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you don't understand, I don't consider it beneath me at all, I mean, you have to interview somebody to know if they are a good fit, but I don't see why intervie
by tetraodonpuffer 11y ago
you don't understand, I don't consider it beneath me at all, I mean, you have to interview somebody to know if they are a good fit, but I don't see why interviews have to be hazing rituals on things mostly unrelated with what they are supposed to measure.
If you've interviewed tons it means that interviewing and whiteboard coding algorithms is a skill you have developed and are keeping current (because you interview tons, so you do it often) so you actually enjoy "showing it off" given that it is part of your core competencies
I would love to do an interview where there is a genuine technical discussion on actual hard problems one might find in a job (say, expanding on my scenario above, what are the pros/cons if you design an API to expose txns, why would/wouldn't you want to do it, and mitigations/tradeoffs you would have to deal with in each scenario) what I wouldn't love is going for an interview with 20 years experience and being asked to whiteboard random algorithms off the top of my head unless I am applying for a position where that is required (hint: I wouldn't)
All I, and others, want is for interviews to reflect reality, where you ask me what I am good at, I show it by examples and answers, and then I ask you if what I am good at is a good fit for the position, where you ask me what type of environment I work best in (collaborative, go and do your own thing, agile, waterfall, ...) and I ask you what type of environment your company provides and if it's a good fit, and then once we figure out that yes, I can work here and what I can do for you is what you need, we have a mature discussion on compensation and it's all done.
Assume you decide to have a custom house built and are interviewing architects for the job, are you going to ask them for their portfolio, for their ideas on flow, for what architects are their inspiration, for how they would be able to make your ideas on how a house should be real, or would you put them in front of a whiteboard and ask them to draw a bathroom cabinet from scratch and fail them if they forget to put the stop on the rails so the drawer does not come out when you pull it out?
- harryh 11y agoI guess maybe I've just been lucky (or perhaps have chosen which companies to talk to well) in that I've always had discussions closer to your "what are the pros/cons if you design an API to expose txns" example than "implement a red/black tree off the top of your head." Perhaps this is coloring my judgement. Honestly if someone asked me to code a red/black tree, I'd probably say "I remember that term, but I don't for the life of me remember what it is exactly. If you want to give me part of the answer I can probably logic out the details on my own but I'm not going to do well on your memorization test."
- bobwaycott 11y agoShit, that bit about the architect is fucking brilliant. I'm going to gratefully steal it and keep it close to my heart. I've done a bit of hiring and interviewing, and always try to keep it valuable and productive for the candidates, eliminating as much gruel from the process as possible. Sometimes, it requires convincing others not to do some nonsense they think is valuable. This is the perfect analogy for helping people understand.