Why tech job interviews became such a nightmare

Re:Why tech job interviews became such a nightmare by usrusr on Thursday March 07, 2024 @09:12AM (#39629275)

Curiously, there's also the exact inverse happening as well, without contradiction: unless you go for the extreme junior position of straight from university, employers expect a perfect tech stack match. If you haven't worked with exactly the same framework, philosophy and process, you're out. Few other fields have this to a similar degree, outside of commercial aviation where you're either certified for, say, 737 or you're not.

I blame it on the very unspecific headcount demands in software projects: there's never a hard target number "we need ten keyboards to be manned at all times!", life just goes on when you are nominally understaffed. Perhaps slower, perhaps with more crunch, but nobody really knows what difference a hire or two would have actually made. So software development HR keeps throwing out their net, who knows, perhaps tomorrow the perfect candidate applies, and rejects a lot. It's a bit like the pattern of attractive people trapping themselves in an infinite dating treadmill, but with the plot twist that their salary depends on it.

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Re:Why tech job interviews became such a nightmare by whstl on Thursday March 07, 2024 @09:31AM (#39629502)

I find that this becomes less of a problem when you move up from senior positions. Staff, principal, lead, etc.

IMO this doesn't make sense. I don't think a senior dev should have problems switching stacks or languages.

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Re:Why tech job interviews became such a nightmare by usrusr on Thursday March 07, 2024 @10:19AM (#39630145)

I guess the idea is that if you set up a team for something greenfieldish you want some to lead by example in terms of how the stack will be used. You don't want someone generally experienced to go deep discovering their way to use the stack, you want to buy usage patterns. Once the position is out of the trenches, it's not really a tech job anymore and you basically need someone who knows the language (of the field, not a programming language!) and who is good at not running into process traps.

From the buyer side it makes a lot of sense, the problem is that when you're on the selling side and too old to get accepted in a junior role, you either have the precisely fitting CV (and can prove it through the interview stages), or you're bound for a tech stack consisting of an uber-accepted car.

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Re:Why tech job interviews became such a nightmare by nradov on Thursday March 07, 2024 @09:46AM (#39629708)

That really varies by the organization. Smaller companies or those using less common platforms are more willing to hire based on transferable skills and then train.

Most airlines do the same. The majority of pilots flying 737s were hired without that specific type rating. Usually they're moving up from flying smaller jets at regional airlines.

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Re:Why tech job interviews became such a nightmare by usrusr on Thursday March 07, 2024 @10:25AM (#39630222)

Airlines are at the polar opposite end of the spectrum of clearly defined minimum headcount requirement: they know exactly how many keyboards they must have manned, they can't wait it out if there aren't enough candidates who don't require training into the type rating.

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