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Worst interview questions for software developers

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Re: Worst interview questions for software developers

#231

Post by the_only_law »

sakibomb wrote: post #230
BrandoElFollito wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which would be some of the wrong answers?

I interview people for support roles, when I ask this question it’s to see what their future goals are career wise. If they say they want to be in marketing or something else, I simply ask how they see this job helping them get there. That’s where they can come in with the wrong answer. If this role can’t help you get to your actual goals, chances are you’ll be looking to leave sooner than later and you most likely w…

> I simply ask how they see this job helping them get there.

So just curious, in my last job the real answer would have been “it’s paying enough to let me fund things on the side to help me move towards my goals”. Is this a wrong answer? I imagine most places wouldn’t care for such a blunt, cynical answer, but it’s the truth.

Re: Worst interview questions for software developers

#232

Post by bigwavedave »

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…

> [snip] 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. [snip]

I'm not sure that's entirely fair to say. If a company makes a few bad hires, are they necessarily bad at selecting candidates that will make them happy? Or is it also that there are other factors, like lack of availability of first-choice candidates, possibly an inexperienced hiring manager, maybe pressure from C-suites to hire a friend of theirs regardless of qualifications, and perhaps the regrettable, but unavoidable, truth that a bad hire is more than likely going to misrepresent themselves and social engineer their way into an offer?

Personally, I think it's a little unfair to make the assumption that someone who's switched around a handful of times and/or gives "morale" as a reason for leaving is bad at picking jobs that will make them happy, but I'm just some guy on the internet- I don't really know anything about anything.

Re: Worst interview questions for software developers

#233

Post by rightbyte »

bluefirebrand wrote: post #172
rightbyte wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Ye, automotive ECU programming, 5 months. The 3rd one industrial plant controller software, 4 months. Both one-liners if I remember correctly.

Re: Worst interview questions for software developers

#234

Post by timeon »

zulban wrote: post #183
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…

The question isn't a way to know the future. It's to gauge whether they have thought about the future. Easy to pass, but red flag for a fail.

Genuine question: why does it matter?

Re: Worst interview questions for software developers

#236

Post by timeon »

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.…

> perfect number

More like 30. But I'm not expecting perfect one.

Re: Worst interview questions for software developers

#239

Post by zugi »

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 don't currently have a standard way to ask about this

Typically I don't ask about the overall trend, but ask a bit about each of their last few jobs including their reason for leaving each. (This works regardless of whether they've had many or few jobs.)

Then you can decide whether you think there's a worrying trend (e.g. talking disparagingly about every single one of their many < 1- year jobs) or generally reasonable reasons for moving on.

Re: Worst interview questions for software developers

#240

Post by Blackstrat »

Jiro wrote: post #213
Blackstrat wrote: post #55

Having interviewed innumerable candidates for software development roles, I seldom used anything resembling these questions. If the candidate had relevant domain knowledge, e.g., financial apps, we’d talk about that. If not, how did that person go about acquiring the relevant knowledge. Same on the development platform. If they weren’t experienced with our suite of technologies, how do they approach learning it. What…

>When I clarified that I only cared about technical material, he replied that he only read technical material on the job, not after hours. He's heard of work/life balance and doesn't want to do work during unpaid hours. Nobody hires a cashier asking "tell me how you've made cashiering an integral part of your whole life or we won't hire you".

Work/life balance? Yes, work/life balance matters. On the other hand, when one enters a professional field, the expectation of the employer is that they maintain their value. The employer is paying for productivity. The individual has the responsibility of maintaining and enhancing their knowledge. Those thinking otherwise are opening the door to foreign competition, against which they will lose. And comparing software development to cashiering is apples and oranges.
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