Ask HN: How do you conduct technical interviews if you don't have experience?

#1

Post by bsquared » Fri, Oct 10, 2014, 10:05 PM UTC

Two months ago I started working at a pre-seed stage startup. We've been growing exponentially and this week we actually had to cut back our operations because our 5 person team couldn't handle the workload. So I've been tasked with hiring 1-2 new employees ASAP.

I have never conducted any interviews before. Nor do I have any experience with iOS development, which is one of the two positions I will be hiring for. Are there any techniques you could suggest for being able to judge a candidates level of expertise without actually having any personal experience?

Re: Ask HN: How do you conduct technical interviews if you don't have experience?

#2

Post by otoolep » Fri, Oct 10, 2014, 10:26 PM UTC

Ask them:

How do they ensure that the code they deliver to their teammates is of high quality?

Regardless of domain, the principles are the same -- answers that can be understood even by a non-technical person include "peer review of my work" and "assume good faith when a person provides feedback on your design and results". If you do have a technical background, then the technical answers provided should apply to all types of software development and technical operations. You don't need to specifically have iOS experience.

Re: Ask HN: How do you conduct technical interviews if you don't have experience?

#3

Post by jamesli » Fri, Oct 10, 2014, 10:39 PM UTC

otoolep wrote: post #2

Ask them: How do they ensure that the code they deliver to their teammates is of high quality? Regardless of domain, the principles are the same -- answers that can be understood even by a non-technical person include "peer review of my work" and "assume good faith when a person provides feedback on your design and results". If you do have a technical background, then the technical answers provided should apply to al…

Regarding this specific case, if no other engineers in the team are good at iOS programming and the candidate is aware of that, most probably the candidate would not give answers like that. If the candidate does say things like that in this situation, I would feel negative about it. It doesn't sound an engineer speaking.

As for OP's question, I haven't figured out a good way, either.

Re: Ask HN: How do you conduct technical interviews if you don't have experience?

#4

Post by MalcolmDiggs » Fri, Oct 10, 2014, 11:22 PM UTC

In my experience, there's little reason to do it alone.

Handle whatever you can (the non tech stuff), you'll be able to narrow down a lot based on non-technical factors (like years of experience, projects in their portfolio, etc). When you're ready for the tech screen, call in a favor from someone you trust. Ask them to spend an afternoon grilling your candidates.

Re: Ask HN: How do you conduct technical interviews if you don't have experience?

#5

Post by staunch » Sat, Oct 11, 2014, 10:04 AM UTC

Find someone you can reasonably expect to be an expert. The author of a well reviewed iOS book, app, library, toolkit, framework, whatever. Have them review code samples or even interview candidates over Skype. It shouldn't cost more than an expensive recruiter. And still cheaper than hiring the wrong person.

Re: Ask HN: How do you conduct technical interviews if you don't have experience?

#6

Post by asadlionpk » Mon, Oct 13, 2014, 2:14 AM UTC

I am assuming you are technical yourself but have no iOS skills. In my experience, you should interview candidate based on the basic CS principles and algorithms. Start with some classical textbook problem and based on candidates response, build around it. While the interview, focus on the thought process more than the end results. I have been doing this for a few years now and even have built tools for interviewing.

Check https://codepad.remoteinterview.io

Good luck!