14 ms·

Ask HN: What are your personal red flags when you're interviewing at a company?

36 points by bazil376 2y ago

The sort of stuff where if an employee interviewer says it you think to yourself “nope, this isn’t the place for me.”

codr7 2y ago
Not so much about words for me, more about the vibe: Unwillingness to compromise. Unwillingness to evolve. Lack of empathy. Lack of trust. Lack of flexibility. A fetish for telling people what to do.
- giantg2 2y ago
  I don't think I've ever seen a job that doesn't have one or more of these.
  - codr7 2y ago
    I don't think it exists. But too much of that and I'm out.
    - deterministic 2y ago
      It does exist. I experienced it interviewing for my current job and a previous job. But I do agree that it is probably rare.
j45 2y ago
Pro-tip: Too many interviewers can be threatened by incoming talent being better than them.
- j0hnyl 2y ago
  That's so sad. I get so excited when I interview candidates that are ahead of me in their knowledge and experience.
  - codr7 2y ago
    Many managers are very sad shadows of what they could be.
  - j45 2y ago
    Seems like one may be the exception and not the norm. In too many cases the top candidates are completely omitted from scoring let alone for an interview. Not everyone has an unbiased process, it's common.
treeface9000 2y ago
If they answer yes to any of the following: - Have you ever had to work on the weekend or well beyond 5pm outside of your own personal interest/initiative? - Are we required to be on-call If there's any hint of "nah, we don't really write tests because we just need to ship stuff, y'know"
- ghaff 2y ago
  I'm not sure I would even know how to answer that first question. When I was working, I spent many weekends and late nights traveling. It was my "own initiative" I guess in the sense that it was sort of my job. I realize that probably doesn't describe a lot of people in which case it's probably the right job for them.
tharne 2y ago
If they have an interview process that involves a take home project or something similarly time intensive. To me that screams, "I don't care about any family responsibilities you may have, I want a bunch of childless 20-twenty somethings I can burn and churn".
- PaulHoule 2y ago
  I failed one of those take-home projects (got about 1/3 of it in probably 3x the time) but felt it was a pretty good experience because it got me to try a kind of coding I'd always been interested in but never did.
  - mjd 2y ago
    I was asked a while back to do a 4–6 hour take-home project. I would have told them where to stick their 4–6 hour project, except it involved writing a Flask server, and I wanted to learn how to write a Flask server. I wasn't offered the job, but I regret nothing.
- fred_is_fred 2y ago
  That's what all these are.. The 6 hour assignments, the 10pm happy hour team meet and greet - it's not about skill it's about proving you have no other responsibilities.
- codr7 2y ago
  Don't forget desperate, because people with options would likely skip. I've done plenty of code tests in the past, these days it would take A LOT to motivate me. Usually I just say thanks, but no thanks if they insist on testing me.
- j0hnyl 2y ago
  We have a take home assignment as a screening stage, but we ask candidates to time box it to 45min. Some folks refuse to do it and that's fine, but most are pretty open to it.
  - 2y ago
aristofun 2y ago
I prefer reasonably scoped take home assignment to leetcode "prove me you're awesome in 30 minutes" kind of interviews. Relying on these kind of signals as a main input is a sign that company didn't think through their hiring process and rather just cargo-culting. But all that are still secondary concerns: good people can make bad process work, bad people tend to ruin the best of processes. So for me the only important "flags" are specific people I contact — their attitudes, levels of professionalism, questions they ask, answers they give, their decision process etc. On all steps of the interview process.
- ghaff 2y ago
  Reasonably scoped is probably the tough part. There are a lot of things where you know the other person who is really banking on this job is going to spend days on. That said, when I was a tech industry analyst, a writing sample--maybe a presentation--on a topic (probably of your choice) wasn't really a negotiable requirement and if you couldn't just pull one out of a folder that you could share, you were probably going to have to spend a bunch of time creating.
- willio58 2y ago
  I share the same feeling. Give me a reasonable take-home where I can flex my knowledge on some real-world stuff. Some people I've worked with in the past scoff at this idea. When I ask them how they would prefer I evaluate technical ability they seem to all meander around the question basically saying you know a good hire when you see one. It's tough to hire good people. I've been in the hiring process for Stanford graduates who could barely code in their take-home. I've also hired candidates who freshly changed their careers later in life and wowed us with their take-home. The 4 hour take-home for us has been wildly helpful in identifying the best hires, but I do get it can feel like a burden to some. I just don't think I could really trust the outcome of leetcode. To me, I feel like anyone can grind leetcode for a couple months and ace a test on it. Does that mean they can create anything of value? Not really.
  - codr7 2y ago
    Sure thing, but if you don't compensate them for the work you're going to lose people, actually you're still going to lose people who don't feel like being tested at all. I've been involved in hiring developers, and I get it, you want to make sure. But just because something can be measured that doesn't mean that it's a good idea. I like to suggest a time limited evaluation period instead.
SaberTail 2y ago
I've walked out of an interview when the employee doing it took a phone call in the middle of it. It was so rude and disrespectful. I once got a whiteboarding problem and proposed a solution, and the interviewer gave me a flat out "that's not the one I had in mind". I'd already asked clarifying questions and thought my proposal was reasonable in light of the constraints as I understood them. After a few minutes of trying to play mind reader, I asked, "Is there some constraint or requirement I'm missing?" and they said no. I retrospect, I should have walked out on that one, too. I still have no idea what they wanted from me. Communication goes both ways.
- acheron 2y ago
  So many interviewers fall into the old xkcd “communicating poorly then acting smug when you’re misunderstood is not cleverness”.
  - fragmede 2y ago
    https://xkcd.com/169/ https://xkcd.com/169/
- codr7 2y ago
  Oh, I've played that game. Did a round of interviews for staff engineer at Catawiki that felt more like trying to guess the right words than actual problem solving. But I get it. People get dragged into the process, usually without compensation. And it's much easier and safer to reject than to accept. The tragedy is that everyone knows that the approach isn't working, I haven't met a single person who thinks SWE hiring is working; but we still seem unable do fix it.
- kelnos 2y ago
  > I once got a whiteboarding problem and proposed a solution, and the interviewer gave me a flat out "that's not the one I had in mind" Oh jeez. The impatient, combative side of me would want to respond, "so you're not open to other people's ideas, or open to the possibility that your approaches may not be the only good possibilities?" A more diplomatic response might be, "can you tell me what you think about my approach is unworkable or at least suboptimal?" I think your question about a possible missing constraint/requirement was a good one. Actually, I think after asking that question and getting no reasonable responses, my original combative response seems a bit more appropriate...
vusjandus23857 2y ago
When I was 35, I had a mid-20's startup CEO ask me if I still had it in me... what?
- codr7 2y ago
  Dang, my 35yo self probably would have punched it in the nose and asked if it was good enough.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- giantg2 2y ago
  Hehe "ask your mom" might have been a response I'd give. Maybe not an appropriate response, but at least it'd be entertaining.
- geocrasher 2y ago
  haha. I'm pushing 50. If somebody asked me "Do you still have it in you" I'd say "What, to disconnect Zoom calls with smug 20 somethings? You bet." [End Call]
hoerzu 2y ago
Coding challenge, HR more involved than engineers, not remote friendly
- ceron 2y ago
  What is wrong with coding challenges? With a simple challenge you can get a hint of coding style (flashy vs pragmatic), accordance to current best practices, is TDD being used, clean code accordance and so on. And then you have something you can talk about in your final interview which can be helpful. Does the applicant take criticism well, can he explain his code or specific decisions etc.
haliskerbas 2y ago
Justifying lower pay with "we just want people who truly believe in the mission"
- bazil376 2y ago
  I had a recruiter trying to convince me to take an offer lower than my current salary, telling me it’s not all about the money. I told him I’d do it if he made up the difference by giving me some of his salary. He told me he’s not giving me his salary to which I replied “it’s not all about the money”
  - AlexDragusin 2y ago
    Well executed!
  - giantg2 2y ago
    To be fair, sometimes it's not all about money. Better work life balance after making bigger money can be a nice transition as one gets older or starts a family. But yeah, those lower paying jobs have to play some kind of angle other than money. Some are garbage, but some might have perks.
    - bazil376 2y ago
      Honestly I just found it irksome that the recruiter was trying to tell me how to prioritize my needs in the job search when it was obvious he was just trying to make a placement.
      - giantg2 2y ago
        Recruiters are used car salesmen. I just expect this sort of thing from them.
    - JohnFen 2y ago
      This is true, but whether or not it's all about the money isn't something anyone outside of your own head can determine. A recruiter or other outside interested party saying it is that person straight-up trying to manipulate you. That would be the red-flag part to me even if I were fine with a reduced pay rate.
