Technical Interviews

I'm happy to see more conversations about interview processes.

Especially technical interviews with live coding with strangers.

There are so many companies with interview processes that are not like real life work and there is room for improvement.

Why should we expect people to learn a new skill strictly for interviewing? I believe if people have done the work to get to where they are today, and as an interviewer I can trust my ability to judge their knowledge, then they shouldn't be required to learn a new job to get a new job where they won't use that skill.

Do you really think it's fair to ask someone, that you won't give any additional information to about the company, how to design an elevator on the spot? I don't and I didn't. I politely declined and the interviewer smirked and thought it was humorous for some reason.

I've been on the interviewer side of the table and my approach was based on the hiring role - sometimes technical, sometimes less technical. When it's been a technical role, a conversation about a mutually familiar language, etc. really can tell you what the person knows. When more coding was required, I've used just a short challenge and, if needed, will help them walk through it taking into consideration the candidates perspective of not having any time to think about it first. Also, there are people that get anxiety when put in this situation and I have to agree this exercise is nothing like I have ever encountered in my over 20 years of experience in software.

Not everybody is good at fitting in the technical coding interview box that these companies setup. I like to check boxes (would you expect anything different from a QA person), not be put in a box.

Personally, I didn't have to prove that I could code during interviews for the first ten years or so of my career because of networking and trust with people because we had worked together previously at a different organization.

This may have been a blessing in disguise and now it's a curse. Or is it just protecting me from working for companies where I shouldn't have been working anyways.....

Time will only tell.