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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 occasionall

by 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.

by bostik 6y ago

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.