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I have a few rules that have helped me land good jobs: 1. If they want me to napkin code, I call it quits immediately, even if I know the code they want me to
by mrozbarry 5y ago
I have a few rules that have helped me land good jobs:
1. If they want me to napkin code, I call it quits immediately, even if I know the code they want me to write be heart. Watching me write code on a whiteboard or piece of paper has no demonstratable connection to how I work day-in and day-out. Places like this would be both a waste of their time to hire me, and a waste of my time to interview for. I always ask up front about this if I'm unsure how the interview goes.
2. I set myself up to control the interview. I bring my laptop, ready with a bunch of work I've done that I can show off. When I sit down, I ask "Hey, I brought a bunch of interesting projects that I can show off, is that alright?" If they aren't interested in seeing that, they are clearly not interested in the sort of work I do, and not interested to see how I can fit into their team.
3. Ask what their typical day is like. This includes asking what the most painful part of their day is.
4. I want to know specifically who I need to talk to and who would need to talk to me to finish my work. The higher the number of people I need to talk to, and the lower the number of people who talk to me is a real bad sign. Reporting to and trying to appease multiple bosses with completely different goals and timelines is bad. Also, if there is no one under me, then job clearly doesn't respect or desire mentorship.
Sometimes I skip some of these steps, and obviously your mileage will vary, but always ask the questions that give you answers to how you like to work. For instance, if you want a cubical and want to put on headphones, ask about the office layout, and what expectations the company has for your communication abilities.
- handrous 5y ago> 3. Ask what their typical day is like. This includes asking what the most painful part of their day is. If they do standups, see if you can sit (edit: er, stand?) in on a couple before you say "yes" to an offer. You can spot most of the worst agile pathologies pretty fast that way, and since those can reach "making me an anxious wreck 24/7" levels of bad, you definitely want to know.
- mrozbarry 5y agoYeah, that's a solid plan. At my work, we've brought people in for the day, or for a smaller work session so they get a feel for how we work.
- cjones26 5y agoSo where do you work now?
- mrozbarry 5y agohttps://vehikl.com https://vehikl.com
- poorjohnmacafee 5y agoWell the whiteboard is in my opinion not about technical correctness, and I don't appreciate companies that obsess on the technical aspect of it. It's about testing if it's the type of person you can sit down and work through a problem with. Some companies want all the programmers to meet up each day at stand ups, or sit them close to each other, and they can share problems and seek out help from each other. I get that. Working through a problem together on a whiteboard is a preview of that type of interaction. Still that kind of coding environment can get annoying, so maybe you're trying to avoid those aspects too :) Personally now have enough money where I have zero interest to participate in those kind of employee environments, it's not something I'd choose to do and am happy to have exited it. Only want to work on own projects and ventures on own terms.
- valenterry 5y agoWho works with someone _through code_ using a whiteboard?! Drawing an architecture diagram or so, sure, but code? I would definitely prefer to work with people who know how to do screensharing and work over a problem in the code using an actual editor.
- handrous 5y agoSeriously, I've worked at companies where everyone loved whiteboards, and I've been doing this work for almost two decades, but doubt I've seen more than 100 total lines of even pseudocode written on whiteboards, outside lectures or interviews. I doubt I've written more than a dozen such lines myself (again, barring interviews). Maybe some places work very differently from what I'm used to? TV shows and movies, even ones that are relatively down-to-Earth (Silicon Valley) love having programmers write code on whiteboards, so maybe that is how lots of us operate, I've just managed to never be around that kind of culture, somehow. [EDIT] of course there are other, practical reasons a show or movie might have their characters do that, but I'm just offering the possibility that that more closely reflects common programmer experience than what I've seen first-hand does.
- garbagecoder 5y agoHow old are you?