cryptoz 2y ago
Making fun of my side project. An interviewer looked at me with this vicious, incredulous look when I described my side project in ~2019, which was a weather network built on the sensors inside phones. Guy said, “a weather app, really?! You think that’s a good use of your time in 2019? What makes you think a weather app is useful to make today?” MFer, it was a good idea in 2011 and it’s a good idea today and it’ll be a good idea in 10 years. And it wasn’t just a weather app omg! But he didn’t care, just kept pressing me for like 5 mins why I would ever think making a weather network service was useful. No amount of explaining the complexity or novel recently-developed techniques that made it possible would convince him I wasn’t wasting my time.
- bazil376 2y ago
  And even if it wasn’t a good idea, the fact that the person couldn’t be respectful when they’re trying to impress you the most is a very bad sign.
  - giantg2 2y ago
    And you're not being hired as a product guy. You don't need marketable ideas. They could have dug into the technical architecture of it instead.
  - kelnos 2y ago
    Yeah, that's the thing. Being a dick to your interviewee -- being a dick to anyone -- is just a huge red flag. And ignoring that, even if the project was just a toy that isn't particularly useful, that's not really the point. Developing and building a project/product from the ground up is useful experience, whatever it is. Demonstrating a valuable skill should never be a prompt for scorn.
- geocrasher 2y ago
  Any idgit who couldn't recognize a great hack when they see one is worthless. Glad you moved on.
- geoblack 2y ago
  Imagine how handy it would be to read temperatures at 1000 phones if you were an HVAC engineer trying to optimize AC in a 50 story building on a 100 degree day in San Francisco. A heat map heat map, so to speak. Forest fires? Outdoor events on hot days? This is a good idea. And yes, I am a marketing guy.
swader999 2y ago
DEI everywhere.
captaincaveman 2y ago
Pompousness and self importance, we all get interviewed at some point don't power trip, it should be a humble two way conversation.
Tainnor 2y ago
All of these have happened to me: - The interviewer is wearing a suit. - The interviewer asks "you've worked with [person who now works at our company] before, what do you think about them?". Bonus points if they insist after I give a diplomatic answer. - "Why are you using microservices?" "Because everyone is doing it" - Not following up. For weeks. - "Can you send us your high school diploma?" - Take home assignment with a time limit. - No feedback on take home assignment except "we didn't like your approach". - Developers use separate laptops for coding and for internet access. - There are three architects on a single project.
- mrj 2y ago
  "Take home assignment with a time limit." What's your concern there? (Honest question!) I feel terrible about asking for home assignments but I feel like it's good for people like myself who are terrible about coding live. (I usually have a choice of live or homework.) I put a "limit" as a guideline about what kind of quality to expect, usually with language about things not to worry about. I don't expect/want folks to burn a bunch of time on things.
  - idopmstuff 2y ago
    Not OP, but in my experience, it always takes more time than the time limit, either because they've just generally misjudged or because I spent the allotted time, did the case, and then through doing all the work came to some realizations about ways I could have done it better. Then I'm left with the option to either submit something that I know has flaws or spend more time updating it. I don't know about you, but I just hate submitting something that I feel is worse than my abilities, so I end up redoing it and spending much more time.
  - Tainnor 2y ago
    "Soft" limits as guidelines are fine (although in my experience they are often completely unrealistic - e.g. set up a spring boot app with tests, CI config and kubernetes deployment, that implements API XY - all in 4h). But a hard limit (you will get the assignment at X o'clock and you will have to turn it in within 3 hours) is just bonkers. It's totally unnecessary and artificial time pressure. Maybe I'm having a bad day and I make a silly mistake that takes time to fix - or the assignment is complicated and it takes me half an hour to even understand it and decide on an approach. Or I could implement the assignment in a maintainable way, but the time pressure requires me to do it in the most hacky way possible. Basically, I don't do my best work under time pressure, so I have no idea why you would impose it on me. In my professional experience, there's very rarely ever been any time pressure like that, so it's not like it measures something important.
dilippkumar 2y ago
Back when in-person interviews were a thing, I’d use the opportunity to just look at the office space. Specific red flag signals: 1. Dominated by Windows 2. Too many people in formals 3. Nobody wears badges (and other indicators of a lax security policy) 4. Old/worn out office furniture 5. Low resolution displays 6. Old laptops 7. No evidence of people collaborating or chatting at a microkitchen etc.
- silverquiet 2y ago
  I like working at places small enough that we don't need badges because everyone just knows each other. I remember way back at an old company (that was quite large by the time I joined) learning that someone had quit rather than wear a badge as the company "grew up". I thought it was nuts back then, and I still would be willing to make that compromise myself, but I get it a lot more these days.
- bruce511 2y ago
  What's this "office space" you're talking about? :) But seriously, we'd fail 1, 3 (we've never had anything like badges to wear), 4 (some of it is old, not too much us worn out though - chairs get replaced, desks are pushing 25 or more now), 5 (every one, including receptionist has multiple monitors but they're standard 300dpi), 6 (depends what you mean by old), probably 7 as well as most folk are remote now. I guess we're not for you. On the up side we dress very informally.
- swatcoder 2y ago
  Fascinating! Depending on the size and age of the company, most of those hint towards a product-focused organization that often cultures careful, reliable engineers. It might not be fun or flashy, but there's good odds that a place like that knowns how to build their product and does a consistent job of it. They're often a great place for senior engineers to settle down and focus on low-drama productivity and for junior engineers to witness durable best practices in action.
- Turing_Machine 2y ago
  > 6. Old laptops Salesmen have Mac Pros or fully decked-out gaming rigs, programmers are still on Pentiums.
0xbadcafebee 2y ago
When they start describing the dysfunction in their team or the org as a whole. One interviewer talks about a "legacy team" that needs help "modernizing" and "migrating to the cloud", and then you talk to the "legacy team" and they don't think they need any help. Or they're just a collection of acquisitions with no standardization. Or they try to avoid talking to corporate IT about anything. Or they regularly get woken up at 3am on-call. Or they deploy less than once a week, or need someone to manually validate it and schedule it and have all-hands-on-deck. Or you ask about test coverage and they laugh. Or they have one database for 100 services. I don't find a ton of huge deal breakers, but a lot of "ehhhhhh......." things. The biggest deal breakers are attitude and culture, whether the business creates abusive demands on employees, signs of poor leadership, disorganization. And pay. The business shows you what they really think of you in their offers.
snovv_crash 2y ago
If they have the company values written on the wall, it probably means they don't actually live them. Engineering leadership doesn't understand (or care about) the business side. Trying to shoehorn you into a role obviously you're overqualified for. A focus more on time spent and dedication rather than achievements and outcomes. No clear business model. Maybe it isn't an issue today, but for 99% of businesses it will be an issue soon. A pattern of getting interns or juniors to do an initial chunk of work, and then getting seniors to clean up after them, rather than letting seniors lay a foundation and the juniors/interns filling in the gaps.
karaterobot 2y ago
The ones that come to mind: * If they are a small company who outsources any step of their interview process to another company. If you're only interviewing for a couple positions—people you will work with every single day—take the time to do it yourself. * If they are a startup that says they are looking for people who are interested in solving exciting problems. For some people, this is going to be an enticement, but based on my experience, what I hear is "we're going to work you like a dog and pay you in equity, and at the end neither your work nor your equity will matter because we're definitely going to go out of business". I recognize this is a bias, but it's happened to me a couple times, and I'm in my 40s now and just not having it anymore. Plus, the problems are never that exciting, they're usually "how to sell a SaaS product that is basically a CRUD app, in a crowded marketplace with lots of competitors". * If the interview is composed of like 10 rounds of 30 minute interviews, each with different groups in the company, that to me is an indicator that Conway's Law is at the helm of that organization: lots of groups that want input into everything, nobody empowered to make a decision on their own. Plus, it's just not a very good format. Give me a smaller number of hour long sessions where we can actually get into it, rather than racing through pro forma questions.
- giantg2 2y ago
  "looking for people who are interested in solving exciting problems." This and other grandiose language is an immediate red flag. I fully expect the people writing these to be the equivalent of used car salesmen.
  - avgDev 2y ago
    Once you start the job, so we need you to change the color of the button in our legacy winforms app.
    - giantg2 2y ago
      Yeah, and when theyee willing to sell it that way with deception, they're willing to do that with other things. To me that sounds like a political yes-man environment.
