Comment by rewmie | Hacker News Reader

Comment by rewmie | Hacker News Reader

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> What kills me is the fact that the interviews (especially the technical ones) go in depth into topics that aren’t ever pertinent to the job. It’s simply so the interviewer can rank you vs themselves. You need to be good but not too good you’re a threat.

Story time.

A few years back I was in hiring loops as an interviewer. Half a dozen engineers in my company interviewed a candidate during a morning. Everyone had their notes and we were discussing if we should hire the guy or not. Everyone gave thumbs up except one engineer. It turned out he tested the candidate on data structures and algorithms, and the candidate hadn't memorized the computational complexity of some bullshit algorithm that only shows up in lame trivia games no one cares about. Based in that, that particular interviewer gave thumbs down. We discussed everything, went through all notes, and ultimately based on all feedback the hiring leader gave a thumbs up. The data structures engineer threw a tantrum. In his opinion, we would be lowering the hiring bar if we hired a candidate that failed to meet his bar on what he felt were basic competences. The hiring leader asked how many times he used that algorithm in his everyday work. The data structures engineer answered that alas he never used it at all, but still he felt that everyone working in his org should know that.

I feel some companies don't have good hiring managers and give free reign to bad engineers who have no idea what it takes to deliver production code.

This personality defect is painfully common. They view themselves as "the bar."

It's always trumped up nonsense blown out of proportion. In one debrief, they made a stink because they botched an implementation of a red-black tree. it was the most pretty, trivial nonsense. The only time people are implementing red-black trees by hand are... when they're studying for our bullshit software interviews.

We also had a guy with a Ph.D in.. something. He wanted everyone to know he was very smart. Especially the interviewees. The problem he asked was so bizarre and complex that it took those of us already at the company several hours to figure it out upon giving it a try. it's just, like, dude, what is the point of what you're trying to do here? How small is your ego that you need to bully strangers on irrelevant nonsense?

That’s why you need experienced hiring managers. The questions should be discussed and approved before the interview. You just don’t let an engineer ask whatever they want. An interview plan needs to be shared to avoid overlapping questions or topics between interviews. In this particular example the hiring leader did the right thing, only after doing the wrong thing: not review or having an interview plan discussed beforehand and training the interviewers. The interviewing principles need to be clear to all your interviewers.

> You just don’t let an engineer ask whatever they want.

In my anecdote, the data structure engineer was indeed tasked with evaluating the candidate on his data structures knowledge. Except that the candidate had guidelines that went in the line of assessing basic understanding and proficiency in following an algorithm, but instead opted to make it a game of Trivial Pursuit.

That is a major problem in interviewing. Everyone has their own set of internal guidelines!

I have worked on teams trying to improve our interviewing process, and one key goal was aligning everyone in exactly what technical and personal attributes we were trying to hire for.

In my anecdote, we already had very explicit and rigorous guidelines. We had goals, evaluation requirements, question banks, and more importantly post-interview meetings where all interviewers matched notes and we're tasked with gathering data on topics that overlapped the responsibilities of other interviewers.

Even so, the data structure engineer cracked open Trivial Pursuit on the candidates and wanted to reject him based on one answer alone.

Yup, some people just seem to have a hard time with evaluating candidates fairly rather than by some arbitrary guidelines inside their head.

Of course if you're looking for a software jeopardy contestant maybe memory recall is important, but for the rest of us it is much better to have a good understanding of fundamentals and know where to look when it comes to specifics!

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