4 ms·

You are in the minority. I said something like this, more tactful, in a very recent interview. The question was related to troubleshooting a performance issue o

You are in the minority. I said something like this, more tactful, in a very recent interview. The question was related to troubleshooting a performance issue on Linux. I answered, with the process and tool I would use and how I thought it would help, what I was looking for etc, high level The interviewer response was along the lines of 'anyone can spout off command names, but what's the flags and parameters, and what do they mean'. I answered I don't know the exact syntax, I'd have to read the man pages or my notes. The interview was cut short and I was removed from consideration. Note, this was not a FANG, was not for SRE or Systems admin type role either. But this was my experience. The majority of interviews want you to repeat trivia bullshit because it makes their job 'easier'.

edoceo 8y ago
I feel like you've dodged a bullet.
- PenguinCoder 8y ago
  Agreed, but it is still a frustrating experience. Though since this is the experience I have had, I have a i play the game to get a job. I never know if the next interview will ask the same shit but, I expect it at this point and I still hate it.
  - edoceo 8y ago
    From my side (hiring) it's rough too. All candidates seem prepared for this stupid game. Then I'm like, hey, show me some hobby code of some thing you shipped. Let's talk about your bugs, how you ship? Why you pick that stack? Watching a candidate click through their own buggy stuff teaches me so much, so fast about the person. My experience is that candidates are ready for trivia and sample/theory but are not ready to brag about their own cool shit. Talk about how great you are and what you learned, defend your choice, evaluate where to improve. That's what we do every day. we only use the white board for drawing arch-pictures/diagrams, and the occasional dickbutt. In fact, that's my new (and only) whiteboard question.
    - PenguinCoder 8y ago
      I have a lot of 'cool stuff' I would love to elaborate on, personal projects and home lab stuff. Though again, in my experience, companies don't want to hear this. They want to see stupid ass 'bubble sort this, merge sort that, fixx buzz without modulus' crap. I can't do that, I don't -want- to do that. I am not a programmer (despite my handle). I can script, I can automate, but I should NOT need to know every damn CS algorithm under the sun for a fucking NON dev, non programmer, role. I'm tired of this interview process. Tech is the only industry I know of, that has multiple interviews of varying nature, including phone, web camera/ doc collab, on site multiple days, etc etc. I once told a non-tech person the type of gauntlet needed to even get an INTERVIEW let alone a JOB in this realm, and their question was aptly "why the hell would you ever put up with that?". Their job interview was: resume -> onsite with manager, hired. I loathe this type of interview bullshit culture, and it more than anything else is driving me out of the industry. Sure I'm not Jon Skeet, but I do my job and I do it well. Continuing with these types of interviews and company shit, makes me want to go be an electrician or mechanic or anything the hell else.
BurningFrog 8y ago
> You are in the minority One way to think about the interview process is that it's a way for small, compatible, minorities to find each other. To make that happen, you have to be real during the interview. It's not for everyone, I know :)
- PenguinCoder 8y ago
  I wish I could downvote you. You have completely missed my point. I am absolutely 'real' during an interview, the problem is, the other side of the table doesn't WANT what my 'realness' is. They want cookie cutter CS grads.
a-dub 8y ago
It's funny. It's like the interview process is designed to build bad habits. If somebody needs to troubleshoot, I'd prefer someone who reads manpages. If you need an actual algorithm for something, I'd prefer someone who has a look around for libraries first and if it's really necessary, cracks a fucking book and figures out what the right answer is, rather than over-confidently pulling utter bullshit out of their ass on the fly. Honestly though, annoying interviews are just no-poach 2.0. It's a form of wage suppression if you really think about it.
- paulie_a 8y ago
  Obviously the person has to have a clue what they are doing. But I would never expect them to have the details memorized. "I'd look at the docs and stack overflow" is a valid answer. As long as they had the thought process established of what was being accomplished. They knew where they were going, they worked out a reasonable solution but maybe didn't remember some command flag. Memorization is useless. How does the person aproach and solve the problem is far more important.
- edoceo 8y ago
  I don't understand the wage suppression part. Elaborate?
  - a-dub 8y ago
    The harder it is to change jobs or explore opportunities in parallel, the less employers have to compete. There was a whole lawsuit about no-poach where a group of employers chose explicitly not to compete by agreeing to not hire each other's employees. I believe the same effect can be had by simply adding friction to the structure of the market itself. What's amusing to me is the brilliance of it. It essentially exploits egos in the workforce to suppress their own wages.

edoceo 8y ago

I feel like you've dodged a bullet.

