5 ms·

I was going to say this. To add more: a single person (HM) might have biases for or against certain candidates. More people in the loop brings in diversity and

I was going to say this. To add more: a single person (HM) might have biases for or against certain candidates. More people in the loop brings in diversity and helps to keep interviewers honest and consistent. Also these roles are usually high stakes and the cost of a bad hire is too high.

8ytecoder 5y ago
Most orgs use a veto model. If not everyone is a strong hire, the candidate is rejected. The bias is still there, just not a positive bias now. It’s a strong negative bias. And obviously most people don’t want to come across as “too easy”. Essential you’re positively reinforcing to reject more and more candidates and make the whole process a nightmare.
- igetspam 5y ago
  I will accept a veto but only if the interviewer can explain it sufficiently. I think it's important to trust but it's also important prevent abuse from bias. (Someone who abuses interview vetoes is likely a poison pill themselves and that's something I have to deal with as a manager.)
- mabbo 5y ago
  Amazon had an interesting system for this: one of the interviewers, the 'bar raiser' gets the final decision, ideally based on what everyone else says (but not necessarily). That BR has done 100+ interviews, took a lot of additional training, and is empowered to ask a lot of questions to dive into the feedback people are giving about the candidate. So if someone is being too hard, or has a weird bias, the BR can override them. It's a fascinating system and seems to work okay.
mabbo 5y ago
Yeah this also is a big issue. It was nice having the "debrief" meeting afterwards. This meant that people had to back up what they had written. "Why do you think this person 'isnt a good culture fit'? Oh because the team you run are all 20-something male brogrammers and this candidate is a 38 year old woman with kids? Hey cool, that's illegal discrimination."
- daviddever23box 5y ago
  Keep in mind that the hiring and interview process is bi-directional: if one finds that the company to which one has applied potentially consists of terrible human beings, exit quickly and move on to the next opportunity (unless you are yourself a toxic influence, at which point the culture fit may very well be right).
mnd999 5y ago
- jorpal 5y ago
  At least half of them are Indian, in my experience.
  - thaumasiotes 5y ago
    When I interviewed at Google recently, the behavioral interviewer was a white guy. The four algorithmic interviewers were one Indian and three Chinese nationals.
- uxp100 5y ago
  (For a definition of white that is heavily Asian)
  - peterbraden 5y ago
    Maybe better to look at the definition of asian than white, Asia includes the subcontinent.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- prepend 5y ago
  I’ve worked in tech for decades and I’ve never experienced a process with “7 straight white guys” much less every time. First, how do you know the sexual orientation of interviewers? Next, tech is like 50-70% Asian so it would be so weird to only have white guys doing programming interviews. The guy pet is spot on as programming is way heavy in guys. But I’m not sure why you would think that 7 interviews = 7 straight white guys.
  - bigcloud1299 5y ago
    I joined a subsidiary of a large company. I was the second non white guy at the company. Never knew a tech company could be so white.
alexashka 5y ago
> these roles are usually high stakes and the cost of a bad hire is too high Really? High stakes? This fucking site. Have you ever worked as a software developer at a corporation? Nothing about it is high stakes. You spend most of your time dealing with useless idiots who report to other useless idiots, who report to other useless idiots, about a useless product they think is a great idea that every non-idiot knows is useless garbage. That's how you get Google not creating a single non garbage product over the past 15 years. When they did Google Maps, did they have 7 interview processes? I bet you they didn't. Here is how the real world works - 0.0001% create something, then 99.9999% turn it into what 99.9999% of people are. What that is - I leave to you as an exercise.
- lokar 5y ago
  Google has has 6+ interviews since at least 2003
- novok 5y ago
  High stakes means high investment. You can’t just hire a dev and have them running in a week, their bad work could cost the company multi-millions in obvious and non obvious ways and proper onboarding takes months at minimum. On the other hand, a cashier can be replaced in a week, and they don’t effect the entire future of the company as SOP.
  - sjg007 5y ago
    Eh I don't believe it is a million dollar hit. If it is then you have bad controls and bad process. Google is optimizing for the wrong things. The reason Google has hard interviews is to minimize attrition and make everyone who passes the interview feel smart.
    - mrep 5y ago
      Have you worked at GAFAM? I've been on 3 person teams with over a million dollars a year in hardware expenses and we've done some crazy optimizations on our c++/java code.
  - 5y ago
nowherebeen 5y ago
> usually high stakes You obviously haven't worked in finance. Google is as far from high stakes as you can get.
- pards 5y ago
  Exactly. The Knight Capital incident springs to mind.
  - randmeerkat 5y ago
    > Exactly. The Knight Capital incident springs to mind. Sure, but was that the engineering team’s fault or the fault of bad management culture? I suspect it was management that failed to adequately support their engineers and ensure they were well staffed, compensated, and didn’t have to work extraordinary hours to meet absurd “deadlines” that resulted in that fiasco.
Aeolun 5y ago
> To add more: a single person (HM) might have biases for or against certain candidates. That would be true for all organisations. You could do 6x more interviews if they were all a single round. > Also these roles are usually high stakes and the cost of a bad hire is too high. Hiring a brain surgeon is high stakes. I don’t know a lot of software positions where it is true.
- ballenf 5y ago
  A determined senior engineer could destroy a company in a day. At large companies they could cost the company millions. While we like to pretend there are technical controls to prevent this, actually effective measures would come at a high cost to productivity. And at huge FAANG companies replace "department or team" for company above. A bad hire can destroy a team or product or the team's reputation in the company. Brain surgeons are not high stakes hires because they're not operating on their employer's brain and there are inherent barriers to entry in that field. The "brain surgeon" license actually means a lot.
- michaelt 5y ago
  > Hiring a brain surgeon is high stakes. I don’t know a lot of software positions where it is true. Arguably it's not. But if I think I'm doing a guy a favour by 'giving them a chance' and hiring them when they're marginal, and they quit a stable job and move across the country, then I fire them? In that case I didn't do them a favour by giving them a chance.
  - Aeolun 5y ago
    If you felt like that after your single interview you wouldn’t hire them? Especially when you know they’re going to need to move all across the country.
- kyawzazaw 5y ago
  I mean brain surgeons tend to be board certified. Don't really have that process for SWE, do we?