idopmstuff 2y ago
I just got a generic message on YC's job board that ended by asking me if I'd be interested in doing their case study with a link to the case. No, head of product, I am not interested in doing a case study before I spend, y'know, fifteen whole minutes talking to you about the company and role.
giantg2 2y ago
I had one where the TL was on their laptop the whole time. They were prompted by their manager to ask me a question. They asked and immediately went back to typing while I was responding they didn't even acknowledge my response. I was offered the role but turned it down. The manager was furious. Why would I want to work with/for someone who doesn't have enough time or desire to show basic respect? Another time went for a code screen that said we could use any language on our own machine. When I go there the hiring manager handed me a Mac and told me I'd be using Angular to code a given problem. That's great. I had no experience with Macs, no experience with WebStorm, no experience with Angular. What a waste of time. I asked why he even brought me in if I didn't have any of this listed on my resume and the recruiter told me it'd my choice of machine and language? His response was that maybe I had the experience but just didn't list it on my resume. Fuck you too.
- marloncots 2y ago
  That would be frustrating to tell them your preferences and then be completely ignored. On the flip-side, there are some interviews that are specifically testing how you are at familiarizing yourself with a new-to-you framework or codebase. It might not have been the case here, but for example you can learn a lot about how a person learns and works if you give a skilled React developer a project in a framework that they are unfamiliar with, like Angular. Of course, documentation and other resources should be available during that interview as well. Again, not sure if that’s what was happening in your case, and giving someone a different OS would only hamper them if they were unfamiliar with the environment. Personally I like the challenge of learning a new framework, so long as that’s the intention of the interviewer.
mattnewton 2y ago
Frat bro vibes. Bragging about alcohol in the office, offering me liquor around 1pm, talking about how great every is to hang out with at the office late. I don’t have a problem with others enjoying things, but assuming they are a major selling point for people during the interview is a big red flag to me.
avgDev 2y ago
* Open office bonus points for adding "because we like collaboration" * No remote or hybrid * Unlimited PTO can potentially be a red flag depending on other aspects * Dinners at the office * Business model that is not generating any revenue * Needing 5 references for a junior position and they had to be people I worked with(my team was 3 devs). So, I listed other people I knew. One of them a VP of a tech company, who worked for large tech companies. They called him and grilled him. He told me he did his best but not to take the job and maybe just come work for him. * Another time, I was told my code was wrong and wouldn't compile during the interview, I said "I am certain it will", but the dev said unless I change the answer is wrong. I changed it, he was wrong. I got the offer, and did not take the job.
- kelnos 2y ago
  > Unlimited PTO can potentially be a red flag depending on other aspects The key on this one is to then ask your interviewers how much PTO they usually take per year. If the answers are below what would make you happy, then that's a problem. At my last company with unlimited PTO, at my height I was taking ~8 weeks per year. I was highly productive and my boss knew that even losing me for two months out of the year, I was getting much more useful work done than most people who were taking 2-3 weeks. (At least I hope that was his thought process, and not just that he wasn't paying attention.) > Business model that is not generating any revenue Do you mean profit? Not generating any revenue either means they're very young and don't have a product yet (fair to not want to work on something like that, but every company has to go through that phase), or that they have a product but are somehow not charging for it at all, and don't have any other monetization strategies like ads (gross) or selling user data (even grosser). But if you limit yourself to only companies that are turning a profit, you're essentially saying that you'll mostly only work for older, established companies, and for the most part nothing that's VC-backed. (Which, again: fair, but also pretty limiting.)
  - paulcole 2y ago
    Wanting to work for a company that doesn’t lose money is “pretty limiting”? I also disagree with asking interviewers how much vacation they take in an unlimited PTO situation. Instead just ask, “What’s the limit?” Any company that offers an unlimited PTO policy should be able to answer this easily. The only objectively incorrect answer is “There is no limit.”
JohnFen 2y ago
Outside of a couple of phrases I consider clear-cut red flags (such as "we're a family here", "we work hard and play hard", etc.), what I'm really looking for is a bit squishier and not tied to particular phrases and such. Things that I think indicate a poor fit for me include places where it's expected that people work more than 40 hours per week (I have no problem doing that in unusual circumstances, but if it's part of routine practice, that's a problem); where it's expected that you'll take part in extra-curricular activities; where they take agile methodologies too seriously; where there's too much social stratification in the workplace; and such. Concrete red flags include using leetcode tests, using personality tests, absurd interviewing hoops (too many interview rounds, too many days to complete the interviewing process, etc.). Not being interviewed by (or at least meeting) the members of the team I'd be working with is a bad sign, as is the interviewer not knowing the position I'm being considered for. The interviewer not answering my questions (or being vague or evasive in their answer). I pay attention to the other devs I see. If most of them look unhappy or stressed, that's an enormous red flag. If in-person, most of the desks in use being pretty bare (little in the way of knick-knacks, personal photos, funny or interesting things hung on the cube wall, etc.) is bad. A lack of enthusiasm about what the devs are working on is bad. Immediate showstoppers are having an open office plan or hot-desking. Having too fancy of an office is a bad sign, but more of a yellow flag than red. I'm sure that I've omitted a bunch of things here. I don't have a literal list in my mind. What I tend to do complete the interview process and then put it out of my mind until the next day. Then I go through my notes and examine to totality of what I observed, both things that pleased me and things that didn't.
- Turing_Machine 2y ago
  > Immediate showstoppers are having an open office plan or hot-desking. Yes. Not just because it's an unpleasant environment (though it is), but it's a sign of major management cluelessness. "Wait: you're hiring me to think, and putting me in an environment that makes it harder for me to think? Um...okay." The other side of the coin is that there needs to be somewhere to hang out when you do* want company. It doesn't have to be one of these places where every floor has its own executive chef. A comfortable break room with a selection of hot and cold beverages is fine. Snacks aren't necessary if there are food options nearby.
gumby 2y ago
I think a lot of companies forget that the interview is the applicant selling themselves to the interviewer and *the company selling itself to the applicant". That's a strong "reject" signal to me. But also some of these examples could be from companies who understand the bidirectional dynamic. E.g. if you consider wearing a suit to be a bad sign the company might just as well be glad you don't want to work at a place like that. Win-win! My contribution to the argument: people who use vapid business buzzwords/ like "win-win" except in the rare cases where it really is appropriate.
- kelnos 2y ago
  > think a lot of companies forget that the interview is the applicant selling themselves to the interviewer and the company selling itself to the applicant. To be fair, I think that's a more recent phenomenon, at least when it comes to hiring low- to mid-career rank-and-file (in the past I think this was a consideration mainly only when trying to hire executives or people with specialized talents). And even then, that only works in a job market that is relatively at equilibrium, or one where applicants are in high demand. Beggars can't be choosers, as the saying goes.
  - pcloadletter_ 2y ago
    A bit of short-term thinking, though. Even if companies _right now_ can treat applicants like crap, they probably shouldn't. I'd rather have an applicant accept an offer because they want to, not because they have to. They'll care more about the work and are less likely to flee.
kkfx 2y ago
Some random points: - not offering full-remote for all jobs actually doable from remote; - trying to start selling itself as a super-duper-enterprise naming vague roles with unclear responsibility and so on; - choosing external recruiters who have no clue about real opened position so they just run HR games and absurd questions; - talking about proprietary software they use, requirements like "you will use this IDE", finding normal using a laptop for desk-fixed works; - not possessing anything themselves living on someone else iron and even worse develop on someone else services.
kelnos 2y ago
