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Three questions to turn the table during technical interviews

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Re: Three questions to turn the table during technical interviews

#51

Post by photonthug »

evilfred wrote: post #4

“There’s an IC sitting out there who just had an amazing idea for a new feature/product. What happens?” in a company with more than 10 staff, they should talk to a product manager, sorry. you can't build a sustainable company by adding new features willy nilly whenever some dev has a Great Idea.

> build a sustainable company by adding new features willy nilly whenever some dev has a Great Idea.

This is hilarious because it seems to place some kind of value on a stable interface, but that is something that companies / product managers have themselves systematically destroyed over the last decade or so in pretty much every arena. Only software for professionals is even slightly immune to this (IDEs/CAD/etc). Pretty much everything else has auto-updated churn that you can't opt out of, on everything from UI to core features.

Putting devs in charge of inserting features "willy nilly" would likely result in a much more consistent experience than what we usually get, because they'd be willing to declare something "finished" eventually. Product managers want the churn, because they can boost fake metrics like engagement, and it gives them stuff to do.

Re: Three questions to turn the table during technical interviews

#52

Post by BobbyTables2 »

neilv wrote: post #27

Treating the interview as two-way is good, and how it should be. A couple points: > When people struggle to answer it you still reap the rewards of letting them know that you’re not just looking for a job, you care about being successful at their company. If you publicize that in a Medium post targeting HN-like audience, aren't you just increasing the number of people will ask that question just to "reap the rewards"…

Or get denied an offer for using “in this space” during a technical interview.

Re: Three questions to turn the table during technical interviews

#53

Post by photonthug »

bdw5204 wrote: post #25
happyopossum wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I suppose it depends on the role, but IME as a hiring interviewer, that phase of the interview can important. Do you truly not care to learn anything about the company you will spend the next 2,3,5,10 years with?

For somebody who's unemployed, especially somebody who's been unemployed a while (very common in this market), the main thing you care about is getting employed again. I imagine somebody who's currently employed wants to know that the company is better than the place they're currently at before they'd accept an offer. But sometimes "better" can be a very low bar to clear because their current company might be awful.…

> For somebody who's unemployed, especially somebody who's been unemployed a while (very common in this market), the main thing you care about is getting employed again.

Rather than seeing this phase of an interview as a chance to "conform even harder" and show smiling engagement in what is already an unfair / coercive farce, try thinking of this as an opportunity to exercise your curiosity.

I mean sure you don't really care, you just need a job. But it's possible to be curious about lots of things you don't really care about. Look at that bird, I wonder where it's flying from/to. Hey it's a car parked on the street, I wonder how many people had sex in the back. Look it's a manager at a company, I wonder how they handle product ideas in that company. Being curious is easy, usually it hurts nothing, and it's a kind of muscle that benefits from flexing. Besides, especially if you've got a long drive or a long interview.. well you're stuck with it, and what else are you going to do.

Re: Three questions to turn the table during technical interviews

#54

Post by photonthug »

seadan83 wrote: post #49
lolinder wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> In other words, evaluating the candidate by their questions is just bias towards those who are already in good situations. It sucks for the employee, but the unfortunate truth is that filtering for someone who's already in a good situation is actually a really good filter for the employer. As you say, it doesn't necessarily mean there's something wrong with them, but being unable to find a job for an extended perio…

> The hiring process sucks and it sucks that this method of filtering works, but it does work. How do you know this? (That this is not just sampling error, survivor bias, and/or confirmation bias) I speculate that a good hire is almost random. Context matters as well. I worked with someone that was horrible, to later find out they were the other dev that I was going to work with later on a contract job. The different…

This filter works because people that are really good at what they do naturally tend to actually care about the surrounding tools/processes involved. Someone that has no opinions at all about those tools/processes is just showing up, and people that are just showing up are not usually as good as people that are passionate about the work.

That said.. it is stupid/insulting/weird to interview assembly-line workers as if you're looking for skilled artisans. Most companies/interviewers completely lack the self-awareness and ability to reflect on which category of worker they actually need/want, and may not even realize there are 2 categories.

Re: Three questions to turn the table during technical interviews

#55

Post by cbanek »

A lot of times the questions I ask are literally about the job, since interviewers are so focused on trying to ask candidates things that they forget that it's a matching game, and the job has to be explained too.

I'll try to "turn the table" early on in the interview. Ask what they are building, ask questions, say how you might design it (or have designed it in the past). All the fluffy stuff people can lie about, but getting into a good technical discussion can I think prove that both people are on the same level and can work well together.

The other question I like to ask is "why are you hiring for this job?" This can be a real teller. Is it a group expanding due to new responsibilities? Did the last person leave in a huff? Figuring that out can really help explain the org you're about to go into.

Re: Three questions to turn the table during technical interviews

#56

Post by jillesvangurp »

evilfred wrote: post #4

“There’s an IC sitting out there who just had an amazing idea for a new feature/product. What happens?” in a company with more than 10 staff, they should talk to a product manager, sorry. you can't build a sustainable company by adding new features willy nilly whenever some dev has a Great Idea.

