Exactly. Between my freelancing and full-time experience, I've been involved with dozens of teams. Very few of them react well when you question their abilities, no matter how fair and justified the question.

I call this process fit. It's important to some candidates, and some employers. It's clearly important to you, and you should ask those questions; interviewing is a two-way street.

But if I'm an employer that makes process a big deal, I'm not giving you points for those questions, because I'm going to be sussing out your process fit earlier anyway. If I'm not an employer that makes process a big deal, I'm probably not giving you points for those questions, because it's not a big deal to me (this could be a red flag for you, depending on the answers you get from your probing questions)

Just curious, how do you know that (a) you failed in HR (b) that it was this question and (c) for this reason?

I ask because it's unlikely that this was literally the feedback given you. Also, "I work too hard" does sound a bit canned.

>> The technical interviews, 6 of them in a row!, felt more like they were wanting to see me fail spectacularly rather than focus on my approach of solving whiteboard problems.

I do think this is more "in your head" that real. Nobody shows up to an interview wanting the other person to fail, but "how they solve whiteboard problems" isn't the goal either. It's more about - how does the person, think, collaborate, make tradeoffs and drives to an outcome - the goal being specifically to translate that outside the whiteboard space.

> Imagine my surprise when I got more constructive feedback from this this one question than I had in my entire first year of managing the engineering team

It feels like a cop-out not sharing the answers he received, since his article is premised on those answers and how constructive they allegedly were. Would have made things less abstract too.

Amazing, until you put it into writing I never realized that I do this too.

At least once a day I'll get a random question from my peers in areas where I have more experience than them, which also helped me gain real world work experience years before I even had my first job.

And I do the same when I wander in areas where I haven't had so much experience, discussing approaches and common pitfalls, which makes so much sense.

Yet in interviews it's like you're going to be working alone forever and have to be the best in these exact technologies/languages/stack or you'll never be able to do your job.

I guess this is what you end up with after calling everyone a ninja-rockstar-guru.

> I often get into flame wars during my interview

Make up your mind and then get back to me

I get the sentiment, but it holds little value for me. (I'm in the potential employer category.) I find it pointless as a meter of competency.

> I am working on a side project at the moment mainly to get around the problem I described, but this is taking a whole lot more time than answering a some SO questions.

Think about this comment for a minute. A side project takes longer to complete and requires more discipline and concerted effort. SO questions are quick hits, small scope, and are basically lather-rinse-repeat (find a question, answer it.)

Care to hazard a guess which one of these choices of time I might find more appealing in a candidate?

What else are they going to ask you about? If my resume highlights my notable accomplishments in XYZ and the VP of E asks me if I have any interest in doing XYZ then I am going to consider the VP of E to be a total idiot or incredibly distracted.

He's not, but that doesn't matter. You're going to be hard pressed to only ever communicate with professional communicators with good attitudes your whole career. So if you ever want to be taken seriously and have a successful career, you're going to need to learn what battles are worth fighting. Hell, maybe it was even a test to see if the guy worked well on a high-stress team. If he can't handle one person not understanding the difference between Unix and Unix-like, how's he going to handle someone who puts a tab as an indent instead of two spaces?

The recruiter was wrong. But it doesn't matter. Stanley (hopefully) learned a valuable lesson here, and that lesson is "pick your battles". Life, especially corporate life, is full of nonsensical requirements and TPS reports and if you fight every single one of them your performance review will read "not a team player" every single year.

Well it certainly shows a lack of preparation and experience.

Here's how I approach those questions. I think about each project I've launched, and whether they're relevant. It's an easy thought exercise, and then you have an answer to that question forever. And seriously, time you've made a mistake should be an easy one, and it's one everyone should have ready. Over your whole career you can't think of a time you've done something that you'd do differently if you had a chance? I bet you can, and if not, it shows a serious lack of introspection.

We want people trying to make themselves better. Thinking about your career and studying for interviews is part of that.

> filter out cynical assholes

Dude, at least 50% of the tech industry is people who would charitably be described as cynical assholes. Part of being professional is being able to turn it off. If you can't give a professional answer in an interview how can the interviewer expect you to give a professional answer in a contentious meeting?

That's how I feel about these interview quizes and expectations.

It's free to say things, doesn't make it true. Too often we assume because someone is in a position of power - or is wealthy - that whatever they say must be true. It's not. Sure, we have to nod our heads and pretend it is to keep the job but that still doesn't change the reality.

Shit rolls down hill with exponential momentum. I've seen many instances where a CEO says something innocuous like "I'm a bit disappointed in X" but by the time it gets to someone that can fix it the management in between transformed it from a simple comment into a condemnation. People like to exaggerate things to make something seem more important or impactful than it really is.

