The rise of never-ending job interviews

I’ve pointed out, before, that one advantage I have, is a huge portfolio (check my SO story[0]).

It’s tens of thousands of lines of code, in multiple shipping product form. All you need to do is clone a repo, hit “Archive,” and you have a built and App Store-ready app. Some of these apps are still on the App Store (most have been deprecated, over the years). I have full source for shipping apps (over 20), going back to 2012. I've been writing Swift -every single day-, since the day it was announced, in 2014, and have released quite a few apps, written entirely in native Swift. I'm working on a big one, right now.

Here’s an example of a repo for a currently shipping free app that is available as an iOS/iPadOS app, a Mac app, a Watch app, and a TV app. It’s a Bluetooth BLE explorer app (yes, you can sniff Bluetooth on an Apple Watch)[1], [2], [3], [4]. It uses this cross-platform Swift BLE SPM module[5].

All of the repos also include things like graphic asset originals (usually Adobe Illustrator). I’m a passably good designer. At one time, I considered becoming a professional artist.

All of my work is localizable and accessible. A number of my apps have been localized in multiple languages. These days, I also tend to do things like support Dark Mode.

I have a ton of SPM modules, tested, documented, tagged and available for immediate integration. I use most of them in my own work.

I have full source for a couple of server systems, that are in heavy use, today (I use them in my own work, and one is a worldwide standard, in use by thousands, daily).

I have dozens of blog posts, articles, tutorials, explorations and other online writings[6]. I go into great detail, how I design, test, architect, and think. Most of this stuff is extremely detailed, and comes with supporting playgrounds. I’m a fairly good writer. There’s a lot there, but it’s quite readable.

I have given instruction on technical stuff for years. The most recent one was a Zoom class on intro to Core Bluetooth, using Swift[7]. It was received well.

I don’t know if I have a single fork. I’m the original author of all of it. Since I have over a decade of commit history, across multiple public repository systems, that’s easy to prove. I also tend to have fairly informative (and frequent) checkins. It’s simple to see how I work. My GH Activity Graph is solid green[8].

My technical ability is not a matter for debate, it’s easy to see what I bring to the table (including limitations). I'm satisfied that there's lots of stuff I can do. I won't bother trying to claim abilities that I don't have.

Any interview should be only determining whether or not I’d get along, and whether or not I would be a good “personality fit.” Since I spent decades at my jobs, including at one of the most famous brands on Earth, that should also be easy to figure out. I could definitely see that some companies would not want me, but that should be simple to determine. I’m a completely open book. My LinkedIn profile is full of testimonials, by former managers, coworkers, employees, and open-source project partners.

It’s been my experience that all this has been completely ignored, in favor of ridiculous 50-line binary tree tests.

In one interview, I sent the recruiter links to several public repos of code for shipped applications, that pretty much exactly fit the requirements of the job they contacted me for. This was ignored. Instead, I was passed to an obviously bored tester, who gave me a binary tree test in a language not used by the open position, and I was dinged for not using a formulaic approach, unique to that language (which, did I mention?, was not the one used for the posted job). The repos that I had sent, were in the language that was specified in the opening.

After a few of these broken, insulting, awkward, hazing rituals, I simply gave up looking. It’s plain that no one wants me, and I won’t go where I’m not wanted. I'm fine, doing my own thing.

[0] https://stackoverflow.com/story/chrismarshall (SO Story)

[1] https://github.com/RiftValleySoftware/BlueVanClef (App Source)

[2] https://apps.apple.com/us/app/blue-van-clef-for-mobile/id151... (iOS/iPadOS App - Includes Watch App)

[3] https://apps.apple.com/us/app/blue-van-clef-for-tv/id1529181... (TV App)

[4] https://apps.apple.com/us/app/blue-van-clef/id1529005127?mt=... (Mac App)

[5] https://github.com/RiftValleySoftware/RVS_BlueThoth (BLE SPM Module)

[6] https://littlegreenviper.com/miscellany/ (Writing)

[7] https://github.com/ChrisMarshallNY/ITCB-master (Core Bluetooth Course)

[8] https://github.com/ChrisMarshallNY#github-stuff (GH ID)

I had an interview with a YC company last year. I went through -- not exaggerating -- 8 interviews, almost all of which aside from the initial phone screen were an hour or more in length. 2 of them were technical interviews. I had finally gotten to the take home project, naturally a project in Ruby on Rails despite the fact that I haven't written a lick of Ruby in my life. Anyway, I was rejected after this step. To be fair, the take home step was paid, which was nice, but not nearly enough for the time it took me to learn enough Rails to be productive, learn best practices / idiomatic Ruby, and solve the problem they gave me.

Incidentally I've noticed that the Ruby community has this weird thing about insisting on either N years of Ruby experience or requiring interviewees use Ruby during technical interviews or take home projects. Ruby shops were the only places where I've ever been required to use a particular language during an interview. I suppose it's because there's so much magic happening in DSLs like Rails that they assume it'll take too long for even experienced engineers to come up to speed?

Obviously there's risk involved in the hiring process. But I think there's a lot more risk involved in procedurally treating people like garbage.

Anyway, after that ordeal I'm going to insist on being allowed to interview in a language I'm familiar with. They'll judge me on my best work or not at all.

I think the biggest give-away from the article and from the comments written here is that companies neglect recruiting as a chance to generate positive brand impressions and in general, use it for marketing. If people walk away from your interviews feeling disappointed or mistreated there's a good chance they won't recommend or advocate for that company in the future.

You'd think spending some executive muscle to smoothen out the warts in the process would be beneficial to any company trying to recruit smart people. But I guess having regular engineers or other employees with whatever ineptitudes in empathy or social skills won't be fixed by somebody telling them to "be sensible and nice." If that's how they were treated and think it's ok to treat others the same way, that's how it will be.

I'm not 100% certain of this, because I don't know what job they ask a question like that for. It isn't a software engineering interview. However, generally:

The rounds don't build on each other. You have X interviews and the interviewers don't talk to each other and are independent events.

They have gone through phases of having an initial phone screen interview which is a hurdle, but the rest are(/were) as laid out above. There may be exceptions for very senior people, but they are sufficiently rare to exclude.

Google has it's problems to be sure - but by and large the individual people there mean well.

Indeed, almost nothing is available without investing 5 or more hours of your time. I have seen interview 1,2 plus full day on site development with senior dev for a front end job and something like 10 hours worth of assessments at FAANG. These are not high paying jobs btw.