It's why I prefer working in startups. Less money but the amount of crippling BS you deal with is vastly less. Basically, you are the only thing on the critical path to delivering anything. A lot of what I do in startups is ruthlessly getting rid of anything that blocks me that I can't control.

I do some consultancy on the side with bigger companies that are stuck in exactly the way you describe. Because the elephant in the room is usually that product managers vary widely in quality and I've seen them be a bottleneck in quite a few places. There's this weird dynamic where you get non technical product managers act more like a CTO and CTOs act more like a VP of engineering in some companies.

Since I come in and advice at that level, I get to see this dynamic up close. Good ideas don't stand a chance in such companies and they actually end up paying me to tell them to stop doing stupid things that they already know they shouldn't be doing to begin with. A lot of companies are not long term sustainable because they fight themselves into corners like that. That's why consulting can be so lucrative. You just relay what engineers in the company are saying anyway to their managers. All you need to do is listen and talk authoritatively.

A good company would have a culture of being open to sound engineering and be empowering people to make things better. Steve Jobs famously encouraged that in his people and got rid of people that tried to prevent that. Elon Musk apparently does similar things. Neither are/were particularly pleasant people to report to but there's a pattern in their behavior that they encourage and insist on creative and critical thinking around them. A weak manager does the opposite. Weak managers are the reason consultants like me get lucrative gigs to tell them what they should already know.

Re: Three questions to turn the table during technical interviews

#57

Post by YZF »

evilfred wrote: post #4

“There’s an IC sitting out there who just had an amazing idea for a new feature/product. What happens?” in a company with more than 10 staff, they should talk to a product manager, sorry. you can't build a sustainable company by adding new features willy nilly whenever some dev has a Great Idea.

There needs to be some cat herding and not all ideas are great but on a strong team the devs know their product very well and understand their users very well. Amazing product managers also do that but they are a very rare beast.

There's nothing wrong per se with "talk with the product manager" but is that where good ideas go to die or is that a productive/creative/innovative environment where teams build great stuff.

A ton of stuff you use every day is "software developer had great idea". Even from really large companies. (p.s. using "IC" can already be a red flag - we don't use this terminology in the large company where I work).

Re: Three questions to turn the table during technical interviews

#58

Post by YZF »

jillesvangurp wrote: post #56
evilfred wrote: post #4

“There’s an IC sitting out there who just had an amazing idea for a new feature/product. What happens?” in a company with more than 10 staff, they should talk to a product manager, sorry. you can't build a sustainable company by adding new features willy nilly whenever some dev has a Great Idea.

It's why I prefer working in startups. Less money but the amount of crippling BS you deal with is vastly less. Basically, you are the only thing on the critical path to delivering anything. A lot of what I do in startups is ruthlessly getting rid of anything that blocks me that I can't control. I do some consultancy on the side with bigger companies that are stuck in exactly the way you describe. Because the elephant…

Startups can also have know-it-all product management. Ask me how I know. It's possible to have the best and the worst of all worlds, i.e. get paid more and be in a fairly functional environment or get paid less and be in a less functional one. The only startup where you're more or less guaranteed not to put up with bs is your startup. I've worked in pretty nice startups as well but also in good larger companies.

Re: Three questions to turn the table during technical interviews

#59

Post by YZF »

bdw5204 wrote: post #29
greenthrow wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you don't have any interest why do you want to work at that organization? You just want a check? That's not a good way to spend half your waking hours during the work week.

If you aren't already wealthy, you're probably working because "you just want a check". Even if the job you want is to own your own company, you still have to work until you have enough savings. This is how the world has always worked for most of the population in every human society that has ever existed.

If your skills are in demand you can get the check from many employers.

That said, if you want to run a business, and you don't like/want to do anything else, then you're kind of stuck. Unfortunately not wanting to do the job you want to get isn't generally what makes you a great hire but wanting to do a different job without having any skills also doesn't make you a great hire. Owning your own company is easy, go register it and you own it. Getting a check out of that is a little harder.

Re: Three questions to turn the table during technical interviews

#60

Post by bradjohnson »

rr808 wrote: post #28

I usually try to ask these What are the bad things about this job? What's the average tenure on the team, how many people have left the team recently and why? How does this team & company compare with other places you've worked? (second or third round) How many other people are being interviewed and how do I compare?

I like the middle two questions a lot, and I try to ask them as well. I think the other two are flawed, though:

> What are the bad things about this job?

Too vague. Most interviewers won't be ready to shit talk their employer with this question and will say "nothing." A better question would be some variation of "What would you change about the way your team works if you could?" Frame the question properly so that they don't set the parameters themselves.

> How many other people are being interviewed and how do I compare?

Comes off very insecure and gives you no useful information. It will only reflect poorly on you.

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