4 ms·

I think developers complain way to much about the interview process. The fact of the matter is that it's very clear what type of questions will be asked for mos

I think developers complain way to much about the interview process. The fact of the matter is that it's very clear what type of questions will be asked for most technical interviews and there is a wealth of resources available to prepare. The ROI on spending a couple of weeks preparing is definitely worth the possibility of a substantial raise at a big technology company. I can't think of another industry that is as high paying as software development, with such a low barrier to entry (formal education matters less and less) with such transparency regarding the interview process (books, blogs, literal guides from the company itself). And HN is flooded with a couple of posts like this every single month, is it perfect? No. What is? At the end of the day this just looks like entitlement.

msluyter 8y ago
I only skimmed the parent article, but I tend to agree with you. I would add that a lot of the job entails quickly learning new things and solving new problems. For example, just yesterday I had to work with RavenDB, which I've never seen before. The complaint that you shouldn't need to know how to, say, write a BFS because you never have to do that IRL has only surface validity when you consider that much of your job amounts to doing things you've never done IRL. In other words, if you can't (re) learn certain CS fundamentals in preparation for an interview, perhaps you'll have trouble on the job as well. This isn't to let interviewers off the hook, however. Standard whiteboard problems like "reverse a linked list" are still suboptimal, IMHO, and even with these, there are better and worse ways to handle them. Do you focus on the interviewees reasoning and use the problem as a basis for deeper discussion or simply focus on their end result? Do you treat Sr & Jr interviewees the same? Do you seek out curiosity and ability to learn or a specific knowledge set. IMHO, if the latter, you're probably doing it wrong.
ucaetano 8y ago
> What is? At the end of the day this just looks like entitlement. I had the same impression, particularly driven by these quotes: From this day on, I was even more disappointed — both with myself and tech hiring process — rejection, rejection, rejection. It honestly feels as if I am a complete failure and an unhirable candidate. How is this possible — I have received emails from people all over the world, who praise and give me thanks for the work I’ve done on my open-source projects and tutorials (and I say this as humbly as I can); people who see me as an expert on Hackhands; co-workers, friends and acquaintances from meetups, hackathons, conferences who apparently think I am a decent programmer—but I cannot pass a single tech interview. How? TBH, the author sounds like someone who went to the interviews completely unprepared, believing that just because they have some open-source projects and tutorials, they deserve to be hired. Nobody deserves anything. Most of my friends who went up for interviews with FAANG (or whatever is the latest acronym) studied and prepared for months even before applying.
- zanny 8y ago
  > Nobody deserves anything. I'm pretty sure doctors don't have to go get their high school bio textbooks and review cell structures to get hired at a new hospital. It is absolutely insulting to someone who can prove a substantial history of productive software to ask them to spend hours doing trivial brain teasers for them. If you have open source projects under your ownership or substantial contributorship that the company you are applying for is using and they still treat you like a wet graduate coming off a brief affair with Java Swing you should feel insulted.
  - ucaetano 8y ago
    > I'm pretty sure doctors Doctors have to go through over a decade of accredited education and training to even apply to be a doctor at a hospital. It is a restricted and regulated profession. Software development is nothing of the sort. > absolutely insulting to someone Wow, this really sounds like entitlement. You don't deserve anything. Nobody knows how you developed that "productive software". Did you have help from a friend? did you take 10 years longer than someone else would? Did you copy some of it? Did you work alone and would be useless if you had to interact with others and work as part of a team or project? Sure, when you're a widely known developer with plenty of real accolade (not emails or tweets), then you can expect to be treated differently. Until then, don't expect to be treated any differently just because you have some code on github.
keb_ 8y ago
I know where you're coming from, but I don't actually think it's very clear what type of questions will be asked for most technical interviews, and that is what makes it so frustrating and soul-crushing. There is always something I do not know, so the kinds of questions I face during interviews is seemingly endless. If I'm applying for a Front-End Developer position, the interviews can ask CS fundamental questions, or things I maybe learned by reading Cracking The Coding Interview, or doing HackerRank problems; or they might ask specific questions about any frameworks or libraries listed on the job posting, or they might ask more software architecture / system design questions, or they might ask about the Software Development Life Cycle, what is Waterfall, describe AGILE, how do you write testable code, the deployment process, security vulnerabilities, etc. Maybe all of that doesn't sound so bad to you, but for a young, mostly inexperienced developer who is trying to get a better job, it is daunting.
zanny 8y ago
It is a total failure of industry to ask people who are productively writing software one day to waste dozens of hours learning to dance an artificial interview game to get hired somewhere to start writing productive software again weeks later. If the candidate has no resume and nothing to prove they have any skill then yes, give them a rigamarole. But for don't ask a staff artist to speedpaint you the view out the window with crayons in a lined paper binder in half an hour. They give you their porfolio, you inspect it, and if they are accredited and recognized you don't waste their time on quizbowl. Arguing about it though is mostly pointless. The awareness is out there that these companies are throwing away not just the on hand candidates they turn down for failing their charade game but also the legions of potential employees turned off by the theatrics and immaturity of software hiring. The OP is absolutely right to say interviewing in tech is draining because you go from thinking yourself competent on the outside to interviewers trying to beat you into a sobbing mess on the inside. Its adversarial from the start at almost every company, it certainly contributes in large part to the lack of women participating in development, and businesses seem to be just fine with the outcomes since they know what they are doing is awful but so long as they are "hip" and popular they can get away with it, with an endless list of potential hires to give the rigamarole to.
- otras 8y ago
  > if they are accredited and recognized This jumped out at me. What do you think is analogous to that accreditation in the software industry?
  - zanny 8y ago
    A portfolio of shipped code, preferably open source. No different than how an artist might have to jump through a lot of shit to get hired if they don't have a substantial show of work, but if they do, you are often fast tracked into employment. That doesn't preclude spending some time to insure your candidate isn't plagiarizing their cited works, but that is a problem other industries have solved well for years without turning the process into an adversarial circus.
wvenable 8y ago
> The ROI on spending a couple of weeks preparing is definitely worth the possibility of a substantial raise at a big technology company. If you're a junior that makes perfect sense. As a senior developer, you can spend as much time as a junior preparing for these entry-level coding tests and perform just as well. And that's the problem. I'm a significantly better developer in all ways now than I was when I was a student and could rattle off answers to these questions without breaking a sweat.
mlindner 8y ago
> I think developers complain way to much about the interview process. The fact of the matter is that it's very clear what type of questions will be asked for most technical interviews and there is a wealth of resources available to prepare. The ROI on spending a couple of weeks preparing is definitely worth the possibility of a substantial raise at a big technology company. If you can learn to be an expert interviewee in a couple weeks then what's the point of the questions? If they're testing such simple easily gained but useless knowledge (as noted by requiring you to study for it) then how does it even filter out good candidates from poor ones?
beefalo 8y ago
Should a couple weeks of preparing be necessary when you have spent years doing the work every day of your life? This 100% biases your interviews to people willing to spend 3 weeks practicing problems instead of doing meaningful things, especially if they happen to have children to take care of.

