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The problem with "tell me about your projects" is that it doesn't distinguish good programmers from bad. It isn't even gaming. A programmer who makes a negati
by dspeyer 16y ago
The problem with "tell me about your projects" is that it doesn't distinguish good programmers from bad. It isn't even gaming. A programmer who makes a negative net contribution to a large project may sincerely feel he is responsible for its success. All you can pick up on is their perception.
At least when you ask them to write code, you can tell if they got it right or wrong.
- yannickt 16y agoYou can actually learn a lot from a candidate's past projects if you know how to follow up with the right questions. Someone who had a negative net contribution on a project will not have anything interesting to say about the data structures or algorithms they used. They won't have interesting war stories to share either (e.g. nasty bug fix, conflict with management or team and how they overcame it, etc.).