For younger candidates, how about questions like: "Do you have a passion for this industry? Why?" and "What have you done in the past that demonstrates your commitment to completing anything you set your mind to?"
For older candidates, how about questions like: "What do you consider your driving factor?" (with possible answers like "good benefits" or "complex challenges" or "teamwork") and "What sort of challenges do you see in this field/industry and how would you go about solving them?" (with acceptable answers from technical development solutions to "let's outsource" or something creative - something that demonstrates their wisdom, even if the field isn't their expertise).
How to talk about yourself in a developer interview
181–190 of 194 posts
Re: How to talk about yourself in a developer interview
#182> What is the hardest technical problem you have run into? I never seem to find a quick good answer for this. Maybe I just almost never work on REAL hard things. So my question to you, HNers, is : What is the hardest technical problem YOU have run into? I am really interested to know what you would consider 'hardest'.. It's probably not going to be something like 'I changed the css property value from "display: block…
I have no idea how to answer this question. There have been some problems where someone was stuck for weeks, and I came in and coded up a solution in a day. That seems, in some sense, good evidence of being hard, but those problems never seem hard to me. The reverse happens to me too, where someone else solves a problem that was hard for me, and it's easy to them. Is that a hard problem? It was hard to me, but the pr…
The incidents you describe are examples of what Alan Kay means when he says that 'outlook' is more important than 'IQ'.
Re: How to talk about yourself in a developer interview
#183Earlier quoted context omitted.
But who cares that it's a bad question. The point is that it was asked and you should either answer it, evade it skilfully, or find a tactful way to decline to answer.
The poster asserted that "100% of developers have an answer" to this question. We're discussing why some developers may not have a good or immediate answer, and why the question is not as good as he asserts.
Well, I don't know about how good this question is, but it is one that gets asked a lot. And I do still think that 100% of developers have an answer, because I am sure every developer has felt proud about something he did, no matter the size, otherwise why would they still be a developer?
Re: How to talk about yourself in a developer interview
#184Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think you may be overthinking how seriously your interlocuters take interpreting the behavioral questions. The vast majority of CS interview questions are really just one or both of two categories: 1. Say something entertaining or that makes me like you. 2. Say something that proves you're competent so if I like you it's not a hard sell to hire you. When you read this hard into a question that can in this framework…
Right, I actually agree. I said in another comment that these questions are lazy interviewing, because it's just the interviewer saying "Well? Amuse me." But it's still difficult to say I'm "proud" of something that I don't really think warrants pride. Just have to steel up and go in there ready to talk about something dumb I guess. The things I'm actually proud of are things that don't look impressive to the outside…
Some interviewers think like that, with this "wow me now" attitude. These are the bad interviewers, and honestly I don't much care about the answer given to them. The one losing is the company by not hiring me because I didn't "wow them" by their standards, and in the end I would like to work there.
But there are many interviewers that don't expect to hear the atom bombs, or the circus acts, or whatever else. They actually want to hear about something you did, finished, and then a feeling of accomplishment came over you. They are also developers. They want to know a bit more about you. And these are the people I would like to work with.
Bottom line, there are worst questions that are asked during interviews :P.
Re: How to talk about yourself in a developer interview
#185> What is the hardest technical problem you have run into? I never seem to find a quick good answer for this. Maybe I just almost never work on REAL hard things. So my question to you, HNers, is : What is the hardest technical problem YOU have run into? I am really interested to know what you would consider 'hardest'.. It's probably not going to be something like 'I changed the css property value from "display: block…
Debugging undefined behavior related heisenbug. Why your askin' such easy answers?
Re: How to talk about yourself in a developer interview
#186When I read articles about job interviews, I always wonder what is the correlation coefficient between "being good at interviews" and "being good at doing your actual job".
Re: How to talk about yourself in a developer interview
#187Earlier quoted context omitted.
If that's what it takes to get a job as an engineer at the big companies, it's not particularly surprising that the quality of their engineers has declined as they've grown. The skills of a con artist are not related to the ability to build good systems.
Conversely, the skills to build good systems are not related to working effectively with others. There's probably a balance that needs to be struck, though they're also not mutually exclusive.
There isn't a single work project that I've been part of in the last ten years where communication wasn't important. If you work with anybody else (and if you are writing software for other people to use the then you should be), then communication is extremely important to build good, effective and useful systems.
Re: How to talk about yourself in a developer interview
#188Earlier quoted context omitted.
If that's what it takes to get a job as an engineer at the big companies, it's not particularly surprising that the quality of their engineers has declined as they've grown. The skills of a con artist are not related to the ability to build good systems.
>> learn how to have a conversation > The skills of a con artist are not related to the ability to build good systems. lol. Communication is about moving information through someone's senses and into a model constructed in their head. If you can't effectively communicate about yourself, the interviewer is going to make more inferences about you and may focus on areas that aren't your strengths while not even knowing…
Drawing a conclusion from this, if a person has a disability that leads them to being unable to interact until they understand the nature (rules) of the person or group around them, then they're more-or-less screwed in an interview situation.
That does explain a few things. I am REALLY good at my job, and after working a job for a couple of years I become very good because of my disability, yet the same disability means I don't know how to interact with people so I interview poorly.
I don't know how to talk to people I haven't met and just doing it for practise isn't the way to learn. I really can't spare the 10 or 15 years it would take.
Ultimately, when someone asks something that's unexpected, makes a claim that's false or incorrect, I just freeze up and can't actually respond. In daily conversation with people I know it's not a problem, but with strangers I have to stand back and wait until I have a grasp their sense of humor, how much they think of themselves, and so forth, before I can speak.
Re: How to talk about yourself in a developer interview
#189This is one of the best blogs on the topic and as someone who has easily cracked all big tech company interviews I can say this is a good piece of advice. I will make following broad points: 1. Never walk into that room without practicing. Practice before a mirror, practice before a friend, practice in a car. Have a written script and optimise it to remove redundancy, highlight achievements etc. It is not about repea…
>2. Converse not interview This is good advice but it applies to both sides. The best way to learn about a person's technical background is to start from a common base and go over their experience. I like to start talking backwards from their resume, and say "OK, Job A. What were you focused on there? Your description mentions technologies B,C,D. How did you apply them?" You then just take it from there, pick up on t…
Yes. In fact there are very little blogs and advices for the interviewers.
Re: How to talk about yourself in a developer interview
#190This is one of the best blogs on the topic and as someone who has easily cracked all big tech company interviews I can say this is a good piece of advice. I will make following broad points: 1. Never walk into that room without practicing. Practice before a mirror, practice before a friend, practice in a car. Have a written script and optimise it to remove redundancy, highlight achievements etc. It is not about repea…
If that's what it takes to get a job as an engineer at the big companies, it's not particularly surprising that the quality of their engineers has declined as they've grown. The skills of a con artist are not related to the ability to build good systems.
> The skills of a con artist are not related to the ability to build good systems.
I think it is very very rude of you to call it a skill of "con artist". I have seen teams with average individuals achieving lot more than several very intelligent people simply because together they worked lot more better. Any company who ignored the communication and personal skills of their engineers is bound to fail.