[realusername]

I don't remember what it stands for myself and I conducted a good hundred interviews. All of those questions are useless to filter candidates and don't give you any insights either way in my opinion.

What I'm trying to see is the problem solving thinking flow, interpersonal skills, culture fit and the level of product skills. None of the trick questions help on that. We're living now in a world where the small details are a Google search away anyways.

[lopkeny12ko]

I lead a team of about 10 engineers, and have also interviewed hundreds of candidates over the last few years. I can tell you with certainty that the same candidates who say they don't know what SOLID, KISS, and DRY are, are the same candidates who are poor problem solvers and communicators in the more technical portion of the interview.

[spacedcowboy]

I've never heard of SOLID before today. I'm a senior engineer at a FAANG company - about as senior as you get, actually. I've designed operating systems for novel hardware, implemented kernel extensions, written device-drivers for hardware that doesn't even exist at the time, and debugged the same. I've changed shipping applications to run literally orders of magnitude faster by adopting new technologies, and I've written code in daily active use on hundreds of millions of devices today. I tend to be given exactly the multi-functional cross-team "difficult" system-design problems that you're talking about.

I know of the KISS and DRY principles - I think they're widespread, I've just gone and looked up SOLID and it seems like "sensible object-oriented design", but it's not an acronym I've ever come across in the last 30-odd years of professional software development. I don't think it's in the same category as the first two.

[morgante]

I wouldn't put SOLID in the same category as KISS/DRY. The latter are pretty universally understood principles, but I've never used SOLID despite passing dozens of challenging technical interviews and leading teams across startups and Google.

It's jargon from a subculture of enterprise Java, not a universal term.

[mbrameld]

> It's jargon from a subculture of enterprise Java, not a universal term.

The name itself might be, but the principles apply to software development in general. You don't need to memorize the acronym, but saying you've "never used SOLID" isn't the brag you think it is. If you can get past the acronym and understand the actual principles I think you'll find they apply to most software you write. Unless you never have to maintain the software you write, then it's super easy to go a whole career without understanding the SOLID principles. It's the "20 years of experience" vs "20 * 1 year of experience". Folks in the former group generally understand the SOLID principles even if they can't name them. Folks in the latter group will insist they don't apply to the software they've written in their long and storied careers of job hopping.

[morgante]

> You don't need to memorize the acronym, but saying you've "never used SOLID" isn't the brag you think it is.

You said that if "they don't know what SOLID, KISS, and DRY are, are the same candidates who are poor problem solvers."

I've written plenty of maintainable software, but there are whole realms of software outside enterprise OOP. I have 0 interest in memorizing specific jargon.

[lopkeny12ko]

> I've written plenty of maintainable software

This may very well be true, and I'm not saying it is not true, but after working in software for multiple decades, I can tell you that many developers think they are much better than they actually are.

> I have 0 interest in memorizing specific jargon.

This isn't about memorizing jargon. It's about understanding the basics of enterprise software development. It is no more "memorizing jargon" than knowing the difference between private and public interfaces. Do you study and memorize the definitions of private and public methods in order to pass an interview? Of course you don't--this is something you know by virtue of having written production software.

I would be hard pressed that you would even consider spending more time interviewing candidate who can't tell you the difference between private and public methods. "Tell me about SOLID, KISS, and DRY" is another question in the same bucket of fast screening questions.

[morgante]

> This isn't about memorizing jargon. It's about understanding the basics of enterprise software development.

Google3 is one of the biggest repositories of enterprise software in the world.

I've been in dozens of engineering design reviews and SOLID has literally never come up.

> Do you study and memorize the definitions of private and public methods in order to pass an interview?

There's a pretty major distinction: public and private methods are part of the language.

SOLID is a set of buzzwords invented by a random influencer and propagated through a subculture. I glanced at them quickly and the principles seem generally sound, but I wouldn't interview based on knowing them by name.

[rvba]

Does Linus Torvalds use SOLID?

Probably a better programmer than you. Do you know who is Linus Torvalds?

Do you even have a Putnam?

[cqqxo4zV46cp]

It genuinely sounds like you’ve been working in a particular sub-field for your entire career and have let yourself be convinced that its echo chamber is actually the entire field of software development. You’ve essentially touted the wisdom of one (incredibly far from perfect) tech influencer (Uncle Bob) as being some sort of sacred cow and self-evident truth. If you’ve had a successful career in software development it is in spite of your attitude, not because of it. All you’re asking of candidates is whether or not they follow the same cake-baking instructions as you. You’ve turned some guy’s list of tips and tricks into a religion. That’s not what engineering is.

[realusername]

Well to each their own, I've never seen any correlation between those and actual tech, product or interpersonal skills during the recruitment I've made.

I'm not sure how knowing the SOLID acronym would make you a better communicator anyway even in theory. Maybe you could argue for tech skills even if I disagree but the other ones aren't even remotely close.

To gauge for problem solving skills, asking for problem solving on examples proved to work very well in my experience, you instantly see the candidate's priorities and thinking flow.

Edit: Also I do think KISS and DRY are much more widespread terms across the industry than SOLID is but I would not use them either in interviews personally

[fsociety]

I’d rather see someone code, refactor, write tests, and debug than regurgitate acronyms like SOLID. In other crafts we accept that there is a difference between knowledge and experience. Software is no different.

[cqqxo4zV46cp]

SOLID is just some guy’s quote opinionated list of tips, which themselves overlap with KISS/DRY which are much more fundamental principles. This is either blatant moving of goalposts or (more likely) a glaring sign of inexperience on your part.