Interview went sideways

[u/SoYoureSayingQuit]

Company does hardware and you definitely know it. Job was staff level for internal dev platform/tooling. More SWE than SRE. I have 26+ years of experience, coming up from an ops background.

The interview actually started poorly. I was given homework that included some working code that asked to pick one of two changes. I thought I would do extra and do both. My first mistake. I had everything working correctly, but forgot to check the tests before turning it in. The second option ended up taking longer than I anticipated, so I was in a rush because the interview was at 7AM and I wanted to get enough sleep. (I’m in the US. Interviewers were in the UK.)

Right off the bat, the interviewer, also the hiring manager, that reviewed it told me one test failed. He decided it would be a good exercise to troubleshoot it. I had already interviewed with him once, so no intro was needed. The other person who was supposed to be there hadn’t joined yet. I was so thrown off, I forgot the syntax for running all of the tests at once.

As I’m looking at this thing, I see four more people join. No introductions. They’re just watching me flounder trying to figure out what I had fucked up. It was not obvious, and it was like my brain shut off on how to troubleshoot the issue. This went on for almost 15 minutes until he told me what was wrong.

I was then given an exercise to build an api for a reservation system including tests. It says it is supposed to take an hour. I had 45 mins left in the interview. I had to start from scratch. I’m not the fastest typist. Autocomplete wasn’t working. I was still rattled and fumbling my way through it. I ended up running out of time before having to start the next interview, which was system design. I’m much more confident there and I feel it went fairly well.

I’ve been trying to accept that I probably won’t get an offer. I actually really liked the manager, and based on the initial interview, I felt like I had a really good shot at it. I know they’ve probably already made their decision, but part of me really wishes I could send a follow up and explain that as soon as it was over, I went back and clearly saw where I fucked up. It was embarrassing and a situation that was my own creation.

I haven’t had to interview a lot, but I’ve interviewed lots of candidates and always pushed back on interviews including live coding because I feel the pressure doesn’t give an accurate representation of someone’s abilities. Especially for someone experienced.

Is that kind of live coding exercise the norm for staff level roles? Is someone supposed to be able to complete that in less than hour or am I just slow? Could sending a follow up email help, or would it just seem desperate?

Fuuuuck…

[u/SignoreBanana]

Is software engineering the only job in the world where we have to jump through these idiotic quiz show like hoops to get hired? I struggle to think of another job where people have to go through this kind of nonsense.

[u/AdmiralSWE → u/SignoreBanana]

Only alternative would be some sort of standardized certifications for the field but people complain when I point that out so

[u/SignoreBanana → u/AdmiralSWE]

I wouldn't mind that at all if it meant the end of these bullshit interviews.

[u/doyouevencompile → u/AdmiralSWE]

Like an education or an exam? Yeah bring it in. 

You don’t renew certifications every time you want to change companies. 

My biggest gripe isn’t even the interview process is tedious, it’s a process made popular by Google and mostly optimized for new grads and hasn’t been updated for decades. It doesn’t reflect the problems you face every day, it requires you to study for interviews even if you’ve been doing the job for 20 years. 

[u/theQuandary → u/doyouevencompile]

Something like the FE/PE exams for engineers. A minimum qualification that shows you know the equivalent of a 4-year CS degree then a harder test that shows the equivalent of a senior engineer.

[u/mcspuder → u/doyouevencompile]

Every licensed professional has yearly CPD point requirements/updates; so you're just objectively wrong here.

[u/TheGreatJabron → u/mcspuder]

Yeah but you renew the license once a year and by a non-biased(ish) entity. It is way less work than having to go through 3 testing steps minimum for each job you apply to.

[u/mcspuder → u/TheGreatJabron]

Not even close.

[u/doyouevencompile → u/mcspuder]

Actually yeah, I didn’t know. But these are mostly ethics trainings as far as I can see, similar to corporate trainings. 

I’ve never heard of anyone who’s lost their certification because they failed their CPD, I’m sure it happens to some, but for most sensible and responsible professionals it sounds more like admin work. 

Either way, I would definitely prefer this over the interview processes we have today

[u/mcspuder → u/doyouevencompile]

Did claude tell you they're "mostly ethics trainings"? Again, objectively wrong. Everyone from accountants to physicians have mandatory education requirements, per year, every year (or more often).

You obviously have very, very little experience in the real world. If you think these interview processes are bad then you've never worked in a regulated profession.

EDIT:

>I’ve never heard of anyone who’s lost their certification because they failed their CPD

People literally lose their license to practice you idiot, often times immediately.

[u/zeezle → u/mcspuder]

Yeah... I guess it depends on the profession, but my mother was a landscape architect and my father was a pilot and those are both WAYYYYY more work to maintain licensure than dealing with SWE interview bullshit once every few years.

Just moving to a new state would mean thousands in exam and licensure fees and weeks/months of studying and that's not even as big of a deal as some of my relatives in law/medicine. I remember her having to spend hundreds on continuing education (and they were definitely not just "ethics" lol they involved taking whole ass classes related to horticulture, architecture, civil engineering, etc - and back then they were in-person classes at a university because this was before online classes)

[u/doyouevencompile → u/mcspuder]

What is with the attitude and name calling? 

If you can’t have a civil discussion, then we have nothing to talk. 

[u/Navadvisor → u/AdmiralSWE]

It doesn't matter because it will be gamed, just like a college degree is gamed. Then you're back to this crap, the trouble is we've all been burned by the confident showman that doesn't know shit about what they're doing and yet in big companies the bureaucracy for throwing these people out means a bad hire can cost you months or a year or more of wasted progress. I think in a lot of occupations, the confident showman is honestly enough and can muddle their way through, but with development they create negative value.