5 ms·

Can't really comment on whether that was the correct way to handle the situation, given that passing the interview was the goal. However, I would have a hard ti

by tomerv 5y ago

Can't really comment on whether that was the correct way to handle the situation, given that passing the interview was the goal. However, I would have a hard time giving an incorrect answer on purpose. I also consider an interview as an opportunity to learn about the company I'm going to work for, and especially my future colleagues. I would probably try to give a full answer, such as "there's a widely-held concept X, but my understanding is that this is not completely correct, and in fact a better model is Y." A technical lead that can't work with an answer like that is one I probably don't want to work with.

unbalancedevh 5y ago
And giving a response like this is still a good indication of people skills -- Do you know how to present a controversial opinion in a way that encourages people to accept it, or do you ram it down people's throats?
- kevstev 5y ago
  Yeah I think this is way overblown- The way to approach this is "Well typically MVC is presented as such and people think its represented in typical architectures as blah blah blah, but from an actual theory perspective what actually happens is that blah blah blah..." You cover both bases, give the blogspam answer that most view is the "right" one, but also show that you have a much deeper understanding. My favorite question when interviewing node.js candidates was around this type of ambiguity- "Is node.js single threaded or multithreaded?" and most would immediately shout back "single threaded!" but the reality is that its a bit more complicated than that, its a single threaded event loop backed by a thread pool, and I wouldn't ever hold a "single threaded!" answer against them, but start to ask leading questions as to what happens when we have say 5 requests all come in more or less at the same time to see if they really understood how things work. And the point is not to gotcha! them, its just to start a discussion- though if they reply back "well its complicated..." then I know they probably are already there. In the context of MVC though, I feel this is really overly pedantic. MVC is an idea that is never actually implemented in purity, and understanding the basic idea is all that is really needed, outside of maybe very specific roles implementing web frameworks.
  - ghaff 5y ago
    Or "MVC is often thought of as mapping to the three tiers although that's a bit of a simplification that doesn't fully capture the mapping." And there are essentially always nuances. So that's not really a controversial statement. At which point, the tech lead can accept the answer as pretty much what they were looking for or can probe further if it's actually the nuances they're interested in.
rocqua 5y ago
Do you want to have that discussion with your team-lead almost fully cold, in front of his superior? Because in the article, that is the key point. The applicant was totally willing to go into a fair discussion about the pattern. However, doing that in front of the tech-lead his boss is likely to be different from a fair discussion. Disagreement about technical architecture is fine. Doing so in front of higher management is likely a different ball game.
- quirkot 5y ago
  seems like having a discussion like that in front/with management would be a great way to suss out the way management will respond to future differences of opinion. A very valuable thing to know in deciding whether to accept a position
- tomerv 5y ago
  The tech lead is not the one being interviewed here. Presumably, they are already respected in their workplace, and admitting that they learned something from the candidate's full answer should be seen as a positive by their manager. The way the candidate frames the answer is important here, so no-one seems stupid for holding a common misconception. And if the tech lead can't admit in front of their manager to not knowing everything? That's a sign of a toxic workplace. I'm not ashamed to admit that I have previously found myself in a situation similar to the tech lead: the interviewee gave a solution that I didn't know about - one that could be considered better - and my manager was in the room interviewing with me. I told the interviewee that this is a new direction I haven't thought about until now. It's important, otherwise we can't continue an honest discussion about the solution.
- seer 5y ago
  Unless you absolutely need the job, I would consider this a great opportunity to figure out how his boss would react. Getting into a lively technical discussion when you can see how well people can control their egos to find out the best course of action is very valuable. If I had a chance during an interview to find out how people behave in those circumstances I would definitely go for it. Who knows maybe the "boss" would be present in future technical discussions as well, I wouldn't want his presenc to change the discourse negatively. And as I've personally been in positions like that (being the tech lead with the boss on the call), I'm usually thrilled to learn new information and discuss technical things, raising my opinion of the interviewee greatly. Maybe that's because I come from a very straight forward culture where political subterfuge is frowned upon, but it wouldn't actually look very good to me if a member of my team would subtly alter a technical matter for the worse because of political pressure. Would I be able to trust that person? I would always have this doubt that they are "playing a deeper game", regardless if it was for my benefit or not.
csours 5y ago
The more time I've spent in tech, the more I realize that there are very few "correct answers" - there are things that work in a particular context. Software patterns in particular are just what you make of them. I would have no problem saying "many people use MVC to mean 3 tier and other people use it to mean XYZ". It is very difficult to be completely technically correct. It is also rare that one needs to be completely technically correct in conversation.
- z3t4 5y ago
  Also each person has an unique model in their head. Even if you read the same material, you could interpret it differently and people learn in different ways.
karmakaze 5y ago
The goal of the interview shouldn't always be to get the job. If you have any length of career, you are interviewing the company as much (or more) than they are interviewing you. My approach would have been to go with the new idea and see what discussion can come out of it. If they don't have time to get into it, that's one thing but if they are simply not open-minded to new ideas, I don't want to work there.
- thescriptkiddie 5y ago
  In the real world, people have to apply to dozens if not hundreds of jobs just to get an offer. The company has all of the power, so you tell them what they want to hear or you starve.
  - idrios 5y ago
    The job application process varies immensely by position and profession. For a junior developer there are hundreds of new listing each day but hundreds of qualified people applying, so the company has all the power and your comment would be true in that context. For a very qualified senior dev, there are dozens of positions posted each day where the company is truly set back until the role is filled, with only a handful of qualified people applying, so the senior dev has a lot of power. In another profession like say a specialized electrical engineer, there may be only a few positions posted a month and a handful of qualified people so both the engineer and the company would be desperate that they could together be a fit. This story was about an anecdotal experience where the power dynamic was fairly equal
  - loloquwowndueo 5y ago
    Well - not true for all industries. In some, there’s a lot of competition for candidates.
    - guntars 5y ago
      We don't even need to look at other industries. It's demonstrably not the case for professional software developers at the moment. The companies are simply doing whatever is in their best interest which is retaining expensive and hard to hire for talent, ergo they'll treat you nicer. The second it's no longer expensive or hard to hire, things will take a turn for the worse (for the candidates).
SideburnsOfDoom 5y ago
> "there's a widely-held concept X, but my understanding is that this is not completely correct, and in fact a better model is Y." Why not say "there are many similarities and some differences, they're similar in these ways..."