* Referring to the company as a "family", or cliches like "work hard, play hard" or similar. * They don't leave time for you to interview them. * They're stuck on looking for particular, specific answers to their questions, even if other answers are valid and workable. * The questions/problems given are one-sided and don't invite discussion. I really enjoy interviews where the interviewer will kick off a design or architecture question, and then instead of just sitting there, waiting for me to respond, taking notes and moving on, they engage with me on the problem and we discuss it mutually, like peers, with a lot of back and forth. This might not be a strong "nope" signal (some people just aren't very good at interviewing, and often that doesn't reflect all that poorly on the company), but it's definitely concerning. * Being inflexible on compensation mix. If I think the salary is too low, I might ask for more equity. If they can't budge on the financial part of compensation, and have fixed/accrued PTO rather than unlimited, I might accept starting out with more vacation days instead. Answers like "sorry, this is the standard that everyone gets and it can't be changed" are big red flags. * If we get to the offer stage and they want me to sign things that I'm uncomfortable signing, and their response is "oh, it's just standard boilerplate, we'd never enforce something like that". Well, I'm not comfortable with selective enforcement, either. "Never" really means "as long as we don't end up having an axe to grind with you later on".
- geocrasher 2y ago
  Indeed. A workplace is not a family. It's a Team. If it's a family, then expect family-like drama. If it's a team, then you know there are actual leaders, coaches, and players, and if a team member isn't pulling their weight, they get "traded" to to speak. It's a much healthier analogy.
fetus8 2y ago
Recently interviewed with a startup, and during the process via email, I was constantly communicating with different people. After the 3rd interview with the CTO, I thought they ghosted me and emailed the last interviewer and got no response. Over a week later the director of engineering emailed me to schedule the 3rd interview with the CTO. I immediately knew that they had internal communication issues and decided I wasn't going to pursue the role further. My current role has a somewhat misleading title, but to offset that I make sure I really highlight my experience and the projects I've worked on. If an interviewer starts asking me about my title and why I'm applying for something more 'generic' I immediately know they didn't read my resume or pay attention and I'm out. Years ago I walked out of an all day interview, maybe 2 hours in, because one of the engineers was on his phone the entire time, seemingly just scrolling and not paying attention.
projectileboy 2y ago
This is almost too a high a bar, but I would prefer to take a job at a place where the interview isn’t about the interviewer demonstrating how smart they are. But… that would rule out most places.
MattPalmer1086 2y ago
When asked if they want a faster result or a higher quality one, they say both. This was for an open ended coding test. I just wanted to know if they wanted to see if I could work fast, or produce a better structured solution. I should have left right then. The interview did not get any better. At the end they asked repeatedly how I would deal with problem employees. I had just about figured they were problem employers by then.
000ooo000 2y ago
I'm adding to my list "using ancient tech". Not because I think that orgs should always be on the new shiny, but to me using old tech is a yard stick for uninteresting and low-growth culture WRT software engineering; is there an interest in technology? Do the people there like to code for fun? Are they open to improvements in the way things are done? If I know that you're happy still using TFS, jQuery, ASP.NET Razor, etc, I can probably guess the answers to a lot of those kinds of questions.
- chuckadams 2y ago
  Usually the response is “if it ain’t broke don’t fix it” but the change process for fixing anything that actually is broken is so onerous that no one bothers.
drewcoo 2y ago
- "Bring your whole self to work" . . . when the interviewers all seem like cloned/pod people under the skin. - Any job ad for a FOO Dev, where FOO is a language. They're hiring code monkeys. - A panel of interviewers suggests the company doesn't know how to interview. - "Gotcha" trivia questions. - Giving me a take-home assignment that takes much longer than their estimated time to complete . . . then asking me how long it took. - Telling me what IDE to use (even if it's one I would prefer). - Interviewer is another dev and is unwilling to tell me what they wish were different. - Whiteboard coding where interviewer says nothing. Maybe they stare at me. Maybe they do work. Either way . . . no. - Any question where the goal is guessing "the correct way to answer." - Hiring managers who clearly want to hand off responsibilities instead of just delegate. Seems more common in small startups. - Interviewers are late to call or join the video conference. Especially if they're at least 5 minutes late.
noashavit 2y ago
- Dinner at the office - No remote or by hybrid options - Team is fresh out of college. If no one has more than 2 years of professional experience except for the founder/s, they are looking for followers. - Multiple case studies / take home exercises (difficultly making decisions / moving quickly) - If you have an interview scheduled with multiple ppl and one of them is a no show more than once. - If you’re interviewing for team lead / head of position and the team/part of it isn’t part of the interview process. - If there are co CEOs that disagree on the vision or mission
FearNotDaniel 2y ago
"We only employ ninjas. Are you a ninja?" Really happened. I rejected their offer after somehow inexplicably proving my ninja credentials.
- michelb 2y ago
  If they were visible, they weren't ninjas, so...
oj179933 2y ago
For remote interviews, when the interviewer(s) have their cameras turned off. Or the camera is on but they look completely disinterested or disengaged. Once I had a guy's phone go off and he checked the messages while he was asking me a question...
asdz 2y ago
1 Interview time - if the interviewer schedule the interview time out of office hour (like 8PM or 10PM), it's likely overtime is a common thing for them 2. Interviewer asking template questions and doesn't show any interest - if interviewer asking those basic questions and don't understand even what the job means, it's a sign that they don't even bother, they are just there to filter you 3. Interviewer pushing for the interview ASAP - it's very likely the position is needed as soon as possible, sometimes this could be something really serious and they are hiring someone to put out the fire, sometimes it's already a crisis and they expect someone to save the day
lukehefson 2y ago
For any early-career people reading this thread– take the responses with a pinch of salt. As they may be very true for more senior folk but not always true if you're trying to get your foot in the door and/or find a place you can grow quickly.
tg986 2y ago
1. Interview questions where it's clear the interviewer wants a specific answer even if it's not the only correct answer. Especially true if that interviewer would be your boss. 2. I once had a technical interview where I was given a Jupyter notebook that set up a problem and then asked me several questions about it. The interviewer was on the other side of the desk watching me on a separate monitor. The interview itself was 1 hour long but he wouldn't stop talking for more than a minute or so. I didn't have time to read and understand the problem, nevermind design and execute a solution. Instead, he kept asking me questions, breaking my concentration... just a total nightmare. 3. Keeping me locked in a room all day. I've interviewed at several places over the years where I'd go, sit in a meeting room, and have a day's worth of interviews. Sure, I got a brief tour of the office, but even my lunch I'd eat in that meeting room. If I can't talk with employees in their natural habitat then how am I supposed to get a real feel for the office culture? 4. Interviewers who don't seem to know why they're interviewing you. I've had this happen many times. They don't know what the position is for, they never work with the person in that position, why bother? 5. Your potential boss can't give you a reasonable description of the work you'll do. Huge red flag. 6. Too many detailed questions about work I do at my current job that I obviously cannot get in to. If they can't respect my inability to tell them company secrets then there's a problem.
DocColorado 2y ago
I interviewed with Dell during their acceleration rise around 1999. The big red flag for me was all the interviewing people were late and in a ultra hurry to get the interview over. I had a would be peer that said he "Was tired of people being hired & then leaving within 30 days because of the chaotic work load!" This was a management/executive position.
Original_SYN 2y ago
I get linked to threads like these in a newsletter, and I’m just curious. Are these threads only for coders or do coders just happen to be the majority of respondents? Or will interviewers actually be sending me homework for an interview where I have to code something when the job is a SOC analyst or incident response?
jverce 2y ago
A dead silent office
QuiEgo 2y ago
Screening questions to them: - how many hours a week does a typical dev work? - what source control do you use - what ticket system do you use - how long does a typical, at-desk incremental dev build take? - do you have automated builds (CICD, Jenkins, pipelines, nightly build system, etc)?
Quinzel 2y ago
Red Flags: When one or more people on the interview panel behaves extremely unprofessionally. ie, ridicules the interviewee, or makes inappropriately offensive comments. When the interviewer decides to give an interviewee they particularly like a tour of the premise and introduce them to other staff before they've even offered the person a job. When there are heaps of relatives, or best/close friends within the management structure of the company.
djleroy 2y ago
Lots of people without degrees in data science (or statistics, or even computer science) in supervisory positions. Silly interview questions like “define multivariate” or “write python code to find factors” or “write SQL code to join tables” These are all signs of an immature data science function- which predicts working on ill posed problems and a problematic business justification. If the people already there are mediocre it’s not a great place to join. A strong sign of that is if the interviewers don’t know enough to construct thoughtful questions about real, non trivial, issues from their work. There are too many people in data science who, sadly, are at this level.

