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Don't forget to treat everyone the same on the technical questions, whether they are a new grad with no professional experience or a 20 year veteran with a prov

Don't forget to treat everyone the same on the technical questions, whether they are a new grad with no professional experience or a 20 year veteran with a proven (and easily verifiable via references) track record of success. Make sure they all run the gauntlet! Bonus points for grilling open source developers who wrote some critically important tool your company depends upon, and/or are the person who literally "wrote the book" on the technology you expect them to use.

harryh 10y ago
I am, almost, a 20 year industry veteran. I have no problem being asked to run the gauntlet. I'm happy for a chance to demonstrate my skills. Candidates that expect some sort of preferential treatment due to the number of years they have been working arouse my suspicions.
- AnimalMuppet 10y ago
  But don't expect a senior dev to have red-black trees memorized. A senior dev's answer will be "Use the library implementation. If there isn't one, look for one online I can use. If there isn't even one of those, look it up in Knuth." With no apology whatsoever for not knowing how to do it off the top of their head, because they know they don't need to do that.
  - harryh 10y ago
    I don't expect anyone to have red-black trees memorized. But I do expect an engineer at any level to be able to, say, rebalance a binary tree through brute force.
    - collyw 10y ago
      Is it something you do on a day to day basis? If so, then fair enough. If not you are being a twat.
      - AnimalMuppet 10y ago
        I have to admit, my initial reaction was about the same as yours. But after a minute or two of thought, I did know how to do it, even though I haven't ever (directly) used a binary tree in 30 years as a professional software engineer. I don't think it's out of line to expect a senior person to have the breadth of knowledge to be able to work, at a basic level, with basic data structures. To have memorized all the details of stuff they don't use? No. To have a basic knowledge? Yes.
        harryh 10y ago
        Exactly. It's not about knowledge. It's about being able to figure out a relatively straightforward problem. It's a test of ability.
Cakez0r 10y ago
> Don't forget to treat everyone the same on the technical questions, whether they are a new grad with no professional experience or a 20 year veteran with a proven (and easily verifiable via references) track record of success. Don't know if you're being sarcastic here, but this is actually true. I've interviewed people who have worked in senior coding positions for years who have struggled to finish fizzbuzz style coding competency checks.
- watwut 10y ago
  I would grill people who ask senior position more then those who look for junior position. Doing it other just don't make sense to me.
  - flukus 10y ago
    It needs to be a different style of grilling, based in their career. I don't remember how to write a bubble sort anymore, let alone other algorithms, those memories have been replaced by much more relevant information.

harryh 10y ago

I am, almost, a 20 year industry veteran. I have no problem being asked to run the gauntlet. I'm happy for a chance to demonstrate my skills. Candidates that expect some sort of preferential treatment due to the number of years they have been working arouse my suspicions.

AnimalMuppet 10y ago
But don't expect a senior dev to have red-black trees memorized. A senior dev's answer will be "Use the library implementation. If there isn't one, look for one online I can use. If there isn't even one of those, look it up in Knuth." With no apology whatsoever for not knowing how to do it off the top of their head, because they know they don't need to do that.
- harryh 10y ago
  I don't expect anyone to have red-black trees memorized. But I do expect an engineer at any level to be able to, say, rebalance a binary tree through brute force.
  - collyw 10y ago
    Is it something you do on a day to day basis? If so, then fair enough. If not you are being a twat.
    - AnimalMuppet 10y ago
      I have to admit, my initial reaction was about the same as yours. But after a minute or two of thought, I did know how to do it, even though I haven't ever (directly) used a binary tree in 30 years as a professional software engineer. I don't think it's out of line to expect a senior person to have the breadth of knowledge to be able to work, at a basic level, with basic data structures. To have memorized all the details of stuff they don't use? No. To have a basic knowledge? Yes.
      - harryh 10y ago
        Exactly. It's not about knowledge. It's about being able to figure out a relatively straightforward problem. It's a test of ability.

Cakez0r 10y ago

> Don't forget to treat everyone the same on the technical questions, whether they are a new grad with no professional experience or a 20 year veteran with a proven (and easily verifiable via references) track record of success. Don't know if you're being sarcastic here, but this is actually true. I've interviewed people who have worked in senior coding positions for years who have struggled to finish fizzbuzz style coding competency checks.

watwut 10y ago
I would grill people who ask senior position more then those who look for junior position. Doing it other just don't make sense to me.
- flukus 10y ago
  It needs to be a different style of grilling, based in their career. I don't remember how to write a bubble sort anymore, let alone other algorithms, those memories have been replaced by much more relevant information.