Comment by globular-toast | Hacker News Reader

Comment by globular-toast | Hacker News Reader

I had the strangest technical interview recently. I didn't get an offer, but in every case where that's happened before it's been obvious to me where my deficiencies lie (which I then use to improve in that area). This time I learnt nothing.

It was six individual one-to-one interviews, back to back. The first five were an ego trip for me. I was able to do everything perfectly it seems: read code, write code, talk about code. Then the sixth was this synthetic problem involving nested boxes. I figured out it was a tree problem and started writing code to build the tree. I had an approach in mind and asked the interviewer if he thought that was a good approach (given that there was only enough time for one attempt). He said no, he didn't think it would work. That completely threw me off. Later I realised me approach would have worked anyway.

I didn't get an offer, but what in the ever-loving fuck was the point of putting me through 5 technical interviews only to fail the sixth? It really felt like they were looking for that ego boost but didn't get it from me. It's hard not to sound arrogant in this situation, but I've been humbled in the past. This time I was just confused.

I'd say this happens semi consistently to me when I get rejected. I did a tech screen (of which this is the first I've ever failed). I chose to do it in Rust as that's my main language these days. I probably should've reconsidered that decision as Rust is notoriously difficult when it comes to dealing with trees and I spend most of my time managing pointers. I described a solution to the tree problem quickly, implemented it, and then dealt with the compiler for about 15 minutes. As a result I never fully finished the task, but it was pretty darn clear I knew what I was doing.

Same thing, they came back and said no and I really have a hard time imagining why other than the interviewer not being familiar with Rust - but - hey, don't tell me it's fine to use then!

That to say, rejection feedback is almost always useless.

This is why Python is my dedicated coding interview language. You could do something far more impressive in C++ or Rust, but if you don't quite finish the full implementation it's an automatic fail with some interviewers even if you had to take into account many nuances that a Python solution wouldn't.

Agreed - I’ve learned that interviewers care more about getting the end result in the time window than demonstrating lower-level skills.

Choose 1) The easiest high level language you can, and 2) the language used by the interviewer/firm.

Think of it like trying to be as much like the interviewer himself/herself, in both coding and communication.

That's also because in addition to testing if you can solve the problem, they're also testing your _judgement_.

It's an interview. Just like any other engineering problem: use the right tool.

If you go off tangent and don't solve the problem, then that raises the question: "Ok, the engineer seems to be able to code, but they didn't finish. Will they finish other work? Will they regularly get caught up in irrelevancies?"

Candidates pass the technical screens all the time but don't get offers for various reasons. Maybe there was someone else who impressed more, but there's also culture fit and personality to consider. I've rejected very very smart candidates for being arrogant or being poor listeners. A strong team needs more than technical expertise, it needs people who feel comfortable collaborating and have the safety to be wrong and learn

If the whole thing was coordinated, that’s messed up; I wonder if it was a coincidence and #6 was testing your mettle, or even just genuinely disagreed.

What did you do when he said no?

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