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I don’t know OP, I’m a tech lead who has done his fair share of interviews and based on your few comments on HN there seem to be some red flags with how you’re
by wincy 4y ago
I don’t know OP, I’m a tech lead who has done his fair share of interviews and based on your few comments on HN there seem to be some red flags with how you’re viewing the interview process. Saying “one person derails things because I’d outshine them” seems to externalize the blame. I don’t know that I’ve ever worked with any engineer who thinks they’d be worse off by hiring an extremely intelligent engineer. I’d love to be “outshined” as it’d make my life easier to have someone competent writing code with me and teaching me new things. I have a strong suspicion “I’m too smart” isn’t the issue here.
Also, do you honestly think this has been the case at over forty places? That in dozens of separate cases you weren’t the problem, the interviewers were? This seems like an extraordinarily hostile and pessimistic worldview and I’d guess it’d come across in an interview. Eventually you need to do some soul searching into what’s going awry in the interviews. I have a good friend who is a software engineer and is autistic. He speaks about his interviews similarly to what you’ve said. Maybe ask a friend about what they might think is the problem. Be prepared though, because often if you solicit honest feedback from friends you won’t like what they have to say.
Also why are you only applying at places that do leetcode style interviews? There’s plenty of places where that’s not the case, especially if you work outside of tech companies. There’s plenty of great Fortune 500 companies that will expect a 9-5 and are doing good engineering out there. Most of them are hiring remote. Although if you’re expecting FAANG salaries it might be harder to find that type of place.
I wish you the best and hope you get to a better place. Good luck!
- digitalgangsta 4y agothis. Worth interviewing with someone you know and see how you do. I interviewed a gent once who was very smart but talked my ear off, including cutting me off multiple times. After 45 mins of this, I stopped him and bluntly gave him this feedback. He was stunned and then thanked me as he realized he had been failing interviews because of this and no one had told him. I didnt hire him, but he was very appreciative and he took the feedback for his next batch.
- busterarm 4y agoOne of the best engineers that I've ever met is fundamentally unhireable due to the severity of his personality. He's not even a bad guy -- he's very helpful always but unfortunately everything he says just sounds smug or sanctimonious. He can't help himself. It's been sad watching his career struggles and knowing the quality of his work if you can just keep him away from stakeholders and meetings in general
- quickthrower2 4y agoWould him explaining this to a team before he works on it help. So they don’t take it personally. External stakeholders is different but most of the time devs arw shield from them (for better or worse).
- gopher_space 4y agoOne of the nice things about the old "nerds-only programmer's pit" style of team leadership is that it provides a refuge for people that want part of their world filtered out to get work done. Quite a bit more mandatory social engagement as an engineer these days. Lots of requesting your face.
- pixelrevision 4y agoIt was also better for the really quiet ones. There’s some really great programmers who can put out amazing stuff if you can keep them away from the agile/stakeholder circus.
- gopher_space 4y agoI mean how many of us have a door we can close and no movement in our peripheral vision when we're in the office?
- quickthrower2 4y agoThat is a good story of the power of candid feedback. More people should do that and treat developers as a wider community, helping people succeed even if you don’t hire them. He might come back to interview in 3 years too as you will be the company he will remember.
- itake 4y ago> I didnt hire him Seems like if he took the feedback well, he could be a good person to hire, unless there were other issues with his interview.
- kayodelycaon 4y agoIf someone is actually way smarter than me, my concerns would be: 1. Would they get bored or frustrated here? 2. Are their people skills good enough for the role? 3. How long do they plan to be here? 4. What do they expect from us? But I’m a generalist and find being the dumbest person in the room to be very educational. :)
- tehchromic 4y agoWhat is their ethics and motive? This is #1 question regardless of smartness imo
- kayodelycaon 4y agoAbsolutely. I was thinking of that as part of my #4 but it's important enough to have its own bullet point.
- rahimnathwani 4y agoWouldn't #2 apply equally to someone who isn't way smarter than you?
- kayodelycaon 4y agoYes. :) So would #3 and #4.
- Kranar 4y agoNone of those have anything to do with being smart. Less smart people also get bored or have poor people skills or job hop or have unusual expectations. Very strange post with a lot of poor assumptions.
- mytailorisrich 4y agoThere is always office politics and no-one wants a new guy that they perceive as a potential threat. It's not just someone they might think is 'brighter' but someone that seems experienced and senior enough to have a good shot at taking over or being promoted over them.
- thfuran 4y agoAn incompetent hire is far more of a potential threat than a competent one.
- mytailorisrich 4y agoThere's quite a gap between competent and threat, I think...
- thisiswrongggg 4y agoThis. Very few people would welcome someone more competent than themselves, let alone open the door for them. A lesser coworker who does not rock the boat and pulls some amount of work (specially the rote kind of it) is seen as the best option.
- soulofmischief 4y agoThen the solution is to find higher performing teams with higher expectations. If one still bombs interviews after that, then it's likely the hypothesis is incorrect.
- tmpz22 4y agoI agree - OP is the common denominator with this level of volume. I also believe OP is applying to the wrong jobs, perhaps out of frustrations. Candidates who are very clearly going for the wrong roles - like a junior position when they have decades of experience, are going to stand out like a sore thumb. Ultimately hoping for the best for OP, but sounds like they need to take a break and re-evaluate their perspective and approach.
- P5fRxh5kUvp2th 4y agoI've definitely had interviews where it became obvious the interviewer was competing. In addition, people love to judge, interviewing is like porn for these people.