PenguinCoder 8y ago
Agreed, but it is still a frustrating experience. Though since this is the experience I have had, I have a i play the game to get a job. I never know if the next interview will ask the same shit but, I expect it at this point and I still hate it.
- edoceo 8y ago
  From my side (hiring) it's rough too. All candidates seem prepared for this stupid game. Then I'm like, hey, show me some hobby code of some thing you shipped. Let's talk about your bugs, how you ship? Why you pick that stack? Watching a candidate click through their own buggy stuff teaches me so much, so fast about the person. My experience is that candidates are ready for trivia and sample/theory but are not ready to brag about their own cool shit. Talk about how great you are and what you learned, defend your choice, evaluate where to improve. That's what we do every day. we only use the white board for drawing arch-pictures/diagrams, and the occasional dickbutt. In fact, that's my new (and only) whiteboard question.
  - PenguinCoder 8y ago
    I have a lot of 'cool stuff' I would love to elaborate on, personal projects and home lab stuff. Though again, in my experience, companies don't want to hear this. They want to see stupid ass 'bubble sort this, merge sort that, fixx buzz without modulus' crap. I can't do that, I don't -want- to do that. I am not a programmer (despite my handle). I can script, I can automate, but I should NOT need to know every damn CS algorithm under the sun for a fucking NON dev, non programmer, role. I'm tired of this interview process. Tech is the only industry I know of, that has multiple interviews of varying nature, including phone, web camera/ doc collab, on site multiple days, etc etc. I once told a non-tech person the type of gauntlet needed to even get an INTERVIEW let alone a JOB in this realm, and their question was aptly "why the hell would you ever put up with that?". Their job interview was: resume -> onsite with manager, hired. I loathe this type of interview bullshit culture, and it more than anything else is driving me out of the industry. Sure I'm not Jon Skeet, but I do my job and I do it well. Continuing with these types of interviews and company shit, makes me want to go be an electrician or mechanic or anything the hell else.

BurningFrog 8y ago

> You are in the minority One way to think about the interview process is that it's a way for small, compatible, minorities to find each other. To make that happen, you have to be real during the interview. It's not for everyone, I know :)

PenguinCoder 8y ago
I wish I could downvote you. You have completely missed my point. I am absolutely 'real' during an interview, the problem is, the other side of the table doesn't WANT what my 'realness' is. They want cookie cutter CS grads.

a-dub 8y ago

It's funny. It's like the interview process is designed to build bad habits. If somebody needs to troubleshoot, I'd prefer someone who reads manpages. If you need an actual algorithm for something, I'd prefer someone who has a look around for libraries first and if it's really necessary, cracks a fucking book and figures out what the right answer is, rather than over-confidently pulling utter bullshit out of their ass on the fly. Honestly though, annoying interviews are just no-poach 2.0. It's a form of wage suppression if you really think about it.

paulie_a 8y ago
Obviously the person has to have a clue what they are doing. But I would never expect them to have the details memorized. "I'd look at the docs and stack overflow" is a valid answer. As long as they had the thought process established of what was being accomplished. They knew where they were going, they worked out a reasonable solution but maybe didn't remember some command flag. Memorization is useless. How does the person aproach and solve the problem is far more important.
edoceo 8y ago
I don't understand the wage suppression part. Elaborate?
- a-dub 8y ago
  The harder it is to change jobs or explore opportunities in parallel, the less employers have to compete. There was a whole lawsuit about no-poach where a group of employers chose explicitly not to compete by agreeing to not hire each other's employees. I believe the same effect can be had by simply adding friction to the structure of the market itself. What's amusing to me is the brilliance of it. It essentially exploits egos in the workforce to suppress their own wages.