36 points by bazil376 2y ago

The sort of stuff where if an employee interviewer says it you think to yourself “nope, this isn’t the place for me.”

Not so much about words for me, more about the vibe: Unwillingness to compromise. Unwillingness to evolve. Lack of empathy. Lack of trust. Lack of flexibility. A fetish for telling people what to do.

giantg2 2y ago
I don't think I've ever seen a job that doesn't have one or more of these.
- codr7 2y ago
  I don't think it exists. But too much of that and I'm out.
  - deterministic 2y ago
    It does exist. I experienced it interviewing for my current job and a previous job. But I do agree that it is probably rare.

j45 2y ago

Pro-tip: Too many interviewers can be threatened by incoming talent being better than them.

j0hnyl 2y ago
That's so sad. I get so excited when I interview candidates that are ahead of me in their knowledge and experience.
- codr7 2y ago
  Many managers are very sad shadows of what they could be.
- j45 2y ago
  Seems like one may be the exception and not the norm. In too many cases the top candidates are completely omitted from scoring let alone for an interview. Not everyone has an unbiased process, it's common.

treeface9000 2y ago

If they answer yes to any of the following: - Have you ever had to work on the weekend or well beyond 5pm outside of your own personal interest/initiative? - Are we required to be on-call If there's any hint of "nah, we don't really write tests because we just need to ship stuff, y'know"

ghaff 2y ago
I'm not sure I would even know how to answer that first question. When I was working, I spent many weekends and late nights traveling. It was my "own initiative" I guess in the sense that it was sort of my job. I realize that probably doesn't describe a lot of people in which case it's probably the right job for them.

tharne 2y ago

If they have an interview process that involves a take home project or something similarly time intensive. To me that screams, "I don't care about any family responsibilities you may have, I want a bunch of childless 20-twenty somethings I can burn and churn".

PaulHoule 2y ago
I failed one of those take-home projects (got about 1/3 of it in probably 3x the time) but felt it was a pretty good experience because it got me to try a kind of coding I'd always been interested in but never did.
- mjd 2y ago
  I was asked a while back to do a 4–6 hour take-home project. I would have told them where to stick their 4–6 hour project, except it involved writing a Flask server, and I wanted to learn how to write a Flask server. I wasn't offered the job, but I regret nothing.
fred_is_fred 2y ago
That's what all these are.. The 6 hour assignments, the 10pm happy hour team meet and greet - it's not about skill it's about proving you have no other responsibilities.
codr7 2y ago
Don't forget desperate, because people with options would likely skip. I've done plenty of code tests in the past, these days it would take A LOT to motivate me. Usually I just say thanks, but no thanks if they insist on testing me.
j0hnyl 2y ago
We have a take home assignment as a screening stage, but we ask candidates to time box it to 45min. Some folks refuse to do it and that's fine, but most are pretty open to it.
- 2y ago

aristofun 2y ago

I prefer reasonably scoped take home assignment to leetcode "prove me you're awesome in 30 minutes" kind of interviews. Relying on these kind of signals as a main input is a sign that company didn't think through their hiring process and rather just cargo-culting. But all that are still secondary concerns: good people can make bad process work, bad people tend to ruin the best of processes. So for me the only important "flags" are specific people I contact — their attitudes, levels of professionalism, questions they ask, answers they give, their decision process etc. On all steps of the interview process.

ghaff 2y ago
Reasonably scoped is probably the tough part. There are a lot of things where you know the other person who is really banking on this job is going to spend days on. That said, when I was a tech industry analyst, a writing sample--maybe a presentation--on a topic (probably of your choice) wasn't really a negotiable requirement and if you couldn't just pull one out of a folder that you could share, you were probably going to have to spend a bunch of time creating.
willio58 2y ago
I share the same feeling. Give me a reasonable take-home where I can flex my knowledge on some real-world stuff. Some people I've worked with in the past scoff at this idea. When I ask them how they would prefer I evaluate technical ability they seem to all meander around the question basically saying you know a good hire when you see one. It's tough to hire good people. I've been in the hiring process for Stanford graduates who could barely code in their take-home. I've also hired candidates who freshly changed their careers later in life and wowed us with their take-home. The 4 hour take-home for us has been wildly helpful in identifying the best hires, but I do get it can feel like a burden to some. I just don't think I could really trust the outcome of leetcode. To me, I feel like anyone can grind leetcode for a couple months and ace a test on it. Does that mean they can create anything of value? Not really.
- codr7 2y ago
  Sure thing, but if you don't compensate them for the work you're going to lose people, actually you're still going to lose people who don't feel like being tested at all. I've been involved in hiring developers, and I get it, you want to make sure. But just because something can be measured that doesn't mean that it's a good idea. I like to suggest a time limited evaluation period instead.

SaberTail 2y ago

I've walked out of an interview when the employee doing it took a phone call in the middle of it. It was so rude and disrespectful. I once got a whiteboarding problem and proposed a solution, and the interviewer gave me a flat out "that's not the one I had in mind". I'd already asked clarifying questions and thought my proposal was reasonable in light of the constraints as I understood them. After a few minutes of trying to play mind reader, I asked, "Is there some constraint or requirement I'm missing?" and they said no. I retrospect, I should have walked out on that one, too. I still have no idea what they wanted from me. Communication goes both ways.

acheron 2y ago
So many interviewers fall into the old xkcd “communicating poorly then acting smug when you’re misunderstood is not cleverness”.
- fragmede 2y ago
  https://xkcd.com/169/ https://xkcd.com/169/
codr7 2y ago
Oh, I've played that game. Did a round of interviews for staff engineer at Catawiki that felt more like trying to guess the right words than actual problem solving. But I get it. People get dragged into the process, usually without compensation. And it's much easier and safer to reject than to accept. The tragedy is that everyone knows that the approach isn't working, I haven't met a single person who thinks SWE hiring is working; but we still seem unable do fix it.
kelnos 2y ago
> I once got a whiteboarding problem and proposed a solution, and the interviewer gave me a flat out "that's not the one I had in mind" Oh jeez. The impatient, combative side of me would want to respond, "so you're not open to other people's ideas, or open to the possibility that your approaches may not be the only good possibilities?" A more diplomatic response might be, "can you tell me what you think about my approach is unworkable or at least suboptimal?" I think your question about a possible missing constraint/requirement was a good one. Actually, I think after asking that question and getting no reasonable responses, my original combative response seems a bit more appropriate...

vusjandus23857 2y ago

When I was 35, I had a mid-20's startup CEO ask me if I still had it in me... what?

codr7 2y ago
Dang, my 35yo self probably would have punched it in the nose and asked if it was good enough.
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
giantg2 2y ago
Hehe "ask your mom" might have been a response I'd give. Maybe not an appropriate response, but at least it'd be entertaining.
geocrasher 2y ago
haha. I'm pushing 50. If somebody asked me "Do you still have it in you" I'd say "What, to disconnect Zoom calls with smug 20 somethings? You bet." [End Call]

hoerzu 2y ago

Coding challenge, HR more involved than engineers, not remote friendly

ceron 2y ago
What is wrong with coding challenges? With a simple challenge you can get a hint of coding style (flashy vs pragmatic), accordance to current best practices, is TDD being used, clean code accordance and so on. And then you have something you can talk about in your final interview which can be helpful. Does the applicant take criticism well, can he explain his code or specific decisions etc.

haliskerbas 2y ago

Justifying lower pay with "we just want people who truly believe in the mission"

bazil376 2y ago
I had a recruiter trying to convince me to take an offer lower than my current salary, telling me it’s not all about the money. I told him I’d do it if he made up the difference by giving me some of his salary. He told me he’s not giving me his salary to which I replied “it’s not all about the money”
- AlexDragusin 2y ago
  Well executed!
- giantg2 2y ago
  To be fair, sometimes it's not all about money. Better work life balance after making bigger money can be a nice transition as one gets older or starts a family. But yeah, those lower paying jobs have to play some kind of angle other than money. Some are garbage, but some might have perks.
  - bazil376 2y ago
    Honestly I just found it irksome that the recruiter was trying to tell me how to prioritize my needs in the job search when it was obvious he was just trying to make a placement.
    - giantg2 2y ago
      Recruiters are used car salesmen. I just expect this sort of thing from them.
  - JohnFen 2y ago
    This is true, but whether or not it's all about the money isn't something anyone outside of your own head can determine. A recruiter or other outside interested party saying it is that person straight-up trying to manipulate you. That would be the red-flag part to me even if I were fine with a reduced pay rate.

