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This is more of a meta question/comment, but so far in my entire professional programming career (10+ years), I've never been interviewed in a way that required

This is more of a meta question/comment, but so far in my entire professional programming career (10+ years), I've never been interviewed in a way that required any programming tests or proof of ability. Instead I've always been hired by reputation or referrals and thus skipped past such things. Is that common or unusual?

aplusbi 16y ago
Most of the interviews I've been to involved coding. The only one that didn't was my first - but they required a code submission. My reputation/referrals have allowed me to skip parts of the process but never the whole thing (I've skipped phone screenings, for example). I haven't been in the industry as long as you (~6 years) which might have something to do it. Also, you may be well known whereas I am not.
btilly 16y ago
I would consider it someone unusual, and a red flag for your employers. In my experience the better the company is, the more likely it is to require people they are interviewing for a programming job to demonstrate some proficiency for programming. As an extreme example, you aren't going to get a job at Google without spending several hours coding at the whiteboard. Why is this? Well first of all, most candidates can't actually program. Asking them to weeds out a lot of the chaff. Of course there are people who obviously won't have trouble with the simple questions. But if, on general knowledge and someone's say-so, it is obvious that they meet your bar, then the odds are good that they are better than what your company expects. If you're happy to always be better than those around you, this is fine. But if you want to land in a more demanding environment, it won't be obvious to anyone, including you, that you meet the standard. And so they will need you to demonstrate somehow that you do. If they don't, that is a red flag. It either means that they are not selective enough to guarantee decent co-workers, or you're so clearly above the bar that you're not going to have co-workers in your league.

aplusbi 16y ago

Most of the interviews I've been to involved coding. The only one that didn't was my first - but they required a code submission. My reputation/referrals have allowed me to skip parts of the process but never the whole thing (I've skipped phone screenings, for example). I haven't been in the industry as long as you (~6 years) which might have something to do it. Also, you may be well known whereas I am not.

btilly 16y ago

I would consider it someone unusual, and a red flag for your employers. In my experience the better the company is, the more likely it is to require people they are interviewing for a programming job to demonstrate some proficiency for programming. As an extreme example, you aren't going to get a job at Google without spending several hours coding at the whiteboard. Why is this? Well first of all, most candidates can't actually program. Asking them to weeds out a lot of the chaff. Of course there are people who obviously won't have trouble with the simple questions. But if, on general knowledge and someone's say-so, it is obvious that they meet your bar, then the odds are good that they are better than what your company expects. If you're happy to always be better than those around you, this is fine. But if you want to land in a more demanding environment, it won't be obvious to anyone, including you, that you meet the standard. And so they will need you to demonstrate somehow that you do. If they don't, that is a red flag. It either means that they are not selective enough to guarantee decent co-workers, or you're so clearly above the bar that you're not going to have co-workers in your league.