There's also a big difference between an interview and dealing with work everyday. I know plenty of people that shine under the pressure of interviews but not under the job itself (and visa versa). You cannot determine these things about a person from an interview. Period. Performance in an interview has very little correlation to job performance (if any).

> you really need people who can keep their wits about themselves.

I need a diverse group of people that I can collaborate with to get things done. If they can't keep their wits about, it's my job to deal with that issue and get them back on track and protect them from organizational crap. Might as well expect every girl or guy you date to be a model with a PhD.

This is lousy behavior not only from a senior, but from anyone. If someone on the team spoke like that, I'd pull them aside. Granted, if the frustration had grounds because the other person wasn't pulling their weight, I'd pull that person aside, too.

One of the things I test for in interviews is behavior towards vulnerability. In the early days, I would meet the candidate not necessarily communicating on my role. I would then ask a silly question as if I did not know the answer and observe the reaction of the candidate. Some take the opportunity to explain to me how things work. Others bounce on that opportunity to do two things:

- Give me bullshit: they imagine I am not technical if I'm asking this question, so they think they can get away with it.

- Shift towards a condescending tone: it is amazing how you can see that shift as in "Oh... you don't know this". Some become discourteous: "Do I have to explain this to you?", roll their eyes.

Another test is, in a technical capacity, say something you know is wrong. How the person will handle this situation? How do they debate? Will they be insufferable when they think they're right? (you want to hire people who are right more often than they're wrong, but not necessarily be douchebags about it as the goal is to solve the problem, not to prove others wrong and do a victory lap on every small matter). Will they just agree with you? Do they aree with you because they didn't know you were wrong, or because they knew and preferred to let it go (which you can't afford because you want people to check your thinking and tell you when you're wrong)?

Another test is say something you know for a fact is right, but say it with a lot of self doubt. Do they make their decisions based on what they perceived your degree of confidence is, or based on facts? You don't want people to debate technical matters and "go for the kill" because you don't seem sure. You want people who'll take that pertinent remark said with doubt, and actually do some thinking about it. Those who don't tend to have a cargo cult mentality and arguments of authority work too well on them.

These behaviors disqualify candidates for several reasons:

- Unless you're doing something trivial, you're pushing your comfort zone and are in the "ignorance zone" while trying to figure out solutions to a problem. We spend a lot of time in this zone, which means we ask each other a lot of questions, sometimes basic questions to check we're going at it from the same hypotheses. A person like the above would become intolerable in this situation as it is clear they have this attitude mostly because they haven't worked on problems non-trivial enough to become humble, ask questions, and risk being silly systematically to get to the bottom of things.

- We must be able to explain things for people with different sets of skills. For example, when a team has several people with different skillsets, each one person should be able to safely ask questions to another person with skills they don't possess.

- That disdain for "non technical" people does no good. From what I have seen, it tends to be a sign of low general intelligence. Talking down to someone smart because they can't code is plain dumb.

>Some very sharp technical minds might not be very good in interpersonal areas. So don't feel bad if you look stupid or someone is a bit nasty.

In my experience, sharp minds tend to value effort and interest of the person they're explaining things to. It is an investment and they're more than willing to explain things to someone again when the person shows they took what was said last time, thought about it, researched things more, came back with more subtle questions that show a deeper understanding than they had before because they're struggling with more nuanced problems.

We often write emails to everyone on the team, going through the rationale of things, point by point. The expectation is to receive a "pull request on our thinking" to fix a bug or add a feature. These are extremely valuable because time and time again, one or more persons on the team would say: I thought we were doing X because of Y, but it appears it's because of Z.

Of course, this gets easier when you have a way of work with colleagues who, when you solve a problem, will stop you and say: "How did you go through it?", "How did you know you had to look at that process?", "How did you know it was time to make that decision?". We tend to talk about everything: product, business, marketing, ecosystem, the whys and hows, and "junior" people are there so they learn the process behind this. They learn what is a priority and what is not and why it is that way, so when something changes, they can update and make decisions on their own to optimize for what we're going for.

As you said, anyone ought to be adding leverage. People tend to think you can't do that in an individual contributor role, but you can. Drafting good issue templates to lower the barrier to writing good issues that are easily parsed adds leverage. Taking meeting notes and sending them to everyone so people can have a written record to track progress, or spot discrepancy between what was said and what was understood and correct it upstream before people work on the wrong thing adds leverage. Factoring out what is "taught" or "told" to newly hired people and putting it into an onboarding document that can be improved by everyone adds leverage. These are all things that can free up considerable time and reduce the frequency of "the senior having to do something".

BINGO.