msluyter 8y ago

I only skimmed the parent article, but I tend to agree with you. I would add that a lot of the job entails quickly learning new things and solving new problems. For example, just yesterday I had to work with RavenDB, which I've never seen before. The complaint that you shouldn't need to know how to, say, write a BFS because you never have to do that IRL has only surface validity when you consider that much of your job amounts to doing things you've never done IRL. In other words, if you can't (re) learn certain CS fundamentals in preparation for an interview, perhaps you'll have trouble on the job as well. This isn't to let interviewers off the hook, however. Standard whiteboard problems like "reverse a linked list" are still suboptimal, IMHO, and even with these, there are better and worse ways to handle them. Do you focus on the interviewees reasoning and use the problem as a basis for deeper discussion or simply focus on their end result? Do you treat Sr & Jr interviewees the same? Do you seek out curiosity and ability to learn or a specific knowledge set. IMHO, if the latter, you're probably doing it wrong.

ucaetano 8y ago

> What is? At the end of the day this just looks like entitlement. I had the same impression, particularly driven by these quotes: From this day on, I was even more disappointed — both with myself and tech hiring process — rejection, rejection, rejection. It honestly feels as if I am a complete failure and an unhirable candidate. How is this possible — I have received emails from people all over the world, who praise and give me thanks for the work I’ve done on my open-source projects and tutorials (and I say this as humbly as I can); people who see me as an expert on Hackhands; co-workers, friends and acquaintances from meetups, hackathons, conferences who apparently think I am a decent programmer—but I cannot pass a single tech interview. How? TBH, the author sounds like someone who went to the interviews completely unprepared, believing that just because they have some open-source projects and tutorials, they deserve to be hired. Nobody deserves anything. Most of my friends who went up for interviews with FAANG (or whatever is the latest acronym) studied and prepared for months even before applying.

