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My favorite technical interview question is to ask the candidate about the worst bug they ever wrote. I let them choose their own definition of "worst", and see

My favorite technical interview question is to ask the candidate about the worst bug they ever wrote. I let them choose their own definition of "worst", and see if they choose something that was hard to debug, or caused a lot of trouble or was just something they thought was a dumb mistake. It usually provides them with an opportunity to talk technically about something they know and helps me understand how well they communicate problems and solutions. Plus, it's sometimes fun to hear the stories. My own personal worst bug (where by worst I mean "had the worst impact") was when we disabled a large chunk of the southern Beijing cell phone system for a short time during the night whilst deploying a field test of new base station hardware. That was a stressful rollout.

finnw 13y ago
> My favorite technical interview question is to ask the candidate about the worst bug they ever wrote. Are you sure you are getting honest answers? Some candidates may be thinking "He'll never hire me if I admit how stupid I was, so I'll use this secondhand or dumbed-down story instead."
- groby_b 13y ago
  Irrelevant - they talk about a technical issue they're familiar with. I can ask them questions about that issue. It's a good way to gauge their skill level while keeping them on familiar terrain. It's usually fairly straightforward to see if somebody talks about their own experiences or is retelling a story they simply heard.
  - TwistedWeasel 13y ago
    Exactly, even if it's not their own story, if they are able to talk intelligently about the subject matter and explain the problem and solution well then i've gained valuable information about the candidate. Unfortunately i've had a couple of candidates who's response to the question was "I don't really write bugs". Those are the ones I know for sure are lying.
- RyJones 13y ago
  Eh, I own the dumb things I've done.
  - TwistedWeasel 13y ago
    Quite right, learning from our mistakes is what makes us better.
bobbles 13y ago
My most memorable one wasn't technically complicated, but we were receiving mixed feedback on a site that I had worked on. Some of the test group though it was working fine, the other was having "doesn't work" issues. It turned out that the problem came down to a single dialog box, when people tried to cancel a process on the page. The resulting dialog said: "Do you want to Cancel?" "OK" or "Cancel" Rewording the options fixed the issue...

finnw 13y ago

> My favorite technical interview question is to ask the candidate about the worst bug they ever wrote. Are you sure you are getting honest answers? Some candidates may be thinking "He'll never hire me if I admit how stupid I was, so I'll use this secondhand or dumbed-down story instead."

groby_b 13y ago
Irrelevant - they talk about a technical issue they're familiar with. I can ask them questions about that issue. It's a good way to gauge their skill level while keeping them on familiar terrain. It's usually fairly straightforward to see if somebody talks about their own experiences or is retelling a story they simply heard.
- TwistedWeasel 13y ago
  Exactly, even if it's not their own story, if they are able to talk intelligently about the subject matter and explain the problem and solution well then i've gained valuable information about the candidate. Unfortunately i've had a couple of candidates who's response to the question was "I don't really write bugs". Those are the ones I know for sure are lying.
RyJones 13y ago
Eh, I own the dumb things I've done.
- TwistedWeasel 13y ago
  Quite right, learning from our mistakes is what makes us better.

bobbles 13y ago

My most memorable one wasn't technically complicated, but we were receiving mixed feedback on a site that I had worked on. Some of the test group though it was working fine, the other was having "doesn't work" issues. It turned out that the problem came down to a single dialog box, when people tried to cancel a process on the page. The resulting dialog said: "Do you want to Cancel?" "OK" or "Cancel" Rewording the options fixed the issue...