[ng12]

> Software development interviewing is broken

Do you know what interviewing in non-tech fields is like? Complete bullshit. It's more about making your resume sound impressive and being buddy-buddy with the interviewer. At least we have meritocratic ideals, even if some companies implement them poorly.

[askafriend]

Is there really value in raising up an ideal that doesn't hold in practice in any way shape or form? It seems as if our interviewing methodologies are designed simply to have a guise of meritocracy whereas in other fields that guise is dropped entirely and we see what really exists for what it is (mostly bullshit).

[ng12]

I think it's more of a cargo cult type thing, where a lot of companies saw Google's hiring process and tried to copy it without having a deep understanding of how it works. There's no reason for coding interviews to be bullshit. I only give one interview question: fetch some data from an endpoint, manipulate it and display it. It's simple and the best proxy for what day-to-day work is like that can be completed in an hour.

[pkaye]

If that is the only kind of problem your company works on then it is a great question to ask just that problem. I like to ask a wide variety of questions to make sure I don't just target someones strengths or weaknesses.

[ng12]

The sad part is it's still really just a FizzBuzz. I get resumes from lots of people with really great backgrounds who just can't write simple code. I'd love to ask more interesting, varied questions but three out of four candidates don't have the tools to solve those.