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It sounds like you've described a "system design" interview, which all (to my knowledge) of the big tech companies utilize for more senior roles, and which also

It sounds like you've described a "system design" interview, which all (to my knowledge) of the big tech companies utilize for more senior roles, and which also have a wealth of study materials for. I'm also curious what your pass/fail conditions are? I find that if the pass/fail conditions aren't rigorous, then you open yourself up to things like "I just really like that guy," and select for people more similar to you rather than people who might bring the most to the table.

magic_hamster 5y ago
It's a version of that, but for candidates of all experience levels. Of course I don't expect a junior or even a student to give the same answers as a senior. But you can already tell some people have better understanding and intuition about how things work besides purely theoretical algorithms. Using open ended questions and building a small "system" together allows you to draw the actual knowledge limits of this person and pivot when something gets too hard so you can explore another 'direction' which will be based on different areas of knowledge or experience. It also allows the candidate to show off if they really want to feel smart. You mentioned that it can introduce more bias to the process, so before I touch on that, I think it actually introduces a chance to test your communication with this candidate which (at least for me) is pretty much equivalent in importace to their credentials. As for passing conditions: I prepare a standard "interview project" that has many different paths for us to work on. We work it together but it's mainly the candidate. Alongside the problem I have a fairly substantial excel sheet for assessment of all candidates. Every component in the "interview project" has some pitfalls, some more obvious than others, all occuring naturally in every path the candidate chooses. You start seeing who can see ahead and think on their feet in a situation that more closely resembles what we do in my team. Eventually I can compare the candidates based on this standardized performance sheet, so I'd like to think it's not too biased. As a bonus, it's a pretty good experience. I know it was a good interview when the candidate thanks me for learning something valuable. It's a great interview when I learn something as well. Sometimes they want to stick around and continue tackling the problem even after we're done, or they want to actually build a POC and send it in!

magic_hamster 5y ago

It's a version of that, but for candidates of all experience levels. Of course I don't expect a junior or even a student to give the same answers as a senior. But you can already tell some people have better understanding and intuition about how things work besides purely theoretical algorithms. Using open ended questions and building a small "system" together allows you to draw the actual knowledge limits of this person and pivot when something gets too hard so you can explore another 'direction' which will be based on different areas of knowledge or experience. It also allows the candidate to show off if they really want to feel smart. You mentioned that it can introduce more bias to the process, so before I touch on that, I think it actually introduces a chance to test your communication with this candidate which (at least for me) is pretty much equivalent in importace to their credentials. As for passing conditions: I prepare a standard "interview project" that has many different paths for us to work on. We work it together but it's mainly the candidate. Alongside the problem I have a fairly substantial excel sheet for assessment of all candidates. Every component in the "interview project" has some pitfalls, some more obvious than others, all occuring naturally in every path the candidate chooses. You start seeing who can see ahead and think on their feet in a situation that more closely resembles what we do in my team. Eventually I can compare the candidates based on this standardized performance sheet, so I'd like to think it's not too biased. As a bonus, it's a pretty good experience. I know it was a good interview when the candidate thanks me for learning something valuable. It's a great interview when I learn something as well. Sometimes they want to stick around and continue tackling the problem even after we're done, or they want to actually build a POC and send it in!