I'm good at the job and good at normal interviews. I more-or-less enjoy both, even. I like talking to clients, and I'm good at it. I can sell myself. And I can do the work.

Specifically software developer interviews practically make me hyperventilate and break out in hives. Fuck that. A pop quiz over a huge potential space, probably over something I will never in my life actually use on the job, to be solved live while people watch and judge me? Oh my god, no. No. Why the shit that's considered acceptable in a world where we're so touchy-feely that projects are supposed to have Codes of Conduct is beyond me. It's straight-up abuse.

Yes, yes, 1000x yes. I was recently rejected after two technical interviews from a company that my former principal engineer that I worked directly under had referred me to. The position was to work under them again, which is why they referred me. The feedback I got from the recruiter was that it wasn’t the result they had expected, and I hadn’t achieved a specific number on their technical assessment. My understanding of this after some discussion was that the lower score was due to my speed in answering the leetcode style questions in the live interview with another engineer.

Here’s the secret I never brought up with the company while interviewing: In high, school, college, and for the CPA exam, I received accommodations for extended time and testing in isolation to reduce distractions from my ADHD. With those accommodations bringing me up to an even playing field with a neurotypical test taker, I was able to get into a good university, graduate with a bachelors and masters at the top of my class, and pass all four sections of the CPA exam on my first attempt. In the real working world, I have never needed extended time. I always deliver what is asked of me on time while I have witnessed neurotypicals show up to meetings with their work majorly behind.

I have always hesitated to bring this up with companies because I fear they will make the incorrect assumption that extended time on testing implicates that I will be a slower worker, which I have not found to be the case. I don’t want to introduce any biases for the interviewer to pick up. For whatever reason, testing with pressures absolutely slows down my thinking. In the real world, I have found when I face particularly tough problems, I find solutions after going on a 15 minute walk outside or while taking a shower in the morning. You cannot test for that style of problem solving in these high intensity algorithm technical interviews.

I certainly miss having a CPA license as evidence that I was a competent individual from my previous accounting career, which allowed all parties to skip technical questions in the interview and instead focus on fit for both sides. The software engineering industry suffers from too great of an emphasis on absolute performance levels in my opinion. To pass a section of the CPA exam, one needs to score a minimum of 75. What do you call an accountant that passed every section of the CPA exam with 75s? A CPA.

> Where is this coming from ? This is just another assumption the author is making.

It’s coming from the fact that you’re giving someone a project and discussing the result with them.

> > The biggest issue I have seen with tech hires is that they can become very defensive over their solution. I will purposely challenge their solution to see how they react.

> You are asking us to be non-judgemental in the paragraphs above and then being judgemental on the candidate becoming defensive.

That’s not being “judgemental”. It’s just using regular judgement – evaluating a person’s willingness to listen to criticism. The earlier points were about hearing rationale for choices without previous criticism.

> > Pay them immediately on Monday

> Why ?

It shows that you’re well-organized and keep your word.

I think most of your arguments were coloured by the mention of a paid product.

This is so important.

I can probably live with most open plan set ups, sure there will be annoying times, but if there is a call-heavy team nearby, forget it.

I refuse to wear noise cancelling headphones all day long.

FWIW, interviewers will blatantly lie.

I asked at an interview about equipment quality and was told that they'd not heard any complaints.

This was 100% bullshit. I was given an ancient laptop, which seemed to re-ignite complaints about the quality of the equipment and were taken up with, none other than my interviewer.

Most people are shit at interviewing. Those that aren't still aren't qualified to psychoanalyze people.

> The problem is that not everyone easily indexes their job-experiences into neat, well-narrated vignettes that can be called up and summarized to an interviewer in real-time. It's hard stuff but it's better than other forms of interviewing.

> Tell me about a time you disagreed with your boss?

We disagreed and then I quit because I felt like there was a pattern of him not listening.

Oops wrong answer.

These questions just get gamed. People tell dressed up versions of cherry picked stories. No one tells the story of why they finally had enough and quit. No one tells the story of a discussion turning heated because both sides got a bit too attached to their opinion. No one tells the story of just giving up and accepting that they won't win.

Interviews are very different from working together collaboratively. They're very different from presenting work to or working with a client or stakeholder, too, and even very different from a sales presentation. The space of things that might come up is effectively unbound, how you're being judged is wildly uncertain, you are being judged, and you know almost nothing about the people you're "working with". As practiced in software, they're closer to being called in to give a thesis defense without knowing in advance which thesis you'll be defending—and also everyone in the room is a stranger, and also you have no clue which aspects of your performance are being judged or by what criteria, and even know for a fact that some of the people conducting these have completely opposite opinions about which behaviors are desirable and which are "red flags".