6 ms·

It's been 10 years since I did an interview and I think I would rather retire and grow rare lizards than jump through the interview hoops at a new company. I am

It's been 10 years since I did an interview and I think I would rather retire and grow rare lizards than jump through the interview hoops at a new company. I am 90% sure I couldn't pass the interview for my current position but I'm the one who designed the whole thing. -staff level backend engineer

wccrawford 1y ago
I was 14 years in a job at senior level and got laid off. And yeah, it's pretty much as bad as you describe.
- benoau 1y ago
  Yep. I didn't even "pass" some of the coding challenges despite hiring, firing, and writing coding challenges myself! What I often saw was many of those jobs were sitting on the market for months and months just getting relisted every few weeks. The ones that actually led to interviews, I had one dipshit proudly tell me about his 2-hour commute five days a week. Another told me they wanted to vomit-out mini-MVPs and were replacing the new guy who wasn't doing it fast enough. Just an ocean of fake jobs and awful jobs lol.
  - dhosek 1y ago
    I had a coding challenge where if you didn’t implement what was essentially a Set in the exact way that they expected, you couldn’t proceed since the evaluation assumed you’d match their ordering (which was arbitrary). One of those automated test things and there was no way to contact a human and say, your process is broken. I’m eagerly counting down the days until I can retire. Between broken hiring processes and the rise of LLM coding, I’m left wondering if this is how I want to spend my precious time.
    - benoau 1y ago
      Greatly enjoying working on my own software for now!
      - leoh 1y ago
        Any tips for doing that and making money?
        benoau 1y ago
        I'm betting on Steam's "early access" personally.
    - hopelite 1y ago
      The cynical mind would assume that would be an excellent way for a corporation to rig the hiring process by preventing American qualified applicants from progressing and therefore making a claim that foreign labor must definitely be imported at a fraction of the salary and under visa-indenturement who … wouldn’t you know … magically happen to know the answers and pass the very arbitrary coding challenge somehow. The only way this gets solved is by making any and all H-1B hires require the hiring corporation pay a 200% tax in addition to all other employment related taxes for the absolutely necessary and critical H-1B talent.
      - throwway120385 1y ago
        Or just establish the H-1B salary by some third party through evaluating what similar positions pay in the most expensive areas of the US and making each sponsoring company pay whatever it costs to get that data.
  - influx 1y ago
    [flagged]
  - mooreds 1y ago
    > Just an ocean of fake jobs and awful jobs lol. Oof. Is that true of the "who's hiring" posts here on HN?
    - MarcelOlsz 1y ago
      There's many awful things, but HN who's hiring isn't one of them IMO. Because HN has maintained an image of being for "smart in the know" people and discussions despite being huge, connections fostered here tend to start off with a stronger weight than completely cold interactions, there's some minor level of inherent trust there. I can't remember the last time someone didn't reply to me from here, but then again I choose my applications very carefully. You also get to meet a truly diverse set of people and opportunities rather than "more of the same".
JustExAWS 1y ago
In the past 10 years and I was already 40 years old in 2014, I’ve interviewed: - at a company where they launched a new division in a satellite office in another city to separate the team from the old guard to create a “tiger team” of experienced developers. I was the second hire. I just spoke to the manager as an experienced professional and we talked about how I solved real world problems - a new to the company director who needed a lead software engineer to integrate systems of acquisitions that the PE owner was buying. - the new to the company CTO after the founders found product market fit and wanted to bring technology leadership into the company from a third party consulting company. I was eventually tasked with making everything cloud native, scalable, resilient etc. I was his second technical hire. Our customers were large health care companies where one new contract could bring in 10K new users and even more ETL integrations. He knew I didn’t have any practical AWS experience. He later told me I seemed like a smart guy and I could figure it out. - AWS itself in the ProServe division - 5 round behavioral interview where I walked through my implementations. - (2024) third party cloud consulting company in a staff role. They asked how would I architect something and I made sure I hit all of the “pillars” of AWS Well Architected and talked through 12 Factor Apps. I’m 51 and I stay interview ready. My resume and my career documents are updated quarterly and I keep my network warm. I believe right now if I were looking for a job, someone would hire me quickly if not for a permanent position, at least I could hustle up on a contract.
- ajmurmann 1y ago
  I've been interviewing the last few months after having had the same leadership role for 7+ years and never really having interviewed before. Your point about maintaining interview-readiness is something everyone should tattoo on their arm. I wish I had kept a log of accomplishments, projects with associated tradeoffs, anecdotes, etc. I've been polishing my interview responses and sometimes I remember something I had done that would have been great to bring up in an interview but I hadn't thought about in years.
  - JustExAWS 1y ago
    And to add on - not directed at you more to other people where this isn’t crystal clear - neither you nor I said to be “interview ready” means “grinding leetcode so you can reverse a btree on the whiteboard”. You and I are both basically referring to being able to describe accomplishments, challenges, and results in STAR format.
lastdong 1y ago
I haven't interviewed for a job in many years, but on a whim, I decided to pursue a new role. I made it to the final interview with senior executives and was expectedly grilled about my qualifications. During the interview, I described several projects I worked on from start to finish, covering all stages such as gathering requirements and architecture. However, I received feedback that it seemed I had taken on too much responsibility, making them unsure of how much I actually contributed. Yes, totally agreed.
- jiveturkey 1y ago
  That was just the stated feedback. They just didn't like you, and found a reason not to. This effect is well studied. The better you understand this, the more it won't make a difference, sadly. At least you can get through the rest of the week though.
TrackerFF 1y ago
It is the natural result of an industry where: - There are low barriers to entry (education is not required, profession licences is not a thing, etc.) - A strong culture of "job hopping" has emerged, which means companies are continuously interviewing candidates, and candidates are continuously looking for jobs. - A big willingness to sacrifice the false positives, for the sake of keeping out the false negatives. Basically companies will increase the threshold/bar to keep out the "fakers" and bad hires, even if it means rejecting legitimate hires. The mantra that it is very expensive to hire the wrong people rings throughout the industry, and has for the past decades. - Candidates are willing to play the game. Some people are willing to grind leetcode questions for months, years, if it means they get a shot at big tech companies. Smaller companies cargo cult.
AlwaysRock 1y ago
Why did you design it that way then? Actually asking, not taking the piss.
- ruszki 1y ago
  There is a difference between knowing how to find and use the ordered list of complexities for big O notation, and knowing these by heart. The difference is irrelevant when you design or code, but it’s important for interviews and exams.
- solotronics 1y ago
  Sorry I meant the systems we built not the interview itself.

