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A job interview is also you judging the company and people you’re applying to join. If you feel the team lead can’t handle you answering questions honestly beca

A job interview is also you judging the company and people you’re applying to join. If you feel the team lead can’t handle you answering questions honestly because it might reveal one of his or her blind spots, that’s not a great sign.

lumost 5y ago
At a certain point in your career, you'll start finding that the current TL you'd be joining often doesn't have the same context as you do. It can be threatening for junior leadership to onboard someone who has extra capabilities beyond what they do, and a big part of your job in these situations is to rock the boat...slowly. Bear in mind, many TLs are in their current role by virtue of having a good idea, supportive management, trust of their team and good/lucky execution. This combination of activities can easily mean that you have a great up and coming TL with ~3 years of experience. Management may be bringing in more senior talent as the upscaling product requires it, but that doesn't mean you start with the same trust, management support, ideas, or in-house knowledge as the TL. In such a situation, setting out to prove that you can outsmart the junior TL as your first contribution seems suspect... Bear in mind that often successful companies, have many inexperienced leaders due to growth.
allo37 5y ago
I was also thinking something along the line of whether you'd even want to work somewhere like that. But I guess not everyone is in a position to be so picky about their employment or maybe it would be a gateway to other opportunities.
dijit 5y ago
Ironic, as I almost always interview for the opposite. I don't really care what you currently know because software development paradigms can be learned with relative ease for a motivated and intelligent individual who already knows something. So instead I: 1) Poke around their CV/Resume. Just ensuring that they have the stuff they say to a basic level (some people just spam keywords) 2) Get them to a point where they admit they don't know something. Usually this means a deep dive on something common to the role I'm hiring for and that they have experience in. If you're unwilling to say you don't know something I usually reject the candidate. I know interviews are stressful and you want to impress your interviewer, but if you're willing to try to bullshit me at an interview then you're willing to bullshit me in a post-mortem, and I can't have that. Honesty - Intelligence - Experience in that order, always.
- JohnFen 5y ago
  Exactly this. When I interview people, I also consider it a HUGE red flag if I can't get the interviewee to say "I don't know" at some point.
  - sircastor 5y ago
    This may be a little naive, but what if your expertise runs out before theirs? It’s not unthinkable that a candidate has more depth in a field than you do. I remember asking a friend once if he could answer any Tolkien question, and he answered that he couldn’t answer everything, but the stuff he couldn’t answer, I didn’t know the right questions for.
    - dijit 5y ago
      This has happened. Then you ask them to explain it more. If you don’t understand then they likely don’t understand it enough to explain it.
    - JohnFen 5y ago
      > what if your expertise runs out before theirs? I'm always hopeful that the person I'm interviewing is more capable than I, and they very often are. But there's an interesting thing: the more expert a person is, the more willing they tend to be to say "I don't know" (often rapidly followed by informed speculation and a comment about how they would find out). Combining that with the fact that true experts usually prefer to operate at the limits of their knowledge means it's not hard to get such a candidate to say "I don't know". It's certainly not necessary to operate at the same level as a person to get them to operate at the limits of their knowledge and ability. In fact, relatively inexperienced people have a knack for asking those "naive" questions that lead into very deep pools. Edit: I should also mention that my interview style is not in the form of a quiz. It's a conversation. I think that makes a difference as well.

lumost 5y ago

At a certain point in your career, you'll start finding that the current TL you'd be joining often doesn't have the same context as you do. It can be threatening for junior leadership to onboard someone who has extra capabilities beyond what they do, and a big part of your job in these situations is to rock the boat...slowly. Bear in mind, many TLs are in their current role by virtue of having a good idea, supportive management, trust of their team and good/lucky execution. This combination of activities can easily mean that you have a great up and coming TL with ~3 years of experience. Management may be bringing in more senior talent as the upscaling product requires it, but that doesn't mean you start with the same trust, management support, ideas, or in-house knowledge as the TL. In such a situation, setting out to prove that you can outsmart the junior TL as your first contribution seems suspect... Bear in mind that often successful companies, have many inexperienced leaders due to growth.

allo37 5y ago

I was also thinking something along the line of whether you'd even want to work somewhere like that. But I guess not everyone is in a position to be so picky about their employment or maybe it would be a gateway to other opportunities.

dijit 5y ago

Ironic, as I almost always interview for the opposite. I don't really care what you currently know because software development paradigms can be learned with relative ease for a motivated and intelligent individual who already knows something. So instead I: 1) Poke around their CV/Resume. Just ensuring that they have the stuff they say to a basic level (some people just spam keywords) 2) Get them to a point where they admit they don't know something. Usually this means a deep dive on something common to the role I'm hiring for and that they have experience in. If you're unwilling to say you don't know something I usually reject the candidate. I know interviews are stressful and you want to impress your interviewer, but if you're willing to try to bullshit me at an interview then you're willing to bullshit me in a post-mortem, and I can't have that. Honesty - Intelligence - Experience in that order, always.

JohnFen 5y ago
Exactly this. When I interview people, I also consider it a HUGE red flag if I can't get the interviewee to say "I don't know" at some point.
- sircastor 5y ago
  This may be a little naive, but what if your expertise runs out before theirs? It’s not unthinkable that a candidate has more depth in a field than you do. I remember asking a friend once if he could answer any Tolkien question, and he answered that he couldn’t answer everything, but the stuff he couldn’t answer, I didn’t know the right questions for.
  - dijit 5y ago
    This has happened. Then you ask them to explain it more. If you don’t understand then they likely don’t understand it enough to explain it.
  - JohnFen 5y ago
    > what if your expertise runs out before theirs? I'm always hopeful that the person I'm interviewing is more capable than I, and they very often are. But there's an interesting thing: the more expert a person is, the more willing they tend to be to say "I don't know" (often rapidly followed by informed speculation and a comment about how they would find out). Combining that with the fact that true experts usually prefer to operate at the limits of their knowledge means it's not hard to get such a candidate to say "I don't know". It's certainly not necessary to operate at the same level as a person to get them to operate at the limits of their knowledge and ability. In fact, relatively inexperienced people have a knack for asking those "naive" questions that lead into very deep pools. Edit: I should also mention that my interview style is not in the form of a quiz. It's a conversation. I think that makes a difference as well.