cryptoz 2y ago

Making fun of my side project. An interviewer looked at me with this vicious, incredulous look when I described my side project in ~2019, which was a weather network built on the sensors inside phones. Guy said, “a weather app, really?! You think that’s a good use of your time in 2019? What makes you think a weather app is useful to make today?” MFer, it was a good idea in 2011 and it’s a good idea today and it’ll be a good idea in 10 years. And it wasn’t just a weather app omg! But he didn’t care, just kept pressing me for like 5 mins why I would ever think making a weather network service was useful. No amount of explaining the complexity or novel recently-developed techniques that made it possible would convince him I wasn’t wasting my time.

bazil376 2y ago
And even if it wasn’t a good idea, the fact that the person couldn’t be respectful when they’re trying to impress you the most is a very bad sign.
- giantg2 2y ago
  And you're not being hired as a product guy. You don't need marketable ideas. They could have dug into the technical architecture of it instead.
- kelnos 2y ago
  Yeah, that's the thing. Being a dick to your interviewee -- being a dick to anyone -- is just a huge red flag. And ignoring that, even if the project was just a toy that isn't particularly useful, that's not really the point. Developing and building a project/product from the ground up is useful experience, whatever it is. Demonstrating a valuable skill should never be a prompt for scorn.
geocrasher 2y ago
Any idgit who couldn't recognize a great hack when they see one is worthless. Glad you moved on.
geoblack 2y ago
Imagine how handy it would be to read temperatures at 1000 phones if you were an HVAC engineer trying to optimize AC in a 50 story building on a 100 degree day in San Francisco. A heat map heat map, so to speak. Forest fires? Outdoor events on hot days? This is a good idea. And yes, I am a marketing guy.

swader999 2y ago

DEI everywhere.

captaincaveman 2y ago

Pompousness and self importance, we all get interviewed at some point don't power trip, it should be a humble two way conversation.

Tainnor 2y ago

All of these have happened to me: - The interviewer is wearing a suit. - The interviewer asks "you've worked with [person who now works at our company] before, what do you think about them?". Bonus points if they insist after I give a diplomatic answer. - "Why are you using microservices?" "Because everyone is doing it" - Not following up. For weeks. - "Can you send us your high school diploma?" - Take home assignment with a time limit. - No feedback on take home assignment except "we didn't like your approach". - Developers use separate laptops for coding and for internet access. - There are three architects on a single project.

mrj 2y ago
"Take home assignment with a time limit." What's your concern there? (Honest question!) I feel terrible about asking for home assignments but I feel like it's good for people like myself who are terrible about coding live. (I usually have a choice of live or homework.) I put a "limit" as a guideline about what kind of quality to expect, usually with language about things not to worry about. I don't expect/want folks to burn a bunch of time on things.
- idopmstuff 2y ago
  Not OP, but in my experience, it always takes more time than the time limit, either because they've just generally misjudged or because I spent the allotted time, did the case, and then through doing all the work came to some realizations about ways I could have done it better. Then I'm left with the option to either submit something that I know has flaws or spend more time updating it. I don't know about you, but I just hate submitting something that I feel is worse than my abilities, so I end up redoing it and spending much more time.
- Tainnor 2y ago
  "Soft" limits as guidelines are fine (although in my experience they are often completely unrealistic - e.g. set up a spring boot app with tests, CI config and kubernetes deployment, that implements API XY - all in 4h). But a hard limit (you will get the assignment at X o'clock and you will have to turn it in within 3 hours) is just bonkers. It's totally unnecessary and artificial time pressure. Maybe I'm having a bad day and I make a silly mistake that takes time to fix - or the assignment is complicated and it takes me half an hour to even understand it and decide on an approach. Or I could implement the assignment in a maintainable way, but the time pressure requires me to do it in the most hacky way possible. Basically, I don't do my best work under time pressure, so I have no idea why you would impose it on me. In my professional experience, there's very rarely ever been any time pressure like that, so it's not like it measures something important.

dilippkumar 2y ago

Back when in-person interviews were a thing, I’d use the opportunity to just look at the office space. Specific red flag signals: 1. Dominated by Windows 2. Too many people in formals 3. Nobody wears badges (and other indicators of a lax security policy) 4. Old/worn out office furniture 5. Low resolution displays 6. Old laptops 7. No evidence of people collaborating or chatting at a microkitchen etc.

silverquiet 2y ago
I like working at places small enough that we don't need badges because everyone just knows each other. I remember way back at an old company (that was quite large by the time I joined) learning that someone had quit rather than wear a badge as the company "grew up". I thought it was nuts back then, and I still would be willing to make that compromise myself, but I get it a lot more these days.
bruce511 2y ago
What's this "office space" you're talking about? :) But seriously, we'd fail 1, 3 (we've never had anything like badges to wear), 4 (some of it is old, not too much us worn out though - chairs get replaced, desks are pushing 25 or more now), 5 (every one, including receptionist has multiple monitors but they're standard 300dpi), 6 (depends what you mean by old), probably 7 as well as most folk are remote now. I guess we're not for you. On the up side we dress very informally.
swatcoder 2y ago
Fascinating! Depending on the size and age of the company, most of those hint towards a product-focused organization that often cultures careful, reliable engineers. It might not be fun or flashy, but there's good odds that a place like that knowns how to build their product and does a consistent job of it. They're often a great place for senior engineers to settle down and focus on low-drama productivity and for junior engineers to witness durable best practices in action.
Turing_Machine 2y ago
> 6. Old laptops Salesmen have Mac Pros or fully decked-out gaming rigs, programmers are still on Pentiums.

0xbadcafebee 2y ago

When they start describing the dysfunction in their team or the org as a whole. One interviewer talks about a "legacy team" that needs help "modernizing" and "migrating to the cloud", and then you talk to the "legacy team" and they don't think they need any help. Or they're just a collection of acquisitions with no standardization. Or they try to avoid talking to corporate IT about anything. Or they regularly get woken up at 3am on-call. Or they deploy less than once a week, or need someone to manually validate it and schedule it and have all-hands-on-deck. Or you ask about test coverage and they laugh. Or they have one database for 100 services. I don't find a ton of huge deal breakers, but a lot of "ehhhhhh......." things. The biggest deal breakers are attitude and culture, whether the business creates abusive demands on employees, signs of poor leadership, disorganization. And pay. The business shows you what they really think of you in their offers.

snovv_crash 2y ago

If they have the company values written on the wall, it probably means they don't actually live them. Engineering leadership doesn't understand (or care about) the business side. Trying to shoehorn you into a role obviously you're overqualified for. A focus more on time spent and dedication rather than achievements and outcomes. No clear business model. Maybe it isn't an issue today, but for 99% of businesses it will be an issue soon. A pattern of getting interns or juniors to do an initial chunk of work, and then getting seniors to clean up after them, rather than letting seniors lay a foundation and the juniors/interns filling in the gaps.

karaterobot 2y ago

The ones that come to mind: * If they are a small company who outsources any step of their interview process to another company. If you're only interviewing for a couple positions—people you will work with every single day—take the time to do it yourself. * If they are a startup that says they are looking for people who are interested in solving exciting problems. For some people, this is going to be an enticement, but based on my experience, what I hear is "we're going to work you like a dog and pay you in equity, and at the end neither your work nor your equity will matter because we're definitely going to go out of business". I recognize this is a bias, but it's happened to me a couple times, and I'm in my 40s now and just not having it anymore. Plus, the problems are never that exciting, they're usually "how to sell a SaaS product that is basically a CRUD app, in a crowded marketplace with lots of competitors". * If the interview is composed of like 10 rounds of 30 minute interviews, each with different groups in the company, that to me is an indicator that Conway's Law is at the helm of that organization: lots of groups that want input into everything, nobody empowered to make a decision on their own. Plus, it's just not a very good format. Give me a smaller number of hour long sessions where we can actually get into it, rather than racing through pro forma questions.