wccrawford 1y ago

I was 14 years in a job at senior level and got laid off. And yeah, it's pretty much as bad as you describe.

benoau 1y ago
Yep. I didn't even "pass" some of the coding challenges despite hiring, firing, and writing coding challenges myself! What I often saw was many of those jobs were sitting on the market for months and months just getting relisted every few weeks. The ones that actually led to interviews, I had one dipshit proudly tell me about his 2-hour commute five days a week. Another told me they wanted to vomit-out mini-MVPs and were replacing the new guy who wasn't doing it fast enough. Just an ocean of fake jobs and awful jobs lol.
- dhosek 1y ago
  I had a coding challenge where if you didn’t implement what was essentially a Set in the exact way that they expected, you couldn’t proceed since the evaluation assumed you’d match their ordering (which was arbitrary). One of those automated test things and there was no way to contact a human and say, your process is broken. I’m eagerly counting down the days until I can retire. Between broken hiring processes and the rise of LLM coding, I’m left wondering if this is how I want to spend my precious time.
  - benoau 1y ago
    Greatly enjoying working on my own software for now!
    - leoh 1y ago
      Any tips for doing that and making money?
      - benoau 1y ago
        I'm betting on Steam's "early access" personally.
  - hopelite 1y ago
    The cynical mind would assume that would be an excellent way for a corporation to rig the hiring process by preventing American qualified applicants from progressing and therefore making a claim that foreign labor must definitely be imported at a fraction of the salary and under visa-indenturement who … wouldn’t you know … magically happen to know the answers and pass the very arbitrary coding challenge somehow. The only way this gets solved is by making any and all H-1B hires require the hiring corporation pay a 200% tax in addition to all other employment related taxes for the absolutely necessary and critical H-1B talent.
    - throwway120385 1y ago
      Or just establish the H-1B salary by some third party through evaluating what similar positions pay in the most expensive areas of the US and making each sponsoring company pay whatever it costs to get that data.
- influx 1y ago
  [flagged]
- mooreds 1y ago
  > Just an ocean of fake jobs and awful jobs lol. Oof. Is that true of the "who's hiring" posts here on HN?
  - MarcelOlsz 1y ago
    There's many awful things, but HN who's hiring isn't one of them IMO. Because HN has maintained an image of being for "smart in the know" people and discussions despite being huge, connections fostered here tend to start off with a stronger weight than completely cold interactions, there's some minor level of inherent trust there. I can't remember the last time someone didn't reply to me from here, but then again I choose my applications very carefully. You also get to meet a truly diverse set of people and opportunities rather than "more of the same".

