In start ups, I have seen candidates nearly rejected just on a suit alone. Def started them on the wrong foot impression wise.

'Uniforms' can go both ways. Would a person who only owns white Oxford shirts and monochrome dress pants have to go out and buy a new wardrobe he would feel very uncomfortable in if he wanted to work there? People who wear 20 year old band t-shirts can be every bit as judgemental about looks as people who wear tailored Italian suits.

Hipster/lumberjack can also work. Make sure the jeans are $400 Japanese raw selvedge to really get it right.

The highest ranking person I ever shook hands with was the GP Morgan head of futures department. He came to talk to the whole company to prep for acquisition. So, it wasn't a super official "ceremony", but it was in front of some fifty men, including senior management of the said company. He was wearing a polo shirt, jeans and a pair of sneakers. I don't know if this is how he'd show up to his office in the bank. Likely not (but who knows?)

Also, nobody in that room was wearing a suit.

Maybe your advise works for other places. For vast majority of programming jobs showing up overdressed will raise more questions about your sanity than score any points on preparedness.

I recommend a t-shirt with a tuxedo design printed on the front. The very definition of smart casual.

He was wearing some sort of jeans and polo shirt combination (the same as the other executives) and it looked terrible to me (the proportions were wrong, the jeans were too long--he looked like a clown) and I thought his attire was disrespectful. The people there, who cared about looking presentable given the importance of the event for the 200-person satellite office, looked much better than the power-ups.

In my opinion, this doesn't show that he only cares about the work and not silly, old-fashioned dress codes, but that he's too good for us to take the time to look good.

In case you mean JP Morgan, here's the CEO, Jamie Dimon, on cover of annual shareholder letter, back in ... 2015:

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/jamie-dimons-style-telling-jp...

My expectation is that turning up in a suit would get better results. The effect is probably smaller in hard-skill roles but I'd assume still present.

Turning up in formal business wear isn’t going to be a positive social cue if everybody you interact with is dressed casually.

The social cue you’d be giving off is that you stick out like a sore thumb and probably didn’t do your research on the company before you showed up.

Literally no different than turning up to Lloyd’s of London in a Hawaiian shirt and Bermuda shorts.

These are just instances of my point (a): not having a clue about SV work culture.

> there are even people who wear suits all the time

Not in silicon valley tech. I mean, sure, maybe there's one guy and the number is not zero.

So then by your own admission, the best way to come dressed is the same way your interviewer tends to dress.

Which is essentially what most people in this thread are arguing for - dress to match the company's culture.

There are many ways to wear a suit. If you walking in wearing a suit that doesn't fit, doesn't suite (no pun intended) you, and it obviously makes you feel uncomfortable then that could count against you. But you walk in wearing a suit that fits, makes you look good, and that you are comfortable wearing, then I have a hard time seeing how it will count against you.

Being hyper judgemental about the clothes people wear isn't productive

However, like it or not, it is a signal because it means you deviate significantly from the mode of the distribution. And a sober application of Bayes suggests that if anything, all else equal that signal is a negative one.

Admittedly I thankfully wasn't in the SV bubble where people are wound this tightly about it!

If an interviewer can't tell the difference between a flex and show of good intent, they probably should go back to jobs where they don't need to make judgements of character.

If you forgive me the analogy, and assuming you're American, would you think of checking the etiquette of entering into a shop? In the US, the concept itself is weird, you go in, buy stuff, and leave. In France, you must greet the shopkeeper right as you go in through the door. In Hungary, you must wish the shopkeeper a good day in reply to their greeting. It's simple... if you know it's even a thing you should check.

As long as suits and ties remain the uniform of politicians and managers, I don't think techies will ever willingly adopt it for themselves as well.

I personally dress like a hobo when I'm out and about, and wear a uniform of jeans and a blue shirt when I go into the office, so I really don't care about the suit either way. I'm wearing it for your benefit, so if you don't like it, just tell me upfront - don't make me guess if the job isn't about mindreading.

I now have no idea how I am supposed to dress for most things other than formal occasions like wedding, funerals, or formal dinners.

Can't go wrong with “smart casual”

// not sure that helps :)

What if wearing a suit is "being myself"? You'll be penalized in tech for that.

Not everyone views the wearing of suits as some kind of punishment.

(1) This person really really needs the job. Probably is in a bad negotiation position, due to this urgent need.

(2) Are you here to impress people with looks, or with your skills?

(3) They take looks way more serious than they should, maybe not focussing enough on the technical side of things.

(4) Hopefully this is not an "EnTeRpRiSe software" developer, and if they are, hopefully they don't work on my team and if they are, hopefully my next up manager does not get blinded by fancy clothes, instead of technical reasoning.

That said, I would try to keep an open mind about the person, but they would be initially sorted into the category of managerial or close to management, rather than close to the other engineers, which is not a positive signal to send.

So what if a candidate wants to look good? How you feel about your looks affects your confidence, and you want to be confident in an interview.

And like, if a candidate came in with a well groomed beard would you think “he probably spends too much time on his beard, he must be a bad programmer”? I bet you don’t.

I’m not trying to criticize you too much, but this just feels antithetical to everything that tech stands for. You get judged on your merits, not on anything else. This way of thinking is how you create an environment hostile to women and minorities.

Our industry in north america is known for lots its egotistical slobs, but I thought that was changing.

Like it or not, if someone needs to wear a suit to feel confident that says something about them. It may just be a personality quirk of them unrelated to their skills, but it often is not. There’s no reason you need to wear a suit to feel confident.

> You get judged on your merits, not on anything else. This way of thinking is how you create an environment hostile to women and minorities.

How often does tech discriminate for “culture fit” reasons? Someone’s personality fit is often a huge point of contention, and wearing a suit is part of someone’s personality and choices.

I’m not advocating for it being an absolute state, but you certainly have to give some consideration to the fact that dressing up far more than is needed implies you don’t culturally understand. It’s as simple as that.

I’d suggest you reacquaint yourself with the comment guidelines, as this just is a simple ad hominem attack on me, despite not even making any claims as to what I wear to work.

Replace “wearing a suit” with literally anything else unrelated to programming skills. Wearing a dress. Having a particular speech pattern. Being old.

As soon as you start judging people for anything other than their performance you fucked up. People’s personality comes through in the interview process. By the end of an hour working with someone you should have a pretty good idea of what working with them is like, suit or no suit.

> I’m not advocating for it being an absolute state, but you certainly have to give some consideration to the fact that dressing up far more than is needed implies you don’t culturally understand. It’s as simple as that.

I'm not saying you immediately throw a candidate out for wearing a suit. It's entirely possible I'm wrong and my mind can be changed by their performance, but it is something that would make me take a closer look.

I'll give you another example I experienced recently: a candidate who would not stop drumming their fingers on the table throughout the interview. Is that specifically related to their performance? No, not really. Is it annoying, a bit disrespectful, and shows a lack of restraint? