A Better Developer Interview

Carlos Filoteo

Front-end Developer

Technical Interview Imp

Brainteasers are a complete waste of time.
Laszlo Bock, SVP of People Operations - Google
Few professions seem so openly hostile to their current members as software engineering... we still regularly throw away huge groups of talent for not perfectly answering the latest hip algorithm question.
Danny Crichton, TechCrunch
Nothing will force companies to move on to better techniques faster than losing appealing candidates before they even get to interview them.
John Evans, Journalist & Software Engineer

The Good

  • Relatively Measurable
  • Somewhat Repeatable
  • Industry Standard
  • "Easy" for interviewers

The Bad

  • Fails to ask the right questions
    • Focused on minutia
    • Ask for information easily referenced elsewhere
  • Over-focus on difficulty
  • Does not translate to real world

The Ugly

  • Hostility increases stress
  • Miss out on great talent that doesn't interview well (false negative)
  • Hire good interviewers but bad developers (false positive)
  • Sets expectation of bad company culture
  • Hazing mentality

Objectives

  • Talent first
  • Determine skill
  • Test boundaries of knowledge
  • Remove bias for "confidence" and "passion"
  • Consistent
  • Reflect real work scenario
  • "Will candidate increase probability of success?"

Solution: Explore

Side Project

  • Take 20-40 mins prior to become familiar with candidate’s project
  • General questions can be standardized (repeatable)
  • Discuss passion/reasoning, architecture, implementation, alternatives, etc.
  • Filters candidates who haven't produced anything (low-skill)

Solution: Online

Technical Review

  • Measurable & Repeatable
  • Automated
  • Saves Interview time for more valuable questions
  • Many options
    • ​Your Hiring Partner can help you get started with HackerRank

Solution: Pair Program

  • Witness development skills firsthand
    • ​Preferred resources, languages, syntax, IDEs, etc.
  • More opportunities to explore boundaries of knowledge
  • Opportunity for feedback and criticism
Fortunately, “better than the old way” is a very low bar.
Jon Evans
Hiring human beings is hard... Don't rush into anything unless it feels right on both sides.
Jeff Atwood
  • https://sockpuppet.org/blog/2015/03/06/the-hiring-post/
  • https://blog.codinghorror.com/how-to-hire-a-programmer/
  • https://techcrunch.com/2015/03/21/the-terrible-technical-interview/
  • http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/20/business/in-head-hunting-big-data-may-not-be-such-a-big-deal.html
  • http://firstround.com/review/The-anatomy-of-the-perfect-technical-interview-from-a-former-Amazon-VP/
  • https://techcrunch.com/2015/03/08/on-secretly-terrible-engineers/
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