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Netflix sounds like a pretty clued on place in terms of hiring and culture. Which considering their size is no small feat. I don't like their clever wording aro

Netflix sounds like a pretty clued on place in terms of hiring and culture. Which considering their size is no small feat. I don't like their clever wording around what they call a "high performance culture" which basically means that if you don't meet the level they expect, you get fired. Which is fine, but they should be a little more honest about the fact without burying it behind creative HR speak. I would love to know more about their hiring process though. You mentioned that you didn't have to answer questions unrelated to your job (something I personally experienced during a job interview on a bad scale recently). Do they make you solve puzzles and other pointless indicators that some companies use to determine if a developer is any good or not? More specifically maybe a front-end focused role, not a back-end one. Would love to know more about the process (as much as you can without getting into trouble).

sanderjd 12y ago
I must just be an outlier on this, but I hate the idea of only getting interview questions that pigeonhole me into some narrow role, because it suggests that the job will be similarly pigeonholed, which I think is awful. I much prefer lines of questioning that attempt to suss out how well I can participate on a team, learn and adapt, and think creatively, because they suggest that they hope for me to be doing those things a lot, which is great.
- DigitalSea 12y ago
  Let me elaborate. Recently I went for a job that was being advertised as a front-end developer position. The recruiter who briefed me on the position also informed me that it was a front-end only role and that there would be a test on various front-end things; HTML, CSS and Javascript for the most part. As it turned out, the interviewer had plans to test me on a few front-end related things, but then proceeded to ask me questions about Java, databases, server administration and complex Javascript puzzles. Keep in mind this was a position for a front-end developer, their job listing didn't mention Java, databases or server administration. Looking at their current site, they are abusing jQuery pretty badly, aren't minifying their CSS/JS or tonnes of other things, so it felt weird I was being asked super complicated and mostly irrelevant questions when their site seemed so poorly developed. I think it is important you not only get quizzed on things relating to your job, but also other things not directly relating to your job (but still important and within reason). I showed up for a particular job as a front-end developer and was asked questions that you would ask a DBA, Java developer and front-end developer. It was not the role being advertised. This is a mistake that I discovered seems to happen at quite a fair bit. The hiring process is definitely broken at a lot of companies.
  - sanderjd 12y ago
    I'm with you, and it sucks and is very nerve-wracking to have the wrong expectations going into an interview. Having said that, my reaction to that would have been more like "oh good, I'm glad they're also interested in what I know about a bunch of other stuff, I was afraid they just wanted me to be the HTML, CSS, and JS guy". Specialization is a good thing, but I prefer jobs where I'm hired because they think I'll be generally useful to the company, perhaps on things they haven't even foreseen working on yet, rather than for a really narrow role. A farther flung interview suggests an interest in hiring a person rather than a set of skills.
    - DigitalSea 12y ago
      I admire your optimism. Perhaps I have been in the industry for too long, but these days I much prefer being a specialist in a particular niche as opposed to be known as the guy in the office who gets emailed when the printer breaks, a server goes down, a Wordpress site needs to be built or someone has a question about why their email is broken. I have been in that situation a few times in my career, when I worked at a digital agency especially. My job varied from Javascript, CSS and HTML, to developing HTML newsletters, building Wordpress websites, setting up servers/databases and tonnes of other things. At the time it was an invaluable learning experience, but also meant I worked long hours because my list of responsibilities was longer, friendships suffered because I worked a lot of weekends/late nights. As a result of that job, I didn't feel like it made me an expert in one particular thing. I was good at many things, but not truly great at front or back-end development. I felt like I had to learn outside of work hours to get good enough to specialise in my chosen field (my day-to-day job was obviously also a factor). If I went for a job advertised as one thing, but then discovered that they expect you to be good at a lot of other things it would make me think twice (at least now I do). When I first started out, I was willing to do anything because I was young, naive and excited I had a job doing what I wanted to do in life. My initial thoughts would be, "Please, not again. I don't want the responsibility of wearing multiple hats. I've worked hard to get to the point where I want to specialise in a chosen field", followed by, "This company is trying to get a combination stir-fry developer so they can cheap out and not have to hire a separate database administrator or back-end developer." If you want a developer who knows a lot of things and is expected to work with a tonne of different languages, deploy a server and make coffee: there is nothing wrong with that, just be upfront and honest about it, so people like myself don't waste your time and have their time wasted. Don't lure candidates in with a misleading job description only for them to discover the job is actually more than you initially led on.
svachalek 12y ago
The "Freedom and Responsibility" link here describes the culture, including the wording "adequate performance gets a generous severance package". I was asked to read this before my interview and found it sufficiently direct. http://jobs.netflix.com/who-we-are.php http://jobs.netflix.com/who-we-are.php