zanny 8y ago
> Nobody deserves anything. I'm pretty sure doctors don't have to go get their high school bio textbooks and review cell structures to get hired at a new hospital. It is absolutely insulting to someone who can prove a substantial history of productive software to ask them to spend hours doing trivial brain teasers for them. If you have open source projects under your ownership or substantial contributorship that the company you are applying for is using and they still treat you like a wet graduate coming off a brief affair with Java Swing you should feel insulted.
- ucaetano 8y ago
  > I'm pretty sure doctors Doctors have to go through over a decade of accredited education and training to even apply to be a doctor at a hospital. It is a restricted and regulated profession. Software development is nothing of the sort. > absolutely insulting to someone Wow, this really sounds like entitlement. You don't deserve anything. Nobody knows how you developed that "productive software". Did you have help from a friend? did you take 10 years longer than someone else would? Did you copy some of it? Did you work alone and would be useless if you had to interact with others and work as part of a team or project? Sure, when you're a widely known developer with plenty of real accolade (not emails or tweets), then you can expect to be treated differently. Until then, don't expect to be treated any differently just because you have some code on github.

keb_ 8y ago

I know where you're coming from, but I don't actually think it's very clear what type of questions will be asked for most technical interviews, and that is what makes it so frustrating and soul-crushing. There is always something I do not know, so the kinds of questions I face during interviews is seemingly endless. If I'm applying for a Front-End Developer position, the interviews can ask CS fundamental questions, or things I maybe learned by reading Cracking The Coding Interview, or doing HackerRank problems; or they might ask specific questions about any frameworks or libraries listed on the job posting, or they might ask more software architecture / system design questions, or they might ask about the Software Development Life Cycle, what is Waterfall, describe AGILE, how do you write testable code, the deployment process, security vulnerabilities, etc. Maybe all of that doesn't sound so bad to you, but for a young, mostly inexperienced developer who is trying to get a better job, it is daunting.

zanny 8y ago

It is a total failure of industry to ask people who are productively writing software one day to waste dozens of hours learning to dance an artificial interview game to get hired somewhere to start writing productive software again weeks later. If the candidate has no resume and nothing to prove they have any skill then yes, give them a rigamarole. But for don't ask a staff artist to speedpaint you the view out the window with crayons in a lined paper binder in half an hour. They give you their porfolio, you inspect it, and if they are accredited and recognized you don't waste their time on quizbowl. Arguing about it though is mostly pointless. The awareness is out there that these companies are throwing away not just the on hand candidates they turn down for failing their charade game but also the legions of potential employees turned off by the theatrics and immaturity of software hiring. The OP is absolutely right to say interviewing in tech is draining because you go from thinking yourself competent on the outside to interviewers trying to beat you into a sobbing mess on the inside. Its adversarial from the start at almost every company, it certainly contributes in large part to the lack of women participating in development, and businesses seem to be just fine with the outcomes since they know what they are doing is awful but so long as they are "hip" and popular they can get away with it, with an endless list of potential hires to give the rigamarole to.

otras 8y ago
> if they are accredited and recognized This jumped out at me. What do you think is analogous to that accreditation in the software industry?
- zanny 8y ago
  A portfolio of shipped code, preferably open source. No different than how an artist might have to jump through a lot of shit to get hired if they don't have a substantial show of work, but if they do, you are often fast tracked into employment. That doesn't preclude spending some time to insure your candidate isn't plagiarizing their cited works, but that is a problem other industries have solved well for years without turning the process into an adversarial circus.

wvenable 8y ago

> The ROI on spending a couple of weeks preparing is definitely worth the possibility of a substantial raise at a big technology company. If you're a junior that makes perfect sense. As a senior developer, you can spend as much time as a junior preparing for these entry-level coding tests and perform just as well. And that's the problem. I'm a significantly better developer in all ways now than I was when I was a student and could rattle off answers to these questions without breaking a sweat.

mlindner 8y ago

> I think developers complain way to much about the interview process. The fact of the matter is that it's very clear what type of questions will be asked for most technical interviews and there is a wealth of resources available to prepare. The ROI on spending a couple of weeks preparing is definitely worth the possibility of a substantial raise at a big technology company. If you can learn to be an expert interviewee in a couple weeks then what's the point of the questions? If they're testing such simple easily gained but useless knowledge (as noted by requiring you to study for it) then how does it even filter out good candidates from poor ones?

beefalo 8y ago

Should a couple weeks of preparing be necessary when you have spent years doing the work every day of your life? This 100% biases your interviews to people willing to spend 3 weeks practicing problems instead of doing meaningful things, especially if they happen to have children to take care of.