
Ask HN: How would you interview people with much more experience than you? - fallmonkey
I&#x27;m a junior developer. Candidate could literally be my father and is for a manager position, with solid background. FWIW there&#x27;re are also rounds of interviews with seniors.<p>Algorithm questions could be last resort, design questions might end up making myself the interviewee...what else then?
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brudgers
_In the past, have junior developers working with you transitioned to greater
responsibilities?_

 _What approaches did you use?_

 _How do those approaches compare or contrast to your own experience as a
junior developer?_

 _What do you see as the defining differences between junior developers and
senior developers?_

 _Is there an interesting technical subject you 've recently encountered?_

 _How often do you write code?_

 _What makes a good programming language?_

 _Tell me a debugging story._

[caveat, I might be old enough to be your parent]

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bsvalley
It's like hiring your own manager. Make it look like a weekly 1-1 meeting.
Expose the project you're working on right now to see if he can get his hands
dirty and understand your pain points, etc. See where he could be technically
helpful to you.

Then, ask about his past experience working on career growth. Has he ever
promoted anyone? What's his management style, hands-on/off? etc.

Honestly, algorithm questions are really out of the scope here (don't ask algo
stuff... please :-)

~~~
fallmonkey
Exactly! I've read many HN stories about bad interview experience and I really
wish to make it an enjoyable one for both me and candidate by staying away
from those new-grad leetcode algorithm questions. Thanks for the kind advice!

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mvpu
The same way Charlie Rose interviews his guests: read their resume, and poke
into their background with curiosity and respect. Dig into their past life to
your heart's content, but make them feel good about it.

In this case, I would poke them on a) relevant problems they worked on and how
they went about solving them (dig as deep as you can), b) how they approach
problem solving and coding in general (what excites them), c) how they made
career decisions to date (what drives them), and why they're interested in the
role you're hiring for (what's motivating them).

I wouldn't waste time with algorithm questions. A thoughtful and motivated
developer will figure out and deliver much more than a algorithm guru.

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user5994461
> Algorithm questions could be last resort, design questions might end up
> making myself the interviewee...what else then?

Go for the design questions.

Let him show his design skills and show his ability to teach it to you. That's
what you expect from a more experienced, isn't it?

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josephv
I had to interview a manager or two as a senior dev and then interviewed
countless people for manager, supervisor, and dev jobs as a manager.

I think the best thing to focus on is hiring a manager that knows a little bit
about the processes you guys use day-to-day. If you're an agile team, ask
about agile; a requirement document team, ask about documentation experience.
Processes sort of follow some high-level patterns due to the large
accreditation bodies that profit from selling their own flavors.

Have they managed QA or been involved with continuous integration and
automated testing? What task-management systems have they used? Are they
interested in promoting strong architecture, is production support a priority;
or ask them to list out a set of priorities related to product delivery,
production support, architecture, customer service, which helps with
discovering any underlying philosophies more than really giving any direct
information. Give an example of a time they resolved a conflict.

Asking about what the technology stack was for the team they managed is always
good as well. If they can explain it coherently they weren't just doing
performance reviews and checking time logs to make sure people were at their
desks.

Just some ideas off the top of my head.

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runjake
Their personality. Their thoughts on teamwork and how they learn new skills.

Asides from the basics, I'm more interested in an applicant's personality and
how well they'd mesh with the existing team.

The particulars of skills can be trained. Personality pretty much cannot.

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JSeymourATL
> Candidate could literally be my father and is for a manager position...

Some empathy-- He might be thinking this millennial is the same age as my
kids. It can be rather intimidating having a young punk size you up for a job.

Get beyond that -- focus your questions on determining if the candidate could
be a successful manager. Here's a list of questions to give you some ideas >
[http://www.bakertilly.com/uploads/interviewing-leadership-
ca...](http://www.bakertilly.com/uploads/interviewing-leadership-candidates-
for-emotional-intelligence.pdf)

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david-gpu
Have you asked the people who put you in that position? They may have a
specific role for you even if they didn't verbalize it.

In the absence of other info I would let the more senior guys size him up in
terms of technical skills, and instead focus on the more human aspects. At the
end of the day what you want to know is "can I be happy working with this
person?".

You didn't mention whether this person will be or is likely to become your
future manager. If he will then the question becomes "would I like to report
to this guy?".

~~~
fallmonkey
Hey David, thx for the kind advice.

I did ask my current manager about this decision and he did mention that he
wants to find a engineering project manager (we have PMs) who could
technically manage projects with him so he's not overloaded. This person might
become my manager in the future but not immediately (maybe after 1 or 2 years
when he's going to assemble his own team).

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commenttolearn
I would focus on the soft skills & cultural fit area and leave technical and
managerial skills to other interviewers.

The reason for this is that as a junior developer, you won't probably be able
to technically challenge a candidate with many more years or experience.

Also make sure you ask for advise to other interviewers in your company,
people is always happy to share the way the interview candidates and everyone
has a different approach that we can learn from.

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AnimalMuppet
Ask about his management style.

Ask how he handles people under him that he has a personality clash with. (If
in doubt, make it clear that you aren't intending for that person to be you.)

Ask him about mentoring people younger/less experienced than himself.

