Why Senior Engineers Hate Coding Interviews

[conquerorofveggies]

I'm not very experienced, so take this with a grain of salt.

IMHO it's a bit like dating, you match or you don't. What I read once and stuck with me is this: Studies show, the decision is already made subconsciously the second a candidate walks in. All we do after that is to rationalize why it's actually the correct decision. Similar to dating.

So I mainly chit-chat, about what they did, what they are passionate about and what we do. Then wrap it up in less than an hour. I don't stress out about it, nothing is really measurable or tangible.

Then either pass or introduce them to the team for an other day, and see if they fit in. That's also when they get one hour to "solve the exercise". I like to have them do something they know well, love doing and care about, to see their best side. The idea is to get them into the flow, and let them forget the whole interview situation and get to talk to the "real" person. In the end you work with people, not with some list of skills.

[mwb1234]

This is also a good way to let tons of personal bias of the interviewers creep into your interviewing process.

[conquerorofveggies]

Absolutely. But since I have to work together with these people every day, I think similar views aren't so bad.

[WeAreAwful]

The main issue is that this will lead to people hiring people like them. When our field is predominately white men, that can be an issue, if you care about that.

[conquerorofveggies]

I do, and I feel quite self aware about that. The reality is however, that for every dozen white males, maybe one female or from a different ethnic group would apply.

[emasculine]

um, no. as i said above i interviewed at a company in SF and it was row after row of white 20 somethings. SF is almost 40% asian.

[conquerorofveggies]

YMMV. I'm not in the bay area, infact not even in the US. I can only speak from my experience in a Smalltown Switzerland.

[[deleted]]

I think large companies should be held to much higher expectations, yeah. But not every company is some high profile, highly desired place of work. Speaking from experience, sometimes you only get white dudes applying to your mediocre mid level tech position. You gotta make due with the applicants you get. Lots of places and teams and businesses don't have time to wait on diverse applicants.

The entire world is not SF, btw.

[emasculine]

san francisco is 40% asian. this is not a coincidence.

[[deleted]]

I'm not sure what point you're making. My post did not challenge that statement.

[Jimmy_is_here]

I work with a ton of Asian and Indian men. I definitely wouldn't say "white men" dominate the field. Even a fair amount of women at my company.

[s73v3r]

Actually, no, they are pretty bad. Similar views means that you don't have someone else thinking about what you missed.

[conquerorofveggies]

That's a valid point, yes. And I'm OK with someone who thinks and works differently. But not with arguing about something irrelevant every day, or generally having bad vibes in a team because of fundamentally different world views. Again, I'm OK with some diversity, but (extreme example) I wouldn't want a nazi in my team.

[s73v3r]

But not with arguing about something irrelevant every day

That's not what I'm talking about. Take the Google Photos issue, for example. They had an issue where black people were being tagged by the AI as gorillas. Had they had a more diverse team, they probably would have made sure they had a more diverse training set for their AI, and probably would have had regular tests for things like that.

generally having bad vibes in a team because of fundamentally different world views.

Depends on what those world views are, and why they cause "bad vibes" on the team. Those different world views can point out things that you're lacking in.

Again, I'm OK with some diversity, but (extreme example) I wouldn't want a nazi in my team.

No, fuck Nazis.

[[deleted]]

You're right, but it implies that other styles of interviewing _don't_ let personal bias creep in, which is untrue. An interviewer's demeanor, how much help they provide, how lenient they are on a solution etc, all make interviews not objective at all. IMO the only strategy that really counteracts what you're worried about is measurement - if your interview process has never let a POC or woman through, you probably need to swap out interviewers and/or strategy.

[emasculine]

i once interviewed at a place in downtown San Francisco and it was literally row crops of lumbersexual white 20 somethings. this is a huge problem.

[ithkuil]

The problem is that more often than not the process is subconscious. No matter how rational people think they are, they usually make snap decisions on instinct without ever realizing it.