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by solatic 2724 days ago
> Software engineers do 1-2 interviews per week each, it’s part of the job. I might be a minority, but I would refuse to spend two of my evenings per week interviewing people.

Why are software engineers doing interviews at all? What makes software engineers qualified to interview people (especially when you consider the need to avoid hiring bias, problematic statements by interviewers that expose the company to legal suit, etc.)?

I'm not saying that companies should go to the other extreme and have all interviews conducted by HR - that presents its own set of problems in that HR doesn't know how to evaluate candidates for technical skill. But expecting hiring managers to open up a few evenings per week in the irregular and relatively uncommon circumstance (if it's common, then you have problems with churn on that team, and you should consider firing the manager) in which positions open up on their team to evaluate potential direct reports is not even remotely unreasonable.

1 comments

i am right now preparing to fill two positions, and i am looking to interview at least half a dozen people maybe more. due to my schedule i can't really interview more than one per day, so this is going to take a week or two.

i do want the opinions of the people already on my team, because a big part of the interview process is to find out how well they work together. for me hiring is a team decision, not a top down mandate. so yes, all of my software engineers will be doing interviews. there is no way around it.

on the other hand i agree with you. these rounds of interviews should not happen to often. if our team grows, i expect to add two more positions every quarter. (i don't know how realistic this is, but this just to give you an idea of how much interviewing workload i expect.)