sanderjd 12y ago

I must just be an outlier on this, but I hate the idea of only getting interview questions that pigeonhole me into some narrow role, because it suggests that the job will be similarly pigeonholed, which I think is awful. I much prefer lines of questioning that attempt to suss out how well I can participate on a team, learn and adapt, and think creatively, because they suggest that they hope for me to be doing those things a lot, which is great.

DigitalSea 12y ago
Let me elaborate. Recently I went for a job that was being advertised as a front-end developer position. The recruiter who briefed me on the position also informed me that it was a front-end only role and that there would be a test on various front-end things; HTML, CSS and Javascript for the most part. As it turned out, the interviewer had plans to test me on a few front-end related things, but then proceeded to ask me questions about Java, databases, server administration and complex Javascript puzzles. Keep in mind this was a position for a front-end developer, their job listing didn't mention Java, databases or server administration. Looking at their current site, they are abusing jQuery pretty badly, aren't minifying their CSS/JS or tonnes of other things, so it felt weird I was being asked super complicated and mostly irrelevant questions when their site seemed so poorly developed. I think it is important you not only get quizzed on things relating to your job, but also other things not directly relating to your job (but still important and within reason). I showed up for a particular job as a front-end developer and was asked questions that you would ask a DBA, Java developer and front-end developer. It was not the role being advertised. This is a mistake that I discovered seems to happen at quite a fair bit. The hiring process is definitely broken at a lot of companies.
- sanderjd 12y ago
  I'm with you, and it sucks and is very nerve-wracking to have the wrong expectations going into an interview. Having said that, my reaction to that would have been more like "oh good, I'm glad they're also interested in what I know about a bunch of other stuff, I was afraid they just wanted me to be the HTML, CSS, and JS guy". Specialization is a good thing, but I prefer jobs where I'm hired because they think I'll be generally useful to the company, perhaps on things they haven't even foreseen working on yet, rather than for a really narrow role. A farther flung interview suggests an interest in hiring a person rather than a set of skills.
  - DigitalSea 12y ago
    I admire your optimism. Perhaps I have been in the industry for too long, but these days I much prefer being a specialist in a particular niche as opposed to be known as the guy in the office who gets emailed when the printer breaks, a server goes down, a Wordpress site needs to be built or someone has a question about why their email is broken. I have been in that situation a few times in my career, when I worked at a digital agency especially. My job varied from Javascript, CSS and HTML, to developing HTML newsletters, building Wordpress websites, setting up servers/databases and tonnes of other things. At the time it was an invaluable learning experience, but also meant I worked long hours because my list of responsibilities was longer, friendships suffered because I worked a lot of weekends/late nights. As a result of that job, I didn't feel like it made me an expert in one particular thing. I was good at many things, but not truly great at front or back-end development. I felt like I had to learn outside of work hours to get good enough to specialise in my chosen field (my day-to-day job was obviously also a factor). If I went for a job advertised as one thing, but then discovered that they expect you to be good at a lot of other things it would make me think twice (at least now I do). When I first started out, I was willing to do anything because I was young, naive and excited I had a job doing what I wanted to do in life. My initial thoughts would be, "Please, not again. I don't want the responsibility of wearing multiple hats. I've worked hard to get to the point where I want to specialise in a chosen field", followed by, "This company is trying to get a combination stir-fry developer so they can cheap out and not have to hire a separate database administrator or back-end developer." If you want a developer who knows a lot of things and is expected to work with a tonne of different languages, deploy a server and make coffee: there is nothing wrong with that, just be upfront and honest about it, so people like myself don't waste your time and have their time wasted. Don't lure candidates in with a misleading job description only for them to discover the job is actually more than you initially led on.

svachalek 12y ago

The "Freedom and Responsibility" link here describes the culture, including the wording "adequate performance gets a generous severance package". I was asked to read this before my interview and found it sufficiently direct. http://jobs.netflix.com/who-we-are.php http://jobs.netflix.com/who-we-are.php