8ytecoder 5y ago

Most orgs use a veto model. If not everyone is a strong hire, the candidate is rejected. The bias is still there, just not a positive bias now. It’s a strong negative bias. And obviously most people don’t want to come across as “too easy”. Essential you’re positively reinforcing to reject more and more candidates and make the whole process a nightmare.

igetspam 5y ago
I will accept a veto but only if the interviewer can explain it sufficiently. I think it's important to trust but it's also important prevent abuse from bias. (Someone who abuses interview vetoes is likely a poison pill themselves and that's something I have to deal with as a manager.)
mabbo 5y ago
Amazon had an interesting system for this: one of the interviewers, the 'bar raiser' gets the final decision, ideally based on what everyone else says (but not necessarily). That BR has done 100+ interviews, took a lot of additional training, and is empowered to ask a lot of questions to dive into the feedback people are giving about the candidate. So if someone is being too hard, or has a weird bias, the BR can override them. It's a fascinating system and seems to work okay.

mabbo 5y ago

Yeah this also is a big issue. It was nice having the "debrief" meeting afterwards. This meant that people had to back up what they had written. "Why do you think this person 'isnt a good culture fit'? Oh because the team you run are all 20-something male brogrammers and this candidate is a 38 year old woman with kids? Hey cool, that's illegal discrimination."

daviddever23box 5y ago
Keep in mind that the hiring and interview process is bi-directional: if one finds that the company to which one has applied potentially consists of terrible human beings, exit quickly and move on to the next opportunity (unless you are yourself a toxic influence, at which point the culture fit may very well be right).

