[niemeyer]

Interview processes aren't about ensuring 100% of the good candidates get hired, but rather about trying to ensure that the candidate finally selected is good.

Being several times on the hiring end of that conversation, there's a class of great people that are very hard to identify over an interview. It feels quite bad to suggest a no-go in those cases, but living through such choices, sometimes for years, increases the fear of mishaps.

These days I mainly look at track record. Involvement in projects, conversations, issues filed, quick hacks, etc. Often language or tech doesn't even matter, as long as there's flexibility and an ability to talk over problems.