by tomerv 5y ago

unbalancedevh 5y ago

And giving a response like this is still a good indication of people skills -- Do you know how to present a controversial opinion in a way that encourages people to accept it, or do you ram it down people's throats?

kevstev 5y ago
Yeah I think this is way overblown- The way to approach this is "Well typically MVC is presented as such and people think its represented in typical architectures as blah blah blah, but from an actual theory perspective what actually happens is that blah blah blah..." You cover both bases, give the blogspam answer that most view is the "right" one, but also show that you have a much deeper understanding. My favorite question when interviewing node.js candidates was around this type of ambiguity- "Is node.js single threaded or multithreaded?" and most would immediately shout back "single threaded!" but the reality is that its a bit more complicated than that, its a single threaded event loop backed by a thread pool, and I wouldn't ever hold a "single threaded!" answer against them, but start to ask leading questions as to what happens when we have say 5 requests all come in more or less at the same time to see if they really understood how things work. And the point is not to gotcha! them, its just to start a discussion- though if they reply back "well its complicated..." then I know they probably are already there. In the context of MVC though, I feel this is really overly pedantic. MVC is an idea that is never actually implemented in purity, and understanding the basic idea is all that is really needed, outside of maybe very specific roles implementing web frameworks.
- ghaff 5y ago
  Or "MVC is often thought of as mapping to the three tiers although that's a bit of a simplification that doesn't fully capture the mapping." And there are essentially always nuances. So that's not really a controversial statement. At which point, the tech lead can accept the answer as pretty much what they were looking for or can probe further if it's actually the nuances they're interested in.

