[singingfish]

I've recently got into the interviewing for devs game. Now we're a perl fairly specialised shop, and we only hire experienced people so that makes things relatively easy (candidates need to demonstrate a depth of knowledge, and . The pool of people around is relatively shallow too. We don't actually need to ask people technically detailed questions about specific algorithms. We have a conversation. From that conversation you can learn a lot. How do you do async programming (answer you structure the code to make it easy for it to scale)? What experience do you have with RDBMSs? (we're looking for higher level answers). What's the difference between jquery and prototype? How do you deal with conflict? What's the most important thing about coding style? And you let the conversation flow depending on what they say and how they answer the questions.

[_asummers]

One of my favorite questions is asking people their least favorite and favorite languages then asking people to give one of their favorite features in the least favorite language, and least favorite features in their favorite language. Shows that they've actually spent time thinking about their tools. You get a surprising amount of insight from it, depending on the answer.

[maxerickson]

This question would throw me for a loop because I don't have anything I think of as my least favorite language.

I could pretend that Python was my favorite language, but that's more that I'm comfortable with it than any sort of actual feeling that I should prefer it over others. That is, I use it out of inertia and familiarity, not out of some sense that I've found something.

[_asummers]

See, but that's a reasonable answer. I might take that and pivot to like "if you had to design an ideal language, drawing from the strengths of the ones you've worked with, what would you think most important?". The idea is to get you talking about things you've worked with to show familiarity and critical thought about your tools.

[singingfish]

Yes that's a good question, I wouldn't like to have that without notice in an interview :)

[SilasX]

I hate the question -- I do think about my tools, constantly, but whenever I've been faced with that question, I don't have a "best" and "worst" lined up, and have to think about the question for a few minutes to recall all the moments of frustration, and so anything I give on-the-spot will sound stupid.

[lmm]

I hate that one because I think Scala basically gets it right, and so I can't really give a good answer to least favourite feature in it. It's my favourite language precisely because I don't think there's anything massively wrong with it!

[lmm]

Doesn't that risk hiring someone who says the right high-level things (maybe they've read some books) but can't actually do anything at the concrete implementation level?

[singingfish]

Yes this is true. But I'd be hoping they'd also have something on github or the cpan, or other places to show their general thought processes. Or at minimum a credible recent employer and references to back it up.