Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Worst interview questions for software developers

fibery.io

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

141–150 of 253 posts

Re: Worst interview questions for software developers

#141

Post by UncleMeat »

itronitron wrote: post #119
neilv wrote: post #118

> 1. Have a family/children? How does this affect your work? I think this is a huge no-no to ask in the US, since a company can't discriminate in hiring on the basis of family/children, and this is sounding too close to that. (It's about ideals like fairness, and also about company liability.) When I'm an interviewee, I don't read too much into early startups doing things like asking that question, since startups are…

It's never appropriate. I've never been asked that question but my wife has, which suggests to me that the question places women at a disadvantage when applying to jobs.

My wife and basically all of my friends who are women have gone through the exercise of deciding whether to wear a wedding ring to interviews. There's unfortunately a lot of biased nonsense around married/unmarried women in job interviews.

Re: Worst interview questions for software developers

#143

Post by astura »

ikiris wrote: post #72
lr4444lr wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, you're not wrong, and are even downplaying how seriously disruptive a serial job hopper is to a company. I have without regrets red-flagged numerous well-qualified candidates who were an obvious flight risk at the companies I have worked at, which were always smallish. Now that big tech is contracting its ranks somewhat, this behavior is going to be even more suspect, because they will not have that refuge so eas…

If you want people to stay, pay them more in tune with what they're worth and they will. This isn't brain surgery.

It's been my experience serial job hoppers have personal problems, not a lack of monetary compensation.

Re: Worst interview questions for software developers

#144

Post by ChrisMarshallNY »

IncRnd wrote: post #6

4. Why do you change jobs so often (so rarely)? How does that matter? If I am a match for the company in terms of qualifications and personal qualities, how will my job history and reflection help? I changed jobs every year or so. Is that “often” or “rarely”? What’s wrong with changing jobs frequently? It is actually important to ask this of a candidate who seems to frequently change jobs. A hiring manager may not wa…

> A hiring manager may not want to hire someone who will leave soon.

I was one of those, but I don't think that there's many.

I remember talking to a manager of a startup we were working with, and he told me that the average stay of an engineer was 18 months, and that they plan for that.

I bounced like that, for my first three jobs, but stuck at my fourth, for nearly 27 years.

Re: Worst interview questions for software developers

#145

Post by amelius »

ChrisMarshallNY wrote: post #142

> Have a family/children? How does this affect your work? I'm pretty sure that question is illegal. I do know that asking if someone is married, is illegal (in my state). We got lots of CYA training from HR, telling us to not ask these questions.

How should the interviewee respond to illegal questions?

Re: Worst interview questions for software developers

#146

Post by weitzj »

Worst interview question I got:

“Imagine you are on an island with your peoples…. How do you protect your population?”

Then this interview kind of went weirder further along…

“Some predators are entering your island and rape your women. What do you do?”

Well: not joining the company making up these weird questions ;)

I guess this “island question” was somehow picked up by the engineer watching too many hiring talks on YouTube and I think the island question was remotely connected to some person doing these questions at Dropbox (besides the rape stuff of course)

Re: Worst interview questions for software developers

#147

Post by ChrisMarshallNY »

amelius wrote: post #145
ChrisMarshallNY wrote: post #142

> Have a family/children? How does this affect your work? I'm pretty sure that question is illegal. I do know that asking if someone is married, is illegal (in my state). We got lots of CYA training from HR, telling us to not ask these questions.

How should the interviewee respond to illegal questions?

Can't answer that for others, but for me, I would end the interview, and walk out.

But I have the luxury of having the means to do that.

Re: Worst interview questions for software developers

#148

Post by bratbag »

necovek wrote: post #64
Volundr wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'll just second this based on my experience with software engineers. Most places I've worked your looking at at least 6 months before someone is starting to get enough familiarity with everything involved in the internal ecosystem (both technical and non) to really be productive and probably a year before they're starting to reach the productivity of their peers. So if someone leaves at 2 years you've probably gotte…

I've contributed significant changes in my first 3 months at most jobs. Lack of fit (eg with your manager) can become too much at 5 months.

So have I, but notably the jobs where I have not, are identifiable by significant legacy code.

It's easy to make a quick impact on greenfield or yellow field projects with little or no pre existing dependencies.

Hiring managers need to consider if the question is relevant, given the work to be done.

Re: Worst interview questions for software developers

#149

Post by KyeRussell »

lofatdairy wrote: post #3

>4. Why do you change jobs so often (so rarely)? Am I wrong to think this seems at least somewhat reasonable? Like obviously it's annoying to explain yourself, but it takes time to on-board someone and for them to become productive and it seems reasonable to want someone to stay on long enough for that at least. This naturally applies less to those super engineers you barely need to train and have obvious experienced…

No. It’s a fine, useful signal.

I have asked this question in the past, and will continue to do so. I used to be more lenient with short term stint candidates. It never paid off, so I’m a lot more strict about it now. I have not once experienced the highly competent short stint non-contractor developer that HN would have me believe exists in such frequently that’d make this an unreliable signal.

I can’t realistically envisage an employee so valuable and productive that anything less than a 12 month stint wouldn’t leave a taste in my mouth, and for good reason. Not many people would be earning their keep for a fair portion of that. And I would’ve burned a lot of time learning how to work with them. At the end of it you’ve ended up with a loss of what little institutional knowledge they had, and a bunch of code written by someone without the proven ability to build maintainable software that’s only learned by being burned and learning the hard way.

Re: Worst interview questions for software developers

#150

Post by Eleison23 »

Psychlist wrote: post #79
jemmyw wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do mechanics and doctors actually get asked those questions? I don't think doctors do, they have credentials and references. I'm pretty sure mechanics around here wouldn't get asked that, just references and maybe credentials and "how soon can you start?" Software is a weird industry where you have to quiz every applicant to make sure they know how to program even though they've been the industry for years, and we se…

Nah, software is weird because they so rarely ask people to do anything related to the task at hand. "solve a toy problem without using libraries. Please don't paste off SE/AI". I prefer to actually think about what I want and devise a problem set to work through with the last candidates. You know, "here's a simple TCP server with a minor bug in the handler for one packet. Let's fix it". Real job: here's a 100k LoC s…

[dead]
Post reply on HN