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A great interview question is: “Tell me about a software project you played a significant role in. What did it do, how did it work, who made the tech choices,
by andrewstuart 4y ago
A great interview question is:
“Tell me about a software project you played a significant role in. What did it do, how did it work, who made the tech choices, what was your role in it, what went right, what went wrong, if you were to rebuild it what would you do differently, what did you learn?”
I know it’s really a lot of questions but it’s still just one in a way “talk to me, in a free form back and forth way about software development”.
- behdad 4y agoHow does that work with new grads?
- andrewstuart 4y agoGrads have written software. If a grad has written no software, or has no capacity to talk software development with you, then the interview is over.
- yosito 4y agoThere's no rule saying you need to hire new grads. I'd even suggest that if you care about hiring "the best engineers", hiring new grads is just idiotic.
- wiseowise 4y agoOne of the counter-points of original question is that it is hostile to people with experience, aka didn’t do much also since uni, now you’re hostile against new grads.
- rendall 4y agoWhile I do think it's a great interview question, I do think all technical candidacy flows where the person will be programming must have a coding component of some kind. Even just "FizzBuzz" is better than no coding. That said, I do think it's best to have the person relaxed and at their best, so anything to minimize stress or discomfort will show candidates at their best.
- andrewstuart 4y agoI refuse to do coding tests. Having said that I have open source projects to point to. If that’s not enough for them I’ll take different job.
- rendall 4y agoWhat is your primary objection? What if the exercise were something straightforward, simple and given before the interview? And, you had the option of instead discussing a solution of equivalent or greater complexity.
- sebzim4500 4y agoThat's also a good question. Are people here assuming that the interview process can only involve asking a single question to the applicant? You generally want to cover a range of skills, and technical skills like the ones covered in the article are an important part of that.
- higeorge13 4y agoI have it as my first question and i was surprised to find out how many people cannot describe properly any of these. As if they haven’t been software engineers in their past jobs but something unrelated..