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The flaw in this method is that it assumes there is only one kind of developer: the lone architect, who builds fine tents out of whatever is lying on the ground

The flaw in this method is that it assumes there is only one kind of developer: the lone architect, who builds fine tents out of whatever is lying on the ground and then departs. What it won't get you is breadth of experience, operational background, full-stack thinking, or people who can look at somebody else's work and say "here are the ways in which that is going to blow up in your face, two years from now". (Anybody care to add to this list?) If all you ever do is bootstrap new projects from nothing then maybe that's the sort of people you want to hire, but it's probably not enough to build a sustainable product.

Spearchucker 12y ago
It doesn't assume that at all. You as the interviewer get to listen. You can ask probing questions to get the insight you need, or to steer the conversation. It's a great question, because it relaxes the interviewee as she gets to talk about something she knows well, probably enjoyed, and - if she's as good as you hope - has good depth and breadth of knowledge about.
howeyc 12y ago
I admit I just skimmed the article, but I don't see a requirement that the project you choose to talk about be a solo effort. I think the point of the question is to find people who are passionate about their profession (in this case programming).
iamben 12y ago
I'm not sure I agree - from reading the article, I got that the author found people who were excited and passionate about what they did, people who were excited to code. It may have been the lonewolf project that lit them up, it may have been the massive team effort where they found a novel way to help an entire team. But it was someone who really believed in something, rather than someone who was simply working for the weekend.
Goladus 12y ago
I don't think that question precludes all of those things. Anyone who is a "full-stack thinker" with broad experience should have at least one project in their past where they created something they're proud of.
- asuffield 12y ago
  I'm just going to pick one person to reply to at random since there seem to be half a dozen comments misunderstanding the same thing... Yes, a person with all of those things can answer this question. So can a person who doesn't, which is the point. Answering this question correctly cannot identify people with these highly desirable and uncommon skill sets, so the expected result of using it as your only interview test is to hire the most common subset of people that can pass it. On further reflection, I have another objection to this interview approach. I would never work for this company because it fails my personal red-flag test of the hiring process: "Do I want to work with the worst imaginable person who could pass this interview?"
  - Goladus 12y ago
    Answering this question correctly cannot identify people with these highly desirable and uncommon skill sets, so the expected result of using it as your only interview test is to hire the most common subset of people that can pass it. While it's true that if you simply look at the question as having a "correct" or "incorrect" answer then you'd be right. But this question most certainly can help identify someone who has those traits if those are what you're looking for. It is true, that there is a subjective quality to this question and it's a requirement that the interviewer be a skilled judge (where a simple technical quiz can be graded with a rubric). And if an interviewee can not manage to cover those strengths in a length, open-ended discussion about their best work, it seems unlikely that any other specific questions would be any better. My main concern with a question like this is that by focusing on the best things a candidate has done, it's harder to get an idea of how they might deal with less optimal situations. On further reflection, I have another objection to this interview approach. I would never work for this company because it fails my personal red-flag test of the hiring process: "Do I want to work with the worst imaginable person who could pass this interview?" This is another fallacy, as interviews with the vast majority of companies don't do "pass/fail," they sort a list and take the best fit.
    - asuffield 12y ago
      Without exception, my experience of hiring in small companies has been that there isn't a "list" of plausible candidates, there's a series of interviews that go on for months, rejecting hundreds of candidates, until you finally find a good one. So I don't really buy into the "sort a list" idea. Maybe the companies I've worked for have all been unusually picky about hiring, it's hard to tell, but I'm pretty sure I wouldn't want to work for a company that wasn't rejecting at this rate.
smtddr 12y ago
The thing you call a flaw, I call a strength. Anyone who would interpret the question that way and just shuts down instead of asking for clarification or making any kind of attempt to describe _some kind of_ project they've been involved in... is a red-flag; you shouldn't hire that person.
iSnow 12y ago
I don't think so. If I had been an interview partner of him, I'd describe how I (as part of a three-person team) re-architected a 10-year old JEE application and converted it to a Jersey/Angular single-page app - while retaining parts of the old code that dealt with scientific calculations, replace other parts with a math library and found the flaws in the ORM configuration that made it take 30s for a page view. After we were done, the same page took less than a second - but the thing that would "light me up" was the process of finding the performance bottlenecks and gradually arriving at a better understanding of exactly why bizarre flaws existed in the way the old application configured the ORM (lack of experience by the original developers and most likely external consultants that told them that using an ORM was professional but not teaching them enough on how to work with it)
GrinningFool 12y ago
What it won't get you is breadth of experience, operational background, full-stack thinking, or people who can look at somebody else's work and say "here are the ways in which that is going to blow up in your face, two years from now". (Anybody care to add to this list?) This is true - because that's a byproduct of experience and not passion. Experience can be soon on a resume. Arguably, passion for the work leads one to make more of the years of experience - ensuring it's "10 years of experience" vs " 1 year 10 times".
bubblicious 12y ago
There were some (a rare few unfortunately) who would be thrilled to talk about the projects they had done professionaly and were really proud of. They would talk in great details about how perfectly designed their asset pipeline was, the paradigms they had put in place, etc. No matter what the project was, if they were excited to tell you about it, it was always a great sign.