mnd999 5y ago

jorpal 5y ago
At least half of them are Indian, in my experience.
- thaumasiotes 5y ago
  When I interviewed at Google recently, the behavioral interviewer was a white guy. The four algorithmic interviewers were one Indian and three Chinese nationals.
uxp100 5y ago
(For a definition of white that is heavily Asian)
- peterbraden 5y ago
  Maybe better to look at the definition of asian than white, Asia includes the subcontinent.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
prepend 5y ago
I’ve worked in tech for decades and I’ve never experienced a process with “7 straight white guys” much less every time. First, how do you know the sexual orientation of interviewers? Next, tech is like 50-70% Asian so it would be so weird to only have white guys doing programming interviews. The guy pet is spot on as programming is way heavy in guys. But I’m not sure why you would think that 7 interviews = 7 straight white guys.
- bigcloud1299 5y ago
  I joined a subsidiary of a large company. I was the second non white guy at the company. Never knew a tech company could be so white.

alexashka 5y ago

> these roles are usually high stakes and the cost of a bad hire is too high Really? High stakes? This fucking site. Have you ever worked as a software developer at a corporation? Nothing about it is high stakes. You spend most of your time dealing with useless idiots who report to other useless idiots, who report to other useless idiots, about a useless product they think is a great idea that every non-idiot knows is useless garbage. That's how you get Google not creating a single non garbage product over the past 15 years. When they did Google Maps, did they have 7 interview processes? I bet you they didn't. Here is how the real world works - 0.0001% create something, then 99.9999% turn it into what 99.9999% of people are. What that is - I leave to you as an exercise.

lokar 5y ago
Google has has 6+ interviews since at least 2003
novok 5y ago
High stakes means high investment. You can’t just hire a dev and have them running in a week, their bad work could cost the company multi-millions in obvious and non obvious ways and proper onboarding takes months at minimum. On the other hand, a cashier can be replaced in a week, and they don’t effect the entire future of the company as SOP.
- sjg007 5y ago
  Eh I don't believe it is a million dollar hit. If it is then you have bad controls and bad process. Google is optimizing for the wrong things. The reason Google has hard interviews is to minimize attrition and make everyone who passes the interview feel smart.
  - mrep 5y ago
    Have you worked at GAFAM? I've been on 3 person teams with over a million dollars a year in hardware expenses and we've done some crazy optimizations on our c++/java code.
- 5y ago

nowherebeen 5y ago

> usually high stakes You obviously haven't worked in finance. Google is as far from high stakes as you can get.

pards 5y ago
Exactly. The Knight Capital incident springs to mind.
- randmeerkat 5y ago
  > Exactly. The Knight Capital incident springs to mind. Sure, but was that the engineering team’s fault or the fault of bad management culture? I suspect it was management that failed to adequately support their engineers and ensure they were well staffed, compensated, and didn’t have to work extraordinary hours to meet absurd “deadlines” that resulted in that fiasco.

Aeolun 5y ago

> To add more: a single person (HM) might have biases for or against certain candidates. That would be true for all organisations. You could do 6x more interviews if they were all a single round. > Also these roles are usually high stakes and the cost of a bad hire is too high. Hiring a brain surgeon is high stakes. I don’t know a lot of software positions where it is true.

ballenf 5y ago
A determined senior engineer could destroy a company in a day. At large companies they could cost the company millions. While we like to pretend there are technical controls to prevent this, actually effective measures would come at a high cost to productivity. And at huge FAANG companies replace "department or team" for company above. A bad hire can destroy a team or product or the team's reputation in the company. Brain surgeons are not high stakes hires because they're not operating on their employer's brain and there are inherent barriers to entry in that field. The "brain surgeon" license actually means a lot.
michaelt 5y ago
> Hiring a brain surgeon is high stakes. I don’t know a lot of software positions where it is true. Arguably it's not. But if I think I'm doing a guy a favour by 'giving them a chance' and hiring them when they're marginal, and they quit a stable job and move across the country, then I fire them? In that case I didn't do them a favour by giving them a chance.
- Aeolun 5y ago
  If you felt like that after your single interview you wouldn’t hire them? Especially when you know they’re going to need to move all across the country.
kyawzazaw 5y ago
I mean brain surgeons tend to be board certified. Don't really have that process for SWE, do we?