JustExAWS 1y ago

In the past 10 years and I was already 40 years old in 2014, I’ve interviewed: - at a company where they launched a new division in a satellite office in another city to separate the team from the old guard to create a “tiger team” of experienced developers. I was the second hire. I just spoke to the manager as an experienced professional and we talked about how I solved real world problems - a new to the company director who needed a lead software engineer to integrate systems of acquisitions that the PE owner was buying. - the new to the company CTO after the founders found product market fit and wanted to bring technology leadership into the company from a third party consulting company. I was eventually tasked with making everything cloud native, scalable, resilient etc. I was his second technical hire. Our customers were large health care companies where one new contract could bring in 10K new users and even more ETL integrations. He knew I didn’t have any practical AWS experience. He later told me I seemed like a smart guy and I could figure it out. - AWS itself in the ProServe division - 5 round behavioral interview where I walked through my implementations. - (2024) third party cloud consulting company in a staff role. They asked how would I architect something and I made sure I hit all of the “pillars” of AWS Well Architected and talked through 12 Factor Apps. I’m 51 and I stay interview ready. My resume and my career documents are updated quarterly and I keep my network warm. I believe right now if I were looking for a job, someone would hire me quickly if not for a permanent position, at least I could hustle up on a contract.

ajmurmann 1y ago
I've been interviewing the last few months after having had the same leadership role for 7+ years and never really having interviewed before. Your point about maintaining interview-readiness is something everyone should tattoo on their arm. I wish I had kept a log of accomplishments, projects with associated tradeoffs, anecdotes, etc. I've been polishing my interview responses and sometimes I remember something I had done that would have been great to bring up in an interview but I hadn't thought about in years.
- JustExAWS 1y ago
  And to add on - not directed at you more to other people where this isn’t crystal clear - neither you nor I said to be “interview ready” means “grinding leetcode so you can reverse a btree on the whiteboard”. You and I are both basically referring to being able to describe accomplishments, challenges, and results in STAR format.

lastdong 1y ago

I haven't interviewed for a job in many years, but on a whim, I decided to pursue a new role. I made it to the final interview with senior executives and was expectedly grilled about my qualifications. During the interview, I described several projects I worked on from start to finish, covering all stages such as gathering requirements and architecture. However, I received feedback that it seemed I had taken on too much responsibility, making them unsure of how much I actually contributed. Yes, totally agreed.

jiveturkey 1y ago
That was just the stated feedback. They just didn't like you, and found a reason not to. This effect is well studied. The better you understand this, the more it won't make a difference, sadly. At least you can get through the rest of the week though.

TrackerFF 1y ago

It is the natural result of an industry where: - There are low barriers to entry (education is not required, profession licences is not a thing, etc.) - A strong culture of "job hopping" has emerged, which means companies are continuously interviewing candidates, and candidates are continuously looking for jobs. - A big willingness to sacrifice the false positives, for the sake of keeping out the false negatives. Basically companies will increase the threshold/bar to keep out the "fakers" and bad hires, even if it means rejecting legitimate hires. The mantra that it is very expensive to hire the wrong people rings throughout the industry, and has for the past decades. - Candidates are willing to play the game. Some people are willing to grind leetcode questions for months, years, if it means they get a shot at big tech companies. Smaller companies cargo cult.

AlwaysRock 1y ago

Why did you design it that way then? Actually asking, not taking the piss.

ruszki 1y ago
There is a difference between knowing how to find and use the ordered list of complexities for big O notation, and knowing these by heart. The difference is irrelevant when you design or code, but it’s important for interviews and exams.
solotronics 1y ago
Sorry I meant the systems we built not the interview itself.