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Worst interview questions for software developers

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Re: Worst interview questions for software developers

#171

Post by throwaway9870 »

ownagefool wrote: post #130
neilv wrote: post #107

> 4. Why do you change jobs so often (so rarely)? If an engineering candidate's last few positions have all been about a 1-year vest, that's definitely going to be on my mind. I'd prefer to build a coherent, highly-effective development team who can see us through the whole lifecycles of this and successive projects -- not what might as well be fly-by-night gig contractors, tossing less-aligned check-off sprint deliv…

I mean most people will just tell you what you want to hear, but the reality it's usually about the following things: Pay - Almost always, wages don't keep up with your progression, and never with the market. Progression - Not just promotions, but being given the interesting work to run with. Once someone sees you as junior, it's easier to go somewhere else to be treated with a bit more gravitas. Morale - Quite a lot…

> Mostly, the negativity just writes off ambitious people. Though it might make sense given your org, like others, might just have the same reward problems.

Or the person has unreasonable expectations. On top of that, they are bad at selecting a job that will make them happy. In any case, I would not hire then either. Maybe if I just had some boring app that needed some maintenance I would hire them, but that is not what I do.

Re: Worst interview questions for software developers

#172

Post by bluefirebrand »

rightbyte wrote: post #111
r_hoods_ghost wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Surely this is the baseline? If you hadn't contributed significant changes in the first three months and I was your line manager I probably would have failed your probation. I wouldn't expect you to be at maximum productivity by this point but I would be expecting you to make substantive contributions appropriate to your skill level and experience within this time.

I am baffled by this. It has to be so different between fields and companies. At 2nd job it took 5 months until the first commit. At my 3rd like 4 months. Getting up to speed and not being a net time sink for the coworkers, like 8 months on my 2nd job even though I did kinda the same thing in my first job. About 5 months at my third job. This also make me have a hard time understanding how job hoppers are valued at a…

5 months to the first commit!

At my last job I had a small bugfix (a one liner but still a bug) committed on my first day, PRed and merged by the end of my second day. That job was the definition of hit the ground running but still. Damn.

Re: Worst interview questions for software developers

#173

Post by throwaway9870 »

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.

In my experience, mercenaries are never satisfied with their pay, they always want more. While I care about pay, I have also cared about a few other things: who do I work with and what can I learn from them, what type of work is it, location, company goals, etc. It is ironic, but I think if you optimize money by just focusing on money, you will fall short of what is achievable.

Re: Worst interview questions for software developers

#174

Post by heelix »

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?

I had someone do that to me in one of the later phases of an interview process. They were doing some physiological testing after the technical part - and the person kept diving into areas they should not have been asking about. I've been through enough interviewing/training on the other side of the table that I knew what was being asked was a bit no no. I finally called it out and asked, "you know you can't ask these types of questions, right?" They responded they were a contractor, so somehow them not working for the company made this all right.

I was shocked to get an offer from them. I turned it down, as from my perspective, it probably spoke volumes of likely cultural issues with the company.

Re: Worst interview questions for software developers

#175

Post by TheCleric »

chrisandchris wrote: post #168
karaterobot wrote: post #48

> How do you see yourself in five years? Man, this question. I was asked this question in an interview for a startup. I gave the regular answer that was expected of me. The interview went well, and at the end when the interviewer (who was the co-founder) asked if I had any questions, I turned this around on him: "where do you see [company x] in five years?" He laughed and talked about finding product-market fit and g…

I would try to answer (to my future supervisor) something like "I'll have your job, because I want to grow and get better". But that might the interview. Of all the dumb questions, I think this one is the dumbest because there are only wrong answers.

> I'll have your job, because I want to grow and get better"

I would never ask this in an interview, but if I was foolish enough to do so, I'd be fine with this answer.

Re: Worst interview questions for software developers

#176

Post by koonsolo »

rdoherty wrote: post #23

Worst one I got recently was "What is your perfect number of working hours per week?" I said 40 and the interview process was ended early after the CEO said "oh we put in 50 per week because we know it takes extra effort for a startup". I expanded on how 40 is what works for me, interview got very cold after that. I felt pretty incredulous after that. Especially when the recruiter asked if 40 was a hard requirement.…

Here is what I would reply:

I'm 43 years old, been programming all of my life, and have a Master degree. I've never seen a person do concentrated work or study for more than 6 hours a day. I've met plenty of people who claimed to do double. But they were either lying to me or to themselves.

If you think people can do 50 hours per week of highly concentrated work, you still have a lot to learn. Once you understand developers have around 0 to 6 hours of productive work in a day, you can start to optimize it.

Best of luck to you!

Re: Worst interview questions for software developers

#177

Post by ownagefool »

throwaway9870 wrote: post #171
ownagefool wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean most people will just tell you what you want to hear, but the reality it's usually about the following things: Pay - Almost always, wages don't keep up with your progression, and never with the market. Progression - Not just promotions, but being given the interesting work to run with. Once someone sees you as junior, it's easier to go somewhere else to be treated with a bit more gravitas. Morale - Quite a lot…

> Mostly, the negativity just writes off ambitious people. Though it might make sense given your org, like others, might just have the same reward problems. Or the person has unreasonable expectations. On top of that, they are bad at selecting a job that will make them happy. In any case, I would not hire then either. Maybe if I just had some boring app that needed some maintenance I would hire them, but that is not…

Fair comment. It depends what you think of the market.

I'm in the UK. My summary of the British market is most devs are earning $50,000 - $100,000, with a few tier 2 and even less tier 3 companies, that don't actually offer SV level RSUs.

Basically there's not a lot of spots to "guess right".

Historically there's a large contractor market that's way more lucrative net than anything excep tier 3, of which you can probably count on your fingers.

Personally, I try to build better orgs to keep these folks happy, but each to their own. :)

Re: Worst interview questions for software developers

#178

Post by chrislan815 »

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.

what can we do if they ask us illegal questions?

Re: Worst interview questions for software developers

#179

Post by mr_mitm »

oneeyedpigeon wrote: post #135
cpitman wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sounds like it was actually a perfect question. It made it crystal clear that you and the company didn't see eye to eye on work conditions, and that neither of you would be happy working together.

It's the fact that they're trying to trick you that I'd object to. Why not "we do a standard 50-hour week, how do you feel about that?"?

More than 48 hours is illegal where I come from

Re: Worst interview questions for software developers

#180

Post by djks422 »

rdoherty wrote: post #23

Worst one I got recently was "What is your perfect number of working hours per week?" I said 40 and the interview process was ended early after the CEO said "oh we put in 50 per week because we know it takes extra effort for a startup". I expanded on how 40 is what works for me, interview got very cold after that. I felt pretty incredulous after that. Especially when the recruiter asked if 40 was a hard requirement.…

Why doesn’t anyone ever ask why people are expected to work an extra 10 hours for free? This assumes that 40hrs/wk is standard, but that doesn’t seem unreasonable.
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