Spearchucker 12y ago

It doesn't assume that at all. You as the interviewer get to listen. You can ask probing questions to get the insight you need, or to steer the conversation. It's a great question, because it relaxes the interviewee as she gets to talk about something she knows well, probably enjoyed, and - if she's as good as you hope - has good depth and breadth of knowledge about.

howeyc 12y ago

I admit I just skimmed the article, but I don't see a requirement that the project you choose to talk about be a solo effort. I think the point of the question is to find people who are passionate about their profession (in this case programming).

iamben 12y ago

I'm not sure I agree - from reading the article, I got that the author found people who were excited and passionate about what they did, people who were excited to code. It may have been the lonewolf project that lit them up, it may have been the massive team effort where they found a novel way to help an entire team. But it was someone who really believed in something, rather than someone who was simply working for the weekend.

Goladus 12y ago

I don't think that question precludes all of those things. Anyone who is a "full-stack thinker" with broad experience should have at least one project in their past where they created something they're proud of.

asuffield 12y ago
I'm just going to pick one person to reply to at random since there seem to be half a dozen comments misunderstanding the same thing... Yes, a person with all of those things can answer this question. So can a person who doesn't, which is the point. Answering this question correctly cannot identify people with these highly desirable and uncommon skill sets, so the expected result of using it as your only interview test is to hire the most common subset of people that can pass it. On further reflection, I have another objection to this interview approach. I would never work for this company because it fails my personal red-flag test of the hiring process: "Do I want to work with the worst imaginable person who could pass this interview?"
- Goladus 12y ago
  Answering this question correctly cannot identify people with these highly desirable and uncommon skill sets, so the expected result of using it as your only interview test is to hire the most common subset of people that can pass it. While it's true that if you simply look at the question as having a "correct" or "incorrect" answer then you'd be right. But this question most certainly can help identify someone who has those traits if those are what you're looking for. It is true, that there is a subjective quality to this question and it's a requirement that the interviewer be a skilled judge (where a simple technical quiz can be graded with a rubric). And if an interviewee can not manage to cover those strengths in a length, open-ended discussion about their best work, it seems unlikely that any other specific questions would be any better. My main concern with a question like this is that by focusing on the best things a candidate has done, it's harder to get an idea of how they might deal with less optimal situations. On further reflection, I have another objection to this interview approach. I would never work for this company because it fails my personal red-flag test of the hiring process: "Do I want to work with the worst imaginable person who could pass this interview?" This is another fallacy, as interviews with the vast majority of companies don't do "pass/fail," they sort a list and take the best fit.
  - asuffield 12y ago
    Without exception, my experience of hiring in small companies has been that there isn't a "list" of plausible candidates, there's a series of interviews that go on for months, rejecting hundreds of candidates, until you finally find a good one. So I don't really buy into the "sort a list" idea. Maybe the companies I've worked for have all been unusually picky about hiring, it's hard to tell, but I'm pretty sure I wouldn't want to work for a company that wasn't rejecting at this rate.

smtddr 12y ago

The thing you call a flaw, I call a strength. Anyone who would interpret the question that way and just shuts down instead of asking for clarification or making any kind of attempt to describe _some kind of_ project they've been involved in... is a red-flag; you shouldn't hire that person.

iSnow 12y ago

I don't think so. If I had been an interview partner of him, I'd describe how I (as part of a three-person team) re-architected a 10-year old JEE application and converted it to a Jersey/Angular single-page app - while retaining parts of the old code that dealt with scientific calculations, replace other parts with a math library and found the flaws in the ORM configuration that made it take 30s for a page view. After we were done, the same page took less than a second - but the thing that would "light me up" was the process of finding the performance bottlenecks and gradually arriving at a better understanding of exactly why bizarre flaws existed in the way the old application configured the ORM (lack of experience by the original developers and most likely external consultants that told them that using an ORM was professional but not teaching them enough on how to work with it)

GrinningFool 12y ago

What it won't get you is breadth of experience, operational background, full-stack thinking, or people who can look at somebody else's work and say "here are the ways in which that is going to blow up in your face, two years from now". (Anybody care to add to this list?) This is true - because that's a byproduct of experience and not passion. Experience can be soon on a resume. Arguably, passion for the work leads one to make more of the years of experience - ensuring it's "10 years of experience" vs " 1 year 10 times".

bubblicious 12y ago

There were some (a rare few unfortunately) who would be thrilled to talk about the projects they had done professionaly and were really proud of. They would talk in great details about how perfectly designed their asset pipeline was, the paradigms they had put in place, etc. No matter what the project was, if they were excited to tell you about it, it was always a great sign.