to hundreds of thousands (if not millions) of people. I have a solid track record of clean, bug-free, efficient code. In 14 years of development, I've never had a bad review, and I've consistently ranked on the 'A-track' at all companies that I have worked for. I have low…

You have to look at the candidate's overall performance in the interview; not the answer to a single question.

Describing a closure is actually a great example of something many great software developers WON'T know based upon their prior domain experience.

A strong Java or old school C/C++ programmer (yes I know C++11 has closures) may actually be an excellent candidate, but have no idea what a closure is.

I would expect that a front end JavaScript developer, RoR dev, or anyone else "experienced" in a language with some functional support (Scala, Haskell, F#, etc...) should be able to explain a closure.

Re: I will not do a tech interview

#237

Post by dmatlack » Wed, Aug 21, 2013, 6:35 PM UTC

marknutter wrote: post #18

hvs wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't want my employees to have to learn everything just-in-time. By that logic, the people you hire wouldn't need to know anything. In addition, they don't know what they don't know, so they may not even know that they need a btree index.

> I don't want my employees to have to learn everything just-in-time What about just some things . And in most cases, it's not learning for the first time but brushing up on the topic. To expect people to have encyclopedic knowledge of every edge-case problem your company deals with on a day-to-day basis is ridiculous.

As OP said, you would not be able to google the specific B-Tree question because if you don't know about B-Trees you wouldn't know that you need to google it.

There's a difference between things you know you don't know (and therefore can google), and things you don't know you don't know (and therefore will not google).

Re: I will not do a tech interview

#238

Post by dannyr » Wed, Aug 21, 2013, 6:35 PM UTC

donretag wrote: post #25

Not quite the same, but I once had a no name company (getglue) tell me that I need to do a 3-hour programming assignment before I can interview with them. I have too much self-respect for myself to put myself through that process. I declined the "opportunity" to interview with them. The interview process is broken and many of the interviewing techniques either do not correctly judge a candidate, or place too much bur…

Would you rather go to an in-person interview and waste half/full day?

I'll do a take-home programming assignment anytime over an in-person interview to gauge mutual interest.

Re: I will not do a tech interview

#239

Post by ngoel36 » Wed, Aug 21, 2013, 6:35 PM UTC

crazygringo wrote: post #62

Granted, there are a lot of bad tech interviews out there (asking about algorithms that nobody ever uses) ... but I do not understand this. Imagine someone's being hired for a front-end position, and we don't have months to get them up to speed. I'm going to ask them to explain how a closure works. How they deal with AJAX. What they think about "!important". Things to be careful about with floats. How CSS precedence/…

I used to work at Google. I saw a lot of good candidates get rejected. I myself was rejected multiple times before I got an offer. I was talking to my manager who was on the Hiring Committee about this dilemma, and at the end of the day the fact is that good companies don't give a shit about their false negative rate - only their net positives.

By having an efficient technical interview process, yes, you let good candidates go. Just as you do by only having certain target universities or requiring certain experience. But they don't give a fuck. They get 1000 applications a day. Hundreds of internal referrals. If they were to reject the ~100 candidates/week that get hired based off doing well in their technical interview and take the next 100, Google Engineering would be just as well off. Maybe better. (Harvard says the same thing about its incoming classes).

No technical interview will ever be perfect. But if you have a holistic process that is 50% based on past experience, and 50% based on being a top 10% performer in well-designed technical interviews (among other factors), that's usually good enough to take a bet on the candidate.

Re: I will not do a tech interview

#240

Post by tmoertel » Wed, Aug 21, 2013, 6:35 PM UTC

untog wrote: post #72

crazygringo wrote: post #62

Granted, there are a lot of bad tech interviews out there (asking about algorithms that nobody ever uses) ... but I do not understand this. Imagine someone's being hired for a front-end position, and we don't have months to get them up to speed. I'm going to ask them to explain how a closure works. How they deal with AJAX. What they think about "!important". Things to be careful about with floats. How CSS precedence/…

Maybe somebody can explain this better to me -- but if you freeze up in interviews, are you also going to freeze up in developer meetings? During code reviews? When you're in the room with clients? Of course not. Interview situations are very, very different than the others. Meetings and code reviews are with co-workers, whom you know and trust. Meetings with clients could be nerve-wracking for other reasons, but the…

Can I offer you some advice? An interview is a negotiation. The rules aren't fixed. If you're asked to do something that won't give a reliable measurement of your ability, say so and offer the interviewer a better option. You'll probably get what you want.

In the scenario you described, I might try something like this: "I think I see what you're trying to measure by asking that question, but it assumes a working style that is foreign to me. So that you can get a better reading of what I can really do, would you mind if we used my laptop, with you looking over my shoulder, as I solved a problem of similar difficulty?"

An interview is a negotiation. If you want to change it, just ask. Most interviewers will be happy to agree to any changes that will help them get a better read on your true abilities.