5 ms·

I interviewed at Apple in 1987, and it was an all-day interview, but it wasn't much like the technical interviews I've done in more recent years--the ones chara

I interviewed at Apple in 1987, and it was an all-day interview, but it wasn't much like the technical interviews I've done in more recent years--the ones characterized by brain teasers and whiteboard coding. There was none of that in my Apple interviews. They made me an offer and I worked there for ten years. Now, we can't conclude from that whether Apple has adopted whiteboarding and brain teasers generally. In those days Apple did interviews the way they did everything else: each group at the company did things their own way. I don't know whether that's true anymore; I left Apple in 1998. All I know is that I interviewed with them again four or five years ago, and that was a lot of interviews over a couple of days, but still no whiteboarding or brain teasers. The first time I encountered what is now referred to as the technical interview was at Microsoft in about 1990 or 1991. I bombed it. Turns out I'm worthless at whiteboarding and brain teasers. They gave me an offer, anyway. Two, in fact. I turned down both. Microsoft would have made me a lot of money, but I didn't want to work for those guys. That pattern repeated several times over the years: bomb technical interview; get offer anyway. Finally I just stopped doing it. I don't like it and I don't think it measures anything relevant to my work. If it did, why would I get offers after bombing those parts of interviews? Why would most of my employers be people I've worked for before? Why would they ask me to work for them again? So, generally speaking, I just don't do those kinds of interviews anymore. If you believe in them for hiring, knock yourself out. We're not a match.

BeetleB 4y ago
> In those days Apple did interviews the way they did everything else: each group at the company did things their own way. I don't know whether that's true anymore; It's still true.
rsanek 4y ago
Does anyone even do brain teasers anymore? I recall them being popular 5-10 years ago but when I did my last round of interviews I didn't get a single one (across full interview loops with 6 Silicon Valley companies)
chrchang523 4y ago
It sounds like you're misevaluating your technical interview performance. You can feel like you're "bombing" an interview, while still performing above expectation. Some interviewers ask hard technical questions, don't expect most candidates to complete them within the allotted time, and give "hire" recommendations for some (but of course not all) that don't.
- antihero 4y ago
  I think a good interview puts you in a position where you are struggling and out of your expertise - being able to demonstrate you have a solution for a bunch of stuff is less important than being able to demonstrate how you do when you don’t know and have to figure it out.
  - FabHK 4y ago
    As a rule, when interviewing, I want to get to the boundary of a candidate's knowledge quickly. Questions they ace provide not much information (once it is established that they ace them), questions where they're totally out of their depth neither. A bit provides maximum information when the chances for 0/1 are fifty/fifty. So, agree with the sentiment > a good interview puts you in a position where you are struggling and out of your expertise as long as you are still at the boundary of your expertise, and have a realistic chance to make some progress.
    - Ntrails 4y ago
      > Questions they ace provide not much information (once it is established that they ace them), questions where they're totally out of their depth neither. Agreed. The aim, for me, is to watch someone (try to) solve a problem and communicate about it. Ideally I'd like the question to rely on some previously unknown concept to see them pick up a new idea and run with it.
  - sylens 4y ago
    One of the best interview questions I ever had started with the interviewer asking me a fairly routine technical question, to which I gave a standard and acceptable answer. He then said, "Okay but what if I took away your ability to do X, Y, and Z - how would that change things?" He did that a few more times in different variations to really see how my answers would change especially as the tools/processes I would be forced to use started to stray from what I knew well.
twodave 4y ago
I can’t speak for anybody who made you an offer, of course, but often these kinds of problems are just another way to witness first hand how the candidate goes about solving problems. Failing to solve the problem given a short window of time is indeed not relevant, but your problem solving process is _extremely_ relevant. I’ve spent a lot of time fixing crap because some engineer was engaging in “magical thinking” that the cost of not doing such screening is clear. Brain teasers can be hit or miss, so I don’t particularly like giving those to candidates (though as an interviewee I loved them), but you can get a great idea of someone’s appetite for doing the mental work of problem solving through a thoughtfully-designed code screening.
- no_wizard 4y ago
  This is the claim, of course, that solving the problem is not what matters. However, in practice, it is what matters, There is a "minimum" threshold (I can attest to this because I've been on the other side having to conduct them) where you more or less, must finish at least with some viable answer - even if unrefined - or you won't be moving on, full stop
  - twodave 4y ago
    I mean, sure, if you boycott the question you probably won't move on. But I'm not sure I want to work with someone unwilling to be curious or participate in problem-solving together. To me this filter is a positive effect of the test. In the interviews I've given I'll even handhold an applicant through to the optimal solution if need be, because to be perfectly honest I'd much rather have a coworker who is enthusiastic about learning and shows the ability to collaborate than someone who can write code but refuses to do so in a social setting (i.e. an interview). I want someone that I can have an intelligent conversation with because _I need my ideas validated, too_.
    - corrral 4y ago
      > refuses to do so in a social setting (i.e. an interview). Interviews are very different from working together collaboratively. They're very different from presenting work to or working with a client or stakeholder, too, and even very different from a sales presentation. The space of things that might come up is effectively unbound, how you're being judged is wildly uncertain, you are being judged, and you know almost nothing about the people you're "working with". As practiced in software, they're closer to being called in to give a thesis defense without knowing in advance which thesis you'll be defending—and also everyone in the room is a stranger, and also you have no clue which aspects of your performance are being judged or by what criteria, and even know for a fact that some of the people conducting these have completely opposite opinions about which behaviors are desirable and which are "red flags".

