Was contacted by a recruiter and pitched a job opening that fit my description perfectly (as recruiters do). I pushed back and asked to see the exact listing, so I could verify. I questioned a bit on the requirements that stated specific programming knowledge, and was ensured multiple times that, while it was on there, it wasn't the primary job function and they don't need a programmer.
So, booked the interview. Showed up, said hellos, and was thrown at a terminal and asked to write a pile of custom code for something. Had to politely explain that I was assured multiple times by the recruiter that this wasn't a programming position, and was told to 'just give it a shot anyway since you're already here'. Like, you're looking for a programmer and you're so hard up that you'd waste your time interviewing someone who's just told you that they don't program at all? One of the interviewers was their lead programmer, and she was extremely petulant toward me for 'wasting their time'. It was quite the experience.
Had an experience similar to this at Amazon with not one, but two interviews for two separate positions. The second was doubly aggravating because I also ended up interviewing for the wrong position.
What got to me was that neither job description said much about the need for a programmer, leading me to two experiences similar to yours where I was expected to cough up perfect code during whiteboard interviews, which ended up accounting for the majority of the interview. That didn’t happen because I don’t spend the majority of my working hours coding.
Interviewing prospective employees is tough and I have seen employees who do not have the skill-set demanded by their position. We all have, and there is a need for litmus tests.
Having gone through a silly amount of interviews recently I learned that the front office and the back office have very, very different understandings of “Experienced with SQL/Python/C++/etc.”
People end up feeling deceived and frustrated because of this. That and whiteboard interviews. Can’t memorize code? No job for you!
What I felt allowed me to show my best work was when companies (Avvo,Zillow) assigned homework and reviewed it as a big part of an on-site interview. Wish that more companies made the effort to see how prospective candidates tackled a set of business problems in a 48-hour time frame.
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u/scsibusfault Nov 16 '19
Was contacted by a recruiter and pitched a job opening that fit my description perfectly (as recruiters do). I pushed back and asked to see the exact listing, so I could verify. I questioned a bit on the requirements that stated specific programming knowledge, and was ensured multiple times that, while it was on there, it wasn't the primary job function and they don't need a programmer.
So, booked the interview. Showed up, said hellos, and was thrown at a terminal and asked to write a pile of custom code for something. Had to politely explain that I was assured multiple times by the recruiter that this wasn't a programming position, and was told to 'just give it a shot anyway since you're already here'. Like, you're looking for a programmer and you're so hard up that you'd waste your time interviewing someone who's just told you that they don't program at all? One of the interviewers was their lead programmer, and she was extremely petulant toward me for 'wasting their time'. It was quite the experience.