giantg2 2y ago
"looking for people who are interested in solving exciting problems." This and other grandiose language is an immediate red flag. I fully expect the people writing these to be the equivalent of used car salesmen.
- avgDev 2y ago
  Once you start the job, so we need you to change the color of the button in our legacy winforms app.
  - giantg2 2y ago
    Yeah, and when theyee willing to sell it that way with deception, they're willing to do that with other things. To me that sounds like a political yes-man environment.

idopmstuff 2y ago

I just got a generic message on YC's job board that ended by asking me if I'd be interested in doing their case study with a link to the case. No, head of product, I am not interested in doing a case study before I spend, y'know, fifteen whole minutes talking to you about the company and role.

giantg2 2y ago

I had one where the TL was on their laptop the whole time. They were prompted by their manager to ask me a question. They asked and immediately went back to typing while I was responding they didn't even acknowledge my response. I was offered the role but turned it down. The manager was furious. Why would I want to work with/for someone who doesn't have enough time or desire to show basic respect? Another time went for a code screen that said we could use any language on our own machine. When I go there the hiring manager handed me a Mac and told me I'd be using Angular to code a given problem. That's great. I had no experience with Macs, no experience with WebStorm, no experience with Angular. What a waste of time. I asked why he even brought me in if I didn't have any of this listed on my resume and the recruiter told me it'd my choice of machine and language? His response was that maybe I had the experience but just didn't list it on my resume. Fuck you too.

marloncots 2y ago
That would be frustrating to tell them your preferences and then be completely ignored. On the flip-side, there are some interviews that are specifically testing how you are at familiarizing yourself with a new-to-you framework or codebase. It might not have been the case here, but for example you can learn a lot about how a person learns and works if you give a skilled React developer a project in a framework that they are unfamiliar with, like Angular. Of course, documentation and other resources should be available during that interview as well. Again, not sure if that’s what was happening in your case, and giving someone a different OS would only hamper them if they were unfamiliar with the environment. Personally I like the challenge of learning a new framework, so long as that’s the intention of the interviewer.

mattnewton 2y ago

Frat bro vibes. Bragging about alcohol in the office, offering me liquor around 1pm, talking about how great every is to hang out with at the office late. I don’t have a problem with others enjoying things, but assuming they are a major selling point for people during the interview is a big red flag to me.

avgDev 2y ago

* Open office bonus points for adding "because we like collaboration" * No remote or hybrid * Unlimited PTO can potentially be a red flag depending on other aspects * Dinners at the office * Business model that is not generating any revenue * Needing 5 references for a junior position and they had to be people I worked with(my team was 3 devs). So, I listed other people I knew. One of them a VP of a tech company, who worked for large tech companies. They called him and grilled him. He told me he did his best but not to take the job and maybe just come work for him. * Another time, I was told my code was wrong and wouldn't compile during the interview, I said "I am certain it will", but the dev said unless I change the answer is wrong. I changed it, he was wrong. I got the offer, and did not take the job.

kelnos 2y ago
> Unlimited PTO can potentially be a red flag depending on other aspects The key on this one is to then ask your interviewers how much PTO they usually take per year. If the answers are below what would make you happy, then that's a problem. At my last company with unlimited PTO, at my height I was taking ~8 weeks per year. I was highly productive and my boss knew that even losing me for two months out of the year, I was getting much more useful work done than most people who were taking 2-3 weeks. (At least I hope that was his thought process, and not just that he wasn't paying attention.) > Business model that is not generating any revenue Do you mean profit? Not generating any revenue either means they're very young and don't have a product yet (fair to not want to work on something like that, but every company has to go through that phase), or that they have a product but are somehow not charging for it at all, and don't have any other monetization strategies like ads (gross) or selling user data (even grosser). But if you limit yourself to only companies that are turning a profit, you're essentially saying that you'll mostly only work for older, established companies, and for the most part nothing that's VC-backed. (Which, again: fair, but also pretty limiting.)
- paulcole 2y ago
  Wanting to work for a company that doesn’t lose money is “pretty limiting”? I also disagree with asking interviewers how much vacation they take in an unlimited PTO situation. Instead just ask, “What’s the limit?” Any company that offers an unlimited PTO policy should be able to answer this easily. The only objectively incorrect answer is “There is no limit.”

JohnFen 2y ago

Outside of a couple of phrases I consider clear-cut red flags (such as "we're a family here", "we work hard and play hard", etc.), what I'm really looking for is a bit squishier and not tied to particular phrases and such. Things that I think indicate a poor fit for me include places where it's expected that people work more than 40 hours per week (I have no problem doing that in unusual circumstances, but if it's part of routine practice, that's a problem); where it's expected that you'll take part in extra-curricular activities; where they take agile methodologies too seriously; where there's too much social stratification in the workplace; and such. Concrete red flags include using leetcode tests, using personality tests, absurd interviewing hoops (too many interview rounds, too many days to complete the interviewing process, etc.). Not being interviewed by (or at least meeting) the members of the team I'd be working with is a bad sign, as is the interviewer not knowing the position I'm being considered for. The interviewer not answering my questions (or being vague or evasive in their answer). I pay attention to the other devs I see. If most of them look unhappy or stressed, that's an enormous red flag. If in-person, most of the desks in use being pretty bare (little in the way of knick-knacks, personal photos, funny or interesting things hung on the cube wall, etc.) is bad. A lack of enthusiasm about what the devs are working on is bad. Immediate showstoppers are having an open office plan or hot-desking. Having too fancy of an office is a bad sign, but more of a yellow flag than red. I'm sure that I've omitted a bunch of things here. I don't have a literal list in my mind. What I tend to do complete the interview process and then put it out of my mind until the next day. Then I go through my notes and examine to totality of what I observed, both things that pleased me and things that didn't.

Turing_Machine 2y ago
> Immediate showstoppers are having an open office plan or hot-desking. Yes. Not just because it's an unpleasant environment (though it is), but it's a sign of major management cluelessness. "Wait: you're hiring me to think, and putting me in an environment that makes it harder for me to think? Um...okay." The other side of the coin is that there needs to be somewhere to hang out when you do* want company. It doesn't have to be one of these places where every floor has its own executive chef. A comfortable break room with a selection of hot and cold beverages is fine. Snacks aren't necessary if there are food options nearby.

gumby 2y ago

I think a lot of companies forget that the interview is the applicant selling themselves to the interviewer and *the company selling itself to the applicant". That's a strong "reject" signal to me. But also some of these examples could be from companies who understand the bidirectional dynamic. E.g. if you consider wearing a suit to be a bad sign the company might just as well be glad you don't want to work at a place like that. Win-win! My contribution to the argument: people who use vapid business buzzwords/ like "win-win" except in the rare cases where it really is appropriate.

kelnos 2y ago
> think a lot of companies forget that the interview is the applicant selling themselves to the interviewer and the company selling itself to the applicant. To be fair, I think that's a more recent phenomenon, at least when it comes to hiring low- to mid-career rank-and-file (in the past I think this was a consideration mainly only when trying to hire executives or people with specialized talents). And even then, that only works in a job market that is relatively at equilibrium, or one where applicants are in high demand. Beggars can't be choosers, as the saying goes.
- pcloadletter_ 2y ago
  A bit of short-term thinking, though. Even if companies _right now_ can treat applicants like crap, they probably shouldn't. I'd rather have an applicant accept an offer because they want to, not because they have to. They'll care more about the work and are less likely to flee.

kkfx 2y ago

Some random points: - not offering full-remote for all jobs actually doable from remote; - trying to start selling itself as a super-duper-enterprise naming vague roles with unclear responsibility and so on; - choosing external recruiters who have no clue about real opened position so they just run HR games and absurd questions; - talking about proprietary software they use, requirements like "you will use this IDE", finding normal using a laptop for desk-fixed works; - not possessing anything themselves living on someone else iron and even worse develop on someone else services.

