[nikofeyn]

i am very good at what i do but when software engineers try to act like they know how to hire people, you have problems. i have been interviewed by a company that prided themselves on hiring smart, diverse people who weren't necessarily experienced in a certain field and language. they literally called this out in the job description.

the interviewer proceeded to ask me a deluge of very specific questions about said language, including implementation details of the language itself! all of the questions could have been looked up by an intelligent person online within minutes. and this was a well established, small, but well known company.

all of my software interviews can be summed up with two words: algorithm questions. but yet, my skills lie in architecture, writing bug free code, general design skills, testing, UI dev and client feedback, etc. none of these skills have never had the chance to be discussed in an interview. i came from another field and haven't spent a lot of time in the algorithm space. i can work through them as needed in interviews just as i do in a job, but that is rarely cared about in interviews. people want binary answers.

[WalterBright]

It's often possible for you to drive the interview rather than waiting for the interviewer to ask your questions. Bring up and expound on your skills if they're not asking the right questions.

[mgkimsal]

Whether or not I get an offer, I tend to the enjoy the process more when I try to be collaborative in an interview process, vs waiting to be asked questions. I naturally want to show off some stuff and ask questions - if even that doesn't go well, it's probably not going to be a good culture fit, regardless of whether I can do the raw work.