
Hiring Software Engineers - kwindla
https://medium.com/@kwindla/hiring-software-engineers-98498cf6f2a#.hpt883a9n
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clay_to_n
Great roadmap for startups to follow. Much of the writing about hiring
software engineers comes from larger companies, and in my experience don't
seem like reasonable processes for small companies.

Two questions: 1) Do you think the large coding assignment eliminates good
candidates? I'd be concerned that after one phone interview, good candidates
might not be invested enough to spend that kind of time.

2) What are your thoughts on behavioral / situational interviews? We've been
doing one where we ask deeper questions about the candidate's previous roles,
what they liked and didn't, what they think good vs bad teams and process look
like, etc. Do you think these are valuable, and if so are you doing them
during the in-person interview stage?

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kwindla
My experience is that the programming exercise never deterred a candidate I
really wanted to interview. That might be a little surprising, but I always
work very hard to make sure there's a good conversation in the initial phone
screen, so I think that helps a lot. Also, programmers (myself included)
always underestimate how much time it will take to write a given piece of
code, so maybe that helps, too!

I do think it's valuable to talk about previous experience in the ways you
suggest -- what do good teams/processes look like, etc. I usually try to do
that in a pretty casual way, during the in-person interview, and have those
conversations bleed over into the lunch/dinner discussion, too. Basically, I'm
interested in learning about how a person thinks about their work. And
introspection about team dynamics is definitely part of that.

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cableshaft
You might not have that experience, but I've seen otherwise. A company I
worked for hosted an on-site two hour coding exercise (they gave you a
computer, some boilerplate code, and a several tasks that were complete when
you passed their unit tests) that was outlined during the phone interview so
candidates knew what to expect.

But while I worked the boss would regularly complain about people refusing to
do the onsite exam, people cancelling last minute, people refusing the exam
once they were shown what they were about to do, people excusing themselves in
the middle of the exam and ditching, etc.

These are people with 5-10 years of experience on their resumes given to him
by recruiters.

I personally thought the test was a little overwhelming (not hard, just too
much considering the intense pressure of an interview) but I managed to get
through it, and so did everyone else he had hired up to that point. He churned
through a lot of people, though.

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cjcenizal
That's a terrific JavaScript exercise, and sounds like a lot of fun. My only
concern about the process would be the in-person interview. I recently flew
from LA to the East coast for an all-day interview session, and the experience
was miserable. My flight was delayed for hours, I got into my hotel at 1AM, I
was sleep-deprived, jet-lagged, and exhausted for the entire process, and then
I had to rush to catch my flight back as soon as I wrapped up. The flights
averaged out at 6 hours in each direction, so I spent 12 hours in the air
within a 24-hour period. Not fun, but a great way to ensure your candidate is
at his/her weakest during the interviews. :)

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kwindla
Ouch. Yeah, that's a really good point about travel being both a big
commitment/energy-drain on your end, and a bad travel experience making it
really hard to interview well.

I have, in the past, flown someone who is coming cross-country out for the
weekend, covered the hotel costs for the whole time, done something non-
structured on Saturday or Sunday, then done the interview on Monday. And a few
times people have brought family members. (We didn't pay for the family
travel, I don't think, but I don't remember for sure.)

~~~
cjcenizal
Nice! That's really considerate of you. I'm sure your candidates appreciate
the extra time and I bet the Monday conversations are of higher quality, too.

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dougwbrunton
When I was at Shutterstock I got a resume that followed everything to a T,
including a lovely code sample. A bit of googling revealed that it had been
copied line-for-line from an IBM blog. That one went down in the books :-)

During the in-person interviews, I like to focus on getting folks talking
about something they are excited about. It can be hard to get comfortable in
an interview for some folks, and it's paid off a good handful of times for me
to make significant effort getting there. Especially with candidates who
downplay their own experiences, who can easily be overlooked.

