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I started with a SQL question. He said "that's a dumb question."

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Re: I started with a SQL question. He said "that's a dumb question."

#11

Post by buggy6257 »

Honestly if I was interviewing, even if you told me the future and this was the outcome of hiring the guy, I still wouldn't hire him.

It's clear he's brilliant, and experienced, and seems like he's just refusing to "play the game". Speaking truth to power works if you know when to also NOT do it, or how to do it in a way that gets people to listen.

It doesn't really matter how brilliant a guy is; if he's not capable of "playing the game", then he's going to be (and WAS) out on his ass within a short timespan. That's a sink on my team's resources having to hire AGAIN and train AGAIN so short after his hiring. I don't want brilliant jerks, I'd rather have someone decent who can stick around by not getting himself fired for saying the wrong thing to the wrong person.

Re: I started with a SQL question. He said "that's a dumb question."

#12

Post by bgwalter »

Calling someone a "disagreeable asshole" just for saying that something is a dumb question is a bit strong. So he went out for challenging management on an internal document and he was 100% correct according to that tweet.

Seems to me that the actual assholes are still employed in that company. Perhaps he was just hired to fix the mess. Once the job was done, he was no longer needed.

Re: I started with a SQL question. He said "that's a dumb question."

#13

Post by millzlane »

It's not my . Has been my mantra lately. If I mention that a quarterly update cycle for mission critical software is too long in the context of security and the desktop enginners don't agree...I just repeat my mantra. I did recently develop a fix to a stupid bug a company said was working as expected. So I don't always stick to the mantra. But I'll disagree once. But then I commit to whatever management wants no matter how boneheaded. They're smart enough to see their dumb idea failed without me rubbing their noses in it.

Re: I started with a SQL question. He said "that's a dumb question."

#16

Post by crazydoggers »

If I were on the board / an investor of the company, I’d let the managers go and hire back that engineer.

The goal of a company is to serve its customers and make a profit, not stroke managements egos.

And it sounds more like this guy pointed out what was wrong and maybe embarrassed people, but that doesn’t make him an asshole. It’s one thing to be mean or call people names, that’s an asshole. But this guy was an “asshole” because he was right and it embarrassed people? I’ve seen the type of management that is so insecure they can’t be pointed out what they are doing wrong, sounds more like what happened here.

A good company has management that has a thick skin and acknowledges its missteps and raises up talent. If you can’t admit an employee “lower” than you can point out your flaws and give you criticism, then you’re the problem.

Re: I started with a SQL question. He said "that's a dumb question."

#17

Post by more_corn »

bgwalter wrote: post #12

Calling someone a "disagreeable asshole" just for saying that something is a dumb question is a bit strong. So he went out for challenging management on an internal document and he was 100% correct according to that tweet. Seems to me that the actual assholes are still employed in that company. Perhaps he was just hired to fix the mess. Once the job was done, he was no longer needed.

Telling the interviewer that his first question is stupid is a sign of a disagreeable asshole. Now granted, you can push back about questions irrelevant to the job but asking candidate for a data engineering role a MySQL question is fair game. And even if it were irrelevant you’d want to frame it better. I’ve pushed back twice. Once the interviewer apologized (you’re right that’s not really relevant to the role) the other time the interviewer was playing tech bingo and we simultaneously invalidated each other.

Re: I started with a SQL question. He said "that's a dumb question."

#19

Post by almostdeadguy »

buggy6257 wrote: post #11

Honestly if I was interviewing, even if you told me the future and this was the outcome of hiring the guy, I still wouldn't hire him. It's clear he's brilliant, and experienced, and seems like he's just refusing to "play the game". Speaking truth to power works if you know when to also NOT do it, or how to do it in a way that gets people to listen. It doesn't really matter how brilliant a guy is; if he's not capable…

Being kind and knowing how to deliver disagreement in a constructive way is important. Human beings aren’t perfect logical subjects immune from emotion (thankfully). Hopefully a good manager can take steps to address this or help mediate conversations where such a person might struggle. But places where “playing the game” (like withholding valid concerns with a decision) is a criteria for success are not long for this world

Re: I started with a SQL question. He said "that's a dumb question."

#20

Post by remram »

Asking dumb questions has become one of my moves in interviews. This is to expose LLM users, as LLMs are extremely unlikely to answer a "how do I do X" question with "you shouldn't do X", or "how would you replace Y" with "you should keep using Y".

I guess now I have an additional reason to ask, so that I can screen out the assholes that will say it's a dumb question...

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