BeetleB 4y ago

> In those days Apple did interviews the way they did everything else: each group at the company did things their own way. I don't know whether that's true anymore; It's still true.

rsanek 4y ago

Does anyone even do brain teasers anymore? I recall them being popular 5-10 years ago but when I did my last round of interviews I didn't get a single one (across full interview loops with 6 Silicon Valley companies)

chrchang523 4y ago

It sounds like you're misevaluating your technical interview performance. You can feel like you're "bombing" an interview, while still performing above expectation. Some interviewers ask hard technical questions, don't expect most candidates to complete them within the allotted time, and give "hire" recommendations for some (but of course not all) that don't.

antihero 4y ago
I think a good interview puts you in a position where you are struggling and out of your expertise - being able to demonstrate you have a solution for a bunch of stuff is less important than being able to demonstrate how you do when you don’t know and have to figure it out.
- FabHK 4y ago
  As a rule, when interviewing, I want to get to the boundary of a candidate's knowledge quickly. Questions they ace provide not much information (once it is established that they ace them), questions where they're totally out of their depth neither. A bit provides maximum information when the chances for 0/1 are fifty/fifty. So, agree with the sentiment > a good interview puts you in a position where you are struggling and out of your expertise as long as you are still at the boundary of your expertise, and have a realistic chance to make some progress.
  - Ntrails 4y ago
    > Questions they ace provide not much information (once it is established that they ace them), questions where they're totally out of their depth neither. Agreed. The aim, for me, is to watch someone (try to) solve a problem and communicate about it. Ideally I'd like the question to rely on some previously unknown concept to see them pick up a new idea and run with it.
- sylens 4y ago
  One of the best interview questions I ever had started with the interviewer asking me a fairly routine technical question, to which I gave a standard and acceptable answer. He then said, "Okay but what if I took away your ability to do X, Y, and Z - how would that change things?" He did that a few more times in different variations to really see how my answers would change especially as the tools/processes I would be forced to use started to stray from what I knew well.

twodave 4y ago

I can’t speak for anybody who made you an offer, of course, but often these kinds of problems are just another way to witness first hand how the candidate goes about solving problems. Failing to solve the problem given a short window of time is indeed not relevant, but your problem solving process is _extremely_ relevant. I’ve spent a lot of time fixing crap because some engineer was engaging in “magical thinking” that the cost of not doing such screening is clear. Brain teasers can be hit or miss, so I don’t particularly like giving those to candidates (though as an interviewee I loved them), but you can get a great idea of someone’s appetite for doing the mental work of problem solving through a thoughtfully-designed code screening.

no_wizard 4y ago
This is the claim, of course, that solving the problem is not what matters. However, in practice, it is what matters, There is a "minimum" threshold (I can attest to this because I've been on the other side having to conduct them) where you more or less, must finish at least with some viable answer - even if unrefined - or you won't be moving on, full stop
- twodave 4y ago
  I mean, sure, if you boycott the question you probably won't move on. But I'm not sure I want to work with someone unwilling to be curious or participate in problem-solving together. To me this filter is a positive effect of the test. In the interviews I've given I'll even handhold an applicant through to the optimal solution if need be, because to be perfectly honest I'd much rather have a coworker who is enthusiastic about learning and shows the ability to collaborate than someone who can write code but refuses to do so in a social setting (i.e. an interview). I want someone that I can have an intelligent conversation with because _I need my ideas validated, too_.
  - corrral 4y ago
    > refuses to do so in a social setting (i.e. an interview). Interviews are very different from working together collaboratively. They're very different from presenting work to or working with a client or stakeholder, too, and even very different from a sales presentation. The space of things that might come up is effectively unbound, how you're being judged is wildly uncertain, you are being judged, and you know almost nothing about the people you're "working with". As practiced in software, they're closer to being called in to give a thesis defense without knowing in advance which thesis you'll be defending—and also everyone in the room is a stranger, and also you have no clue which aspects of your performance are being judged or by what criteria, and even know for a fact that some of the people conducting these have completely opposite opinions about which behaviors are desirable and which are "red flags".