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The only company I encountered recently who wanted me to give a presentation when applying for a software engineering job was Snowflake. I guess asking everyone

The only company I encountered recently who wanted me to give a presentation when applying for a software engineering job was Snowflake. I guess asking everyone to jump through that hoop is one way of cutting down on the number of candidates.

devlopr 6y ago
It's one way to bias the interview towards extroverts. Based in the percentage of extroverts to introverts developers they will probably end up with less technically able development and the amount of meetings will be higher than average and meetings will be filled with people who need to add in something so meeting length will increase. Should have more people wanting to come into the office.
- dnautics 6y ago
  What? No. Being good at presentations is IMO uncorrelated to extroversion, I have literally seen hundreds of them (science grad school, was in two labs with weekly group meetings and went to two journal clubs a week, plus lectures by visiting profs, etc) a rough estimate would be I've seen about 500 presentations, most presented by people whom I know and have a good feel of whether or not they are extroverted.
  - ghaff 6y ago
    Maybe not uncorrelated but I mostly agree. A presentation is a performance. And there are people who can be very good at performing who are not especially into introducing themselves to strangers one on one.
    - dnautics 6y ago
      The reason why I disagree is that presentation is a skill and introverts are more likely to be conscientious about their presentation, their mistakes, and put effort into patching them up over time. Even if it's their first go at it, they are likely to be conscientious about the content of their preso because they know they're going to suck at the live aspect (I'm an extrovert, btw). There might be a maturity aspect too, as in: when you're a high school or college student you are one-tracked to barf all of your knowledge onto the screen, probably due to insecurity, but that's uncorrelated to social temperament
  - aeon97 6y ago
    I agree. I think presentation skills can be learned by anyone, regardless of personality. Maybe some people will have to work harder to develop them, but it's possible. I'm pretty introverted, but I have worked as both a waitress and a DJ. Learning to interact confidently with the public is just a skill for those jobs. Extroverted people might just master it more quickly.
bostik 6y ago
Back before the plague, we used to include a short presentation round for senior hires on the final day. After all, a senior engineer is expected to occasionally explain and simplify potentially complex issues to people outside their immediate circles. But we never made it a gauntlet. Presentation was for 15-20 minutes, on a technical and hopefully interesting subject of the candidate's choosing. It was also the first "real" interview slot, because the idea was always that by allowing the candidates to warm up on a topic they were familiar and comfortable with, they would be more relaxed afterwards. And of course we explained the reasoning to the candidate, upfront. Sure enough - we have people who enjoy being exposed to new, interesting, technical things. If they learned something new, great. If they found the topic interesting enough to ask further questions thanks to their own curiosity, even better. On the other hand, Spotify used to require an on-the-spot adlib presentation during their initial interview a decade ago. That was disturbing.
- ghaff 6y ago
  For a senior position, a short technical presentation seems pretty reasonable to me. Many in that situation probably already have something they can repurpose. As you say, most senior technical positions aren't just about churning out code in a vacuum.
- dnanabkchsbxb 6y ago
  Something that held me back is that all of my work has been under NDA, and my side projects aren’t worth presenting. I think discussions about my past work in interviews may borderline violate the NDA if I say the wrong thing, but putting it together into a formal presentation seems to cross some kind of line, and create documentation of a willful violation. If you’re interviewing academics, people who work in open source, or people who have already gotten a presentation cleared to give a talk somewhere, that wouldn’t be an issue. Those might be people you want to select for, but you should be aware that’s what you’re doing.

devlopr 6y ago

It's one way to bias the interview towards extroverts. Based in the percentage of extroverts to introverts developers they will probably end up with less technically able development and the amount of meetings will be higher than average and meetings will be filled with people who need to add in something so meeting length will increase. Should have more people wanting to come into the office.

dnautics 6y ago
What? No. Being good at presentations is IMO uncorrelated to extroversion, I have literally seen hundreds of them (science grad school, was in two labs with weekly group meetings and went to two journal clubs a week, plus lectures by visiting profs, etc) a rough estimate would be I've seen about 500 presentations, most presented by people whom I know and have a good feel of whether or not they are extroverted.
- ghaff 6y ago
  Maybe not uncorrelated but I mostly agree. A presentation is a performance. And there are people who can be very good at performing who are not especially into introducing themselves to strangers one on one.
  - dnautics 6y ago
    The reason why I disagree is that presentation is a skill and introverts are more likely to be conscientious about their presentation, their mistakes, and put effort into patching them up over time. Even if it's their first go at it, they are likely to be conscientious about the content of their preso because they know they're going to suck at the live aspect (I'm an extrovert, btw). There might be a maturity aspect too, as in: when you're a high school or college student you are one-tracked to barf all of your knowledge onto the screen, probably due to insecurity, but that's uncorrelated to social temperament
- aeon97 6y ago
  I agree. I think presentation skills can be learned by anyone, regardless of personality. Maybe some people will have to work harder to develop them, but it's possible. I'm pretty introverted, but I have worked as both a waitress and a DJ. Learning to interact confidently with the public is just a skill for those jobs. Extroverted people might just master it more quickly.

bostik 6y ago

Back before the plague, we used to include a short presentation round for senior hires on the final day. After all, a senior engineer is expected to occasionally explain and simplify potentially complex issues to people outside their immediate circles. But we never made it a gauntlet. Presentation was for 15-20 minutes, on a technical and hopefully interesting subject of the candidate's choosing. It was also the first "real" interview slot, because the idea was always that by allowing the candidates to warm up on a topic they were familiar and comfortable with, they would be more relaxed afterwards. And of course we explained the reasoning to the candidate, upfront. Sure enough - we have people who enjoy being exposed to new, interesting, technical things. If they learned something new, great. If they found the topic interesting enough to ask further questions thanks to their own curiosity, even better. On the other hand, Spotify used to require an on-the-spot adlib presentation during their initial interview a decade ago. That was disturbing.

ghaff 6y ago
For a senior position, a short technical presentation seems pretty reasonable to me. Many in that situation probably already have something they can repurpose. As you say, most senior technical positions aren't just about churning out code in a vacuum.
dnanabkchsbxb 6y ago
Something that held me back is that all of my work has been under NDA, and my side projects aren’t worth presenting. I think discussions about my past work in interviews may borderline violate the NDA if I say the wrong thing, but putting it together into a formal presentation seems to cross some kind of line, and create documentation of a willful violation. If you’re interviewing academics, people who work in open source, or people who have already gotten a presentation cleared to give a talk somewhere, that wouldn’t be an issue. Those might be people you want to select for, but you should be aware that’s what you’re doing.