Starters

I'm not an expert

The audience

Why We Interview

To get signal

technical

personality

Resume means little

Must Do

Get signal

Great candidate experience

Tell > Sell Axon

Look for their superpower

Must Not

Don't be rude

Don't discriminate

The Tech Question

Measure what matters

Example

{} + []

Bad Questions

Interviews are not contests

"Whiteboard" on a computer

The Scorpius Way

Picking a question

https://git.taservs.net/axon/interview-questions

• realistic work

• multiple steps

• several potential solutions

• not framework-specific

• try it yourself

• try it on a friend

A good question

• JS framework
• CSS
• debugging
• testing
• basic algorithms
• basic data structures
• architecture
• PM requirement -> working solution

Question focus

A good answer

• asks about requirements

• asks why before deciding how

• thinks big before small

• describes what they are doing*

• working solution

• discusses their choices

• describes weak points and assumptions

• listens to feedback

Value Questions

Not obvious

• Be Obsessed
• Aim Far
• Win Right
• Own It
• Join Forces
• Expect Candor

https://git.taservs.net/axon/interview-questions/blob/master/common/questions.md

“I would say choose one value that you feel you can relate to most and you want to see in the candidate. Work on asking questions around it. Calibrate it over several interviews."

  - Ashfaq

"The key thing is driving for details.

For example, “be obsessed” I ask what’s their favorite project. What I’m looking for is that they should talk extensively about a specific project, and see if their passion for it shines through. A bad answer is if they say they don’t have one or start listing a bunch of projects"

  - Anshuman

Try the question out

Good value answers

Can I work with this person?

Final Words

Confidence

Just one data point

Interview shadows

Dealing with strangeness

Questions?

Interview notes example

The candidate is definitely a generalist; he has jumped around to a variety of technology involving digital displays at __. He was excited talking about all the things he built, but wants to leave now as he's stuck doing maintenance on an underfunded team.

Personality
+ very friendly and easy to talk to
+ has had experience a wide variety of tech
+ very interested in Axon

Tech - build a todo app
+ clarified what a todo app should be
* wanted to get some react boilerplate, it ended up not working due to network issues
- had trouble getting started, hasn't built anything from scratch in a while
- kept getting into the weeds and not thinking about structure
* frequently mentioned he felt embarrassed at how rusty he was
- did not test or walk through his code as he went
- constant syntax errors and misunderstanding of basic JS/HTML API
- did not complete the app to a minimum bar (working but without filters) in time allotted