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This misses 90% of what I, a startup CTO, find valuable in technical hires. What I want to know is: what type of projects have you worked on, how did you develo
by 0xB31B1B 4y ago
This misses 90% of what I, a startup CTO, find valuable in technical hires. What I want to know is: what type of projects have you worked on, how did you develop expertise in those systems, what level of ownership over your work did you display, how well were you able to plan and design the solution to a problem, and how did you handle the execution over the X months of work to make it go live. Demonstrate expertise, curiosity, and ownership. “System design” is like 5% of the work we do, and it’s important, but putting the designs in motion and driving value from them is 95% of our time and that’s something we do not screen well for. The way that I do this now is a process with a soft skills interview, a coding interview, then a “case study/system design” interview where I have candidates write a system design doc at home for a project they have worked on IRL and use that as a starting point for a 45 minute panel convo where we review the doc and ask questions about their choices and how execution went.
- gardenhedge 4y agoIs that 3 separate interviews for your startup? Or is it done in one session? If it is the former you're missing out on lots of potential candidates
- teaearlgraycold 4y agoWhy would you say no to a job because they want you to interview for a few hours? As a candidate I always respect the employers more if they can put together a coherent 4+ hour interview. Why would I want to work somewhere where my co-workers were only briefly vetted?
- gardenhedge 4y agoIt's not "no" to the job. It's "no" to the interview(s) process.
- teaearlgraycold 4y agoThey're tied together. Once you join you'll be in a place that uses that interview process.
- 0xB31B1B 4y agoThis is 3 interviews, done remote. 45 minutes per interview. Can be same day, can be over a week, candidates choice. Haven’t had any issues with people thinking this is a blocker, if anything it’s a lower load and faster process than people are going through at peer companies.
- gedy 4y agoI'd love a process like that, however it's much more common for companies I've interviewed with to not only not ask that type of info, but actively avoid and discourage talking about these things. Been treated in past like I'm avoiding the "important part" of solving their quiz and that it's some softball topic.
- jarjoura 4y agoThis is the right way to interview, I agree. You want to see repeatable behavior and a general interest in going through the process. If someone takes the time to apply with homework and is able to articulate well, it gives you so much valuable signal. Pressure cooker style interviews only reveal someone can remain focused under stress and that they studied their leetcodes.
- nitwit005 4y agoI suspect if I asked ten people to explain how they'd evaluate candidates for "curiosity" or "ownership", I'd get ten answers with little in common.