rocqua 5y ago

Do you want to have that discussion with your team-lead almost fully cold, in front of his superior? Because in the article, that is the key point. The applicant was totally willing to go into a fair discussion about the pattern. However, doing that in front of the tech-lead his boss is likely to be different from a fair discussion. Disagreement about technical architecture is fine. Doing so in front of higher management is likely a different ball game.

quirkot 5y ago
seems like having a discussion like that in front/with management would be a great way to suss out the way management will respond to future differences of opinion. A very valuable thing to know in deciding whether to accept a position
tomerv 5y ago
The tech lead is not the one being interviewed here. Presumably, they are already respected in their workplace, and admitting that they learned something from the candidate's full answer should be seen as a positive by their manager. The way the candidate frames the answer is important here, so no-one seems stupid for holding a common misconception. And if the tech lead can't admit in front of their manager to not knowing everything? That's a sign of a toxic workplace. I'm not ashamed to admit that I have previously found myself in a situation similar to the tech lead: the interviewee gave a solution that I didn't know about - one that could be considered better - and my manager was in the room interviewing with me. I told the interviewee that this is a new direction I haven't thought about until now. It's important, otherwise we can't continue an honest discussion about the solution.
seer 5y ago
Unless you absolutely need the job, I would consider this a great opportunity to figure out how his boss would react. Getting into a lively technical discussion when you can see how well people can control their egos to find out the best course of action is very valuable. If I had a chance during an interview to find out how people behave in those circumstances I would definitely go for it. Who knows maybe the "boss" would be present in future technical discussions as well, I wouldn't want his presenc to change the discourse negatively. And as I've personally been in positions like that (being the tech lead with the boss on the call), I'm usually thrilled to learn new information and discuss technical things, raising my opinion of the interviewee greatly. Maybe that's because I come from a very straight forward culture where political subterfuge is frowned upon, but it wouldn't actually look very good to me if a member of my team would subtly alter a technical matter for the worse because of political pressure. Would I be able to trust that person? I would always have this doubt that they are "playing a deeper game", regardless if it was for my benefit or not.

csours 5y ago

The more time I've spent in tech, the more I realize that there are very few "correct answers" - there are things that work in a particular context. Software patterns in particular are just what you make of them. I would have no problem saying "many people use MVC to mean 3 tier and other people use it to mean XYZ". It is very difficult to be completely technically correct. It is also rare that one needs to be completely technically correct in conversation.

z3t4 5y ago
Also each person has an unique model in their head. Even if you read the same material, you could interpret it differently and people learn in different ways.

karmakaze 5y ago

The goal of the interview shouldn't always be to get the job. If you have any length of career, you are interviewing the company as much (or more) than they are interviewing you. My approach would have been to go with the new idea and see what discussion can come out of it. If they don't have time to get into it, that's one thing but if they are simply not open-minded to new ideas, I don't want to work there.

thescriptkiddie 5y ago
In the real world, people have to apply to dozens if not hundreds of jobs just to get an offer. The company has all of the power, so you tell them what they want to hear or you starve.
- idrios 5y ago
  The job application process varies immensely by position and profession. For a junior developer there are hundreds of new listing each day but hundreds of qualified people applying, so the company has all the power and your comment would be true in that context. For a very qualified senior dev, there are dozens of positions posted each day where the company is truly set back until the role is filled, with only a handful of qualified people applying, so the senior dev has a lot of power. In another profession like say a specialized electrical engineer, there may be only a few positions posted a month and a handful of qualified people so both the engineer and the company would be desperate that they could together be a fit. This story was about an anecdotal experience where the power dynamic was fairly equal
- loloquwowndueo 5y ago
  Well - not true for all industries. In some, there’s a lot of competition for candidates.
  - guntars 5y ago
    We don't even need to look at other industries. It's demonstrably not the case for professional software developers at the moment. The companies are simply doing whatever is in their best interest which is retaining expensive and hard to hire for talent, ergo they'll treat you nicer. The second it's no longer expensive or hard to hire, things will take a turn for the worse (for the candidates).

SideburnsOfDoom 5y ago

> "there's a widely-held concept X, but my understanding is that this is not completely correct, and in fact a better model is Y." Why not say "there are many similarities and some differences, they're similar in these ways..."