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I'm a freelance developer, so I get many interviews for possible engagements. My favorite recent question was (badly paraphrased): Some developers overdesign,

I'm a freelance developer, so I get many interviews for possible engagements. My favorite recent question was (badly paraphrased): Some developers overdesign, i.e. they design for possible future features. Some developers underdesign, i.e. they solve the current problem without too much design at all. Where are you on that spectrum? My answer: Hard to really answer this neutrally about yourself, but I try not to prevent future changes by making things overly clever or specific. Another one was: The project has a non-negotiable deadline and feature list and it looks like it's going to be late. What do you do? My answer: overtime doesn't work for highly intellectual work, so I'll see which features have the worst effort to usefulness ratio and cut them. They didn't like that. Good riddance to that project.

RcouF1uZ4gsC 7y ago
> The project has a non-negotiable deadline and feature list and it looks like it's going to be late. What do you do? Answer: Polish my resume, and update my LinkedIn profile.
- AstralStorm 7y ago
  You forgot about collecting all the paperwork about unreasonable demands of they decide to blame or smear you in some way. Scapegoats are a thing. This can be essential if you give a particularly evil company that tries to hold you hostage for a rehire.
shantly 7y ago
> Another one was: The project has a non-negotiable deadline and feature list and it looks like it's going to be late. What do you do? If both the deadline and feature list are actually non-negotiable and I'm quite certain it's gonna be late I'd advise them to halt it immediately to cut their losses, I guess. I don't know what else would be a sane response. Of course "non-negotiable" when it comes to feature lists and deadlines is usually grade-A horseshit so they don't actually mean it. Hell "deadline" is more often than not an exaggeration itself—you're not gonna drop the work in the trash if it's not delivered by 12:01AM on such-and-such day. TL;DR I'd assume "non-negotiable" was a lie because it basically always is. Bet they'd love that answer. [EDIT] Alternate answer: fortunately I'm in possession of a clock that changes reality when something's non-negotiable, so I'd just let it know what was up and it'd go ahead and make every hour twice as long for me.
- hermitdev 7y ago
  I once got called while on vacation for a bug in a library I owned. Pressure was coming down all the way from CEO and CIO to meet the "non-negotiable" deadline in 6 weeks. I just laughed at first. We were already 6 months late (my work, minus the bug) had been ready for 12 months at this point. My boss was insistent that I return to the office immediately to fix the bug in development. Thing is, I'd driven over 2000 miles and was about 30 minutes from leaving the country (US into Canada). Told my boss if he wanted me back in the office immediately, I'd hop on a flight in Vancouver with just my passport and laptop, the company was going to pay for my flight and I was flying first class. Also, I wanted all of my vacation time back, they'd have to reimburse me for my chartered fishing trip, then fly me back to my parents' so I could retrieve my car (I met up with my Dad and he was driving when I received the call). This all went down on a Thursday afternoon. Gave him an option: do all that I just laid out, or wait until Tuesday when I'm back online, and I'll fix the bug remotely, then return once it's fixed and ive exhausted the remaining scheduled vacation time. He decided the 10s of thousands to get me back immediately wasn't worth it amd it could wait a few days. Ended up extending my vacation by a week. So, non-negotiable, my ass. In the end, my big didnt hold up the release, and we slipped another 3 months. I was just a convenient scape goat as a back office developer by the front office devs at a hedge fund.
- ahartmetz 7y ago
  They were typically contractually obliged regarding deadline and feature set, but I know that really only the deadline was set in stone. It was software to support some real-world things that do happen on a certain date.
sethammons 7y ago
> The project has a non-negotiable deadline and feature list and it looks like it's going to be late. "Communicate early and communicate often. Managing expectations is key. Depending on the criticality of the project, we can look for additional resources or we can come to a consensus on alterations to the schedule or the deliverable."

RcouF1uZ4gsC 7y ago

> The project has a non-negotiable deadline and feature list and it looks like it's going to be late. What do you do? Answer: Polish my resume, and update my LinkedIn profile.

AstralStorm 7y ago
You forgot about collecting all the paperwork about unreasonable demands of they decide to blame or smear you in some way. Scapegoats are a thing. This can be essential if you give a particularly evil company that tries to hold you hostage for a rehire.

shantly 7y ago

> Another one was: The project has a non-negotiable deadline and feature list and it looks like it's going to be late. What do you do? If both the deadline and feature list are actually non-negotiable and I'm quite certain it's gonna be late I'd advise them to halt it immediately to cut their losses, I guess. I don't know what else would be a sane response. Of course "non-negotiable" when it comes to feature lists and deadlines is usually grade-A horseshit so they don't actually mean it. Hell "deadline" is more often than not an exaggeration itself—you're not gonna drop the work in the trash if it's not delivered by 12:01AM on such-and-such day. TL;DR I'd assume "non-negotiable" was a lie because it basically always is. Bet they'd love that answer. [EDIT] Alternate answer: fortunately I'm in possession of a clock that changes reality when something's non-negotiable, so I'd just let it know what was up and it'd go ahead and make every hour twice as long for me.

hermitdev 7y ago
I once got called while on vacation for a bug in a library I owned. Pressure was coming down all the way from CEO and CIO to meet the "non-negotiable" deadline in 6 weeks. I just laughed at first. We were already 6 months late (my work, minus the bug) had been ready for 12 months at this point. My boss was insistent that I return to the office immediately to fix the bug in development. Thing is, I'd driven over 2000 miles and was about 30 minutes from leaving the country (US into Canada). Told my boss if he wanted me back in the office immediately, I'd hop on a flight in Vancouver with just my passport and laptop, the company was going to pay for my flight and I was flying first class. Also, I wanted all of my vacation time back, they'd have to reimburse me for my chartered fishing trip, then fly me back to my parents' so I could retrieve my car (I met up with my Dad and he was driving when I received the call). This all went down on a Thursday afternoon. Gave him an option: do all that I just laid out, or wait until Tuesday when I'm back online, and I'll fix the bug remotely, then return once it's fixed and ive exhausted the remaining scheduled vacation time. He decided the 10s of thousands to get me back immediately wasn't worth it amd it could wait a few days. Ended up extending my vacation by a week. So, non-negotiable, my ass. In the end, my big didnt hold up the release, and we slipped another 3 months. I was just a convenient scape goat as a back office developer by the front office devs at a hedge fund.
ahartmetz 7y ago
They were typically contractually obliged regarding deadline and feature set, but I know that really only the deadline was set in stone. It was software to support some real-world things that do happen on a certain date.

sethammons 7y ago

> The project has a non-negotiable deadline and feature list and it looks like it's going to be late. "Communicate early and communicate often. Managing expectations is key. Depending on the criticality of the project, we can look for additional resources or we can come to a consensus on alterations to the schedule or the deliverable."