Sat, 10 Dec 201608:30:00 GMT
Laura was my recruiter. She'd found me from a pile of discarded resumes and thought perhaps it was a mistake.
I think she is no longer entirely of that persuasion – I didn't get the job – but I do think she knows that tech hiring is broken and not just for old farts.
Because it's still true that the tech interview is in most respects a reverse turing-test: prove that you're not human.
It's well-known that you've got to concentrate to do good work. You're unlikely to get to that state in an interview. The assumption is that it doesn't matter because it's the same for everyone. That we can in fact use your bad performance vis-a-vis your peers as a heuristic for future performance.
I think I'm a false negative because I can do it. My past performance shows it and certainly, anyone can visit my open source profile on Github and see for themselves.
I realize that most developers just aren't very good and do need to be weeded out and that not everyone will have a portfolio of past work. And perhaps we're only ever as good as our last two year's work. I'll argue that if you can give good answers to the following questions then you're ahead of most other candidates.
Of course, I'm biased. I think the answer to the last question is "not at all". But I'll accept your answer if it's good. I want to work with people who care about software – philosophy included. It's ultimately about getting things done, but it's equally important to sometimes get out of the weeds, take a step back and talk about what we think of this field.
After all, the first step in gettings things done is not having so much to do.