kelnos 2y ago

* Referring to the company as a "family", or cliches like "work hard, play hard" or similar. * They don't leave time for you to interview them. * They're stuck on looking for particular, specific answers to their questions, even if other answers are valid and workable. * The questions/problems given are one-sided and don't invite discussion. I really enjoy interviews where the interviewer will kick off a design or architecture question, and then instead of just sitting there, waiting for me to respond, taking notes and moving on, they engage with me on the problem and we discuss it mutually, like peers, with a lot of back and forth. This might not be a strong "nope" signal (some people just aren't very good at interviewing, and often that doesn't reflect all that poorly on the company), but it's definitely concerning. * Being inflexible on compensation mix. If I think the salary is too low, I might ask for more equity. If they can't budge on the financial part of compensation, and have fixed/accrued PTO rather than unlimited, I might accept starting out with more vacation days instead. Answers like "sorry, this is the standard that everyone gets and it can't be changed" are big red flags. * If we get to the offer stage and they want me to sign things that I'm uncomfortable signing, and their response is "oh, it's just standard boilerplate, we'd never enforce something like that". Well, I'm not comfortable with selective enforcement, either. "Never" really means "as long as we don't end up having an axe to grind with you later on".

geocrasher 2y ago
Indeed. A workplace is not a family. It's a Team. If it's a family, then expect family-like drama. If it's a team, then you know there are actual leaders, coaches, and players, and if a team member isn't pulling their weight, they get "traded" to to speak. It's a much healthier analogy.

fetus8 2y ago

Recently interviewed with a startup, and during the process via email, I was constantly communicating with different people. After the 3rd interview with the CTO, I thought they ghosted me and emailed the last interviewer and got no response. Over a week later the director of engineering emailed me to schedule the 3rd interview with the CTO. I immediately knew that they had internal communication issues and decided I wasn't going to pursue the role further. My current role has a somewhat misleading title, but to offset that I make sure I really highlight my experience and the projects I've worked on. If an interviewer starts asking me about my title and why I'm applying for something more 'generic' I immediately know they didn't read my resume or pay attention and I'm out. Years ago I walked out of an all day interview, maybe 2 hours in, because one of the engineers was on his phone the entire time, seemingly just scrolling and not paying attention.

projectileboy 2y ago

This is almost too a high a bar, but I would prefer to take a job at a place where the interview isn’t about the interviewer demonstrating how smart they are. But… that would rule out most places.

MattPalmer1086 2y ago

When asked if they want a faster result or a higher quality one, they say both. This was for an open ended coding test. I just wanted to know if they wanted to see if I could work fast, or produce a better structured solution. I should have left right then. The interview did not get any better. At the end they asked repeatedly how I would deal with problem employees. I had just about figured they were problem employers by then.

000ooo000 2y ago

I'm adding to my list "using ancient tech". Not because I think that orgs should always be on the new shiny, but to me using old tech is a yard stick for uninteresting and low-growth culture WRT software engineering; is there an interest in technology? Do the people there like to code for fun? Are they open to improvements in the way things are done? If I know that you're happy still using TFS, jQuery, ASP.NET Razor, etc, I can probably guess the answers to a lot of those kinds of questions.

chuckadams 2y ago
Usually the response is “if it ain’t broke don’t fix it” but the change process for fixing anything that actually is broken is so onerous that no one bothers.

drewcoo 2y ago

- "Bring your whole self to work" . . . when the interviewers all seem like cloned/pod people under the skin. - Any job ad for a FOO Dev, where FOO is a language. They're hiring code monkeys. - A panel of interviewers suggests the company doesn't know how to interview. - "Gotcha" trivia questions. - Giving me a take-home assignment that takes much longer than their estimated time to complete . . . then asking me how long it took. - Telling me what IDE to use (even if it's one I would prefer). - Interviewer is another dev and is unwilling to tell me what they wish were different. - Whiteboard coding where interviewer says nothing. Maybe they stare at me. Maybe they do work. Either way . . . no. - Any question where the goal is guessing "the correct way to answer." - Hiring managers who clearly want to hand off responsibilities instead of just delegate. Seems more common in small startups. - Interviewers are late to call or join the video conference. Especially if they're at least 5 minutes late.

noashavit 2y ago

- Dinner at the office - No remote or by hybrid options - Team is fresh out of college. If no one has more than 2 years of professional experience except for the founder/s, they are looking for followers. - Multiple case studies / take home exercises (difficultly making decisions / moving quickly) - If you have an interview scheduled with multiple ppl and one of them is a no show more than once. - If you’re interviewing for team lead / head of position and the team/part of it isn’t part of the interview process. - If there are co CEOs that disagree on the vision or mission

FearNotDaniel 2y ago

"We only employ ninjas. Are you a ninja?" Really happened. I rejected their offer after somehow inexplicably proving my ninja credentials.

michelb 2y ago
If they were visible, they weren't ninjas, so...

oj179933 2y ago

For remote interviews, when the interviewer(s) have their cameras turned off. Or the camera is on but they look completely disinterested or disengaged. Once I had a guy's phone go off and he checked the messages while he was asking me a question...

asdz 2y ago

1 Interview time - if the interviewer schedule the interview time out of office hour (like 8PM or 10PM), it's likely overtime is a common thing for them 2. Interviewer asking template questions and doesn't show any interest - if interviewer asking those basic questions and don't understand even what the job means, it's a sign that they don't even bother, they are just there to filter you 3. Interviewer pushing for the interview ASAP - it's very likely the position is needed as soon as possible, sometimes this could be something really serious and they are hiring someone to put out the fire, sometimes it's already a crisis and they expect someone to save the day

lukehefson 2y ago

For any early-career people reading this thread– take the responses with a pinch of salt. As they may be very true for more senior folk but not always true if you're trying to get your foot in the door and/or find a place you can grow quickly.

tg986 2y ago

1. Interview questions where it's clear the interviewer wants a specific answer even if it's not the only correct answer. Especially true if that interviewer would be your boss. 2. I once had a technical interview where I was given a Jupyter notebook that set up a problem and then asked me several questions about it. The interviewer was on the other side of the desk watching me on a separate monitor. The interview itself was 1 hour long but he wouldn't stop talking for more than a minute or so. I didn't have time to read and understand the problem, nevermind design and execute a solution. Instead, he kept asking me questions, breaking my concentration... just a total nightmare. 3. Keeping me locked in a room all day. I've interviewed at several places over the years where I'd go, sit in a meeting room, and have a day's worth of interviews. Sure, I got a brief tour of the office, but even my lunch I'd eat in that meeting room. If I can't talk with employees in their natural habitat then how am I supposed to get a real feel for the office culture? 4. Interviewers who don't seem to know why they're interviewing you. I've had this happen many times. They don't know what the position is for, they never work with the person in that position, why bother? 5. Your potential boss can't give you a reasonable description of the work you'll do. Huge red flag. 6. Too many detailed questions about work I do at my current job that I obviously cannot get in to. If they can't respect my inability to tell them company secrets then there's a problem.

DocColorado 2y ago

I interviewed with Dell during their acceleration rise around 1999. The big red flag for me was all the interviewing people were late and in a ultra hurry to get the interview over. I had a would be peer that said he "Was tired of people being hired & then leaving within 30 days because of the chaotic work load!" This was a management/executive position.

Original_SYN 2y ago

I get linked to threads like these in a newsletter, and I’m just curious. Are these threads only for coders or do coders just happen to be the majority of respondents? Or will interviewers actually be sending me homework for an interview where I have to code something when the job is a SOC analyst or incident response?

jverce 2y ago

A dead silent office

QuiEgo 2y ago

Screening questions to them: - how many hours a week does a typical dev work? - what source control do you use - what ticket system do you use - how long does a typical, at-desk incremental dev build take? - do you have automated builds (CICD, Jenkins, pipelines, nightly build system, etc)?

Quinzel 2y ago

Red Flags: When one or more people on the interview panel behaves extremely unprofessionally. ie, ridicules the interviewee, or makes inappropriately offensive comments. When the interviewer decides to give an interviewee they particularly like a tour of the premise and introduce them to other staff before they've even offered the person a job. When there are heaps of relatives, or best/close friends within the management structure of the company.

djleroy 2y ago

Lots of people without degrees in data science (or statistics, or even computer science) in supervisory positions. Silly interview questions like “define multivariate” or “write python code to find factors” or “write SQL code to join tables” These are all signs of an immature data science function- which predicts working on ill posed problems and a problematic business justification. If the people already there are mediocre it’s not a great place to join. A strong sign of that is if the interviewers don’t know enough to construct thoughtful questions about real, non trivial, issues from their work. There are too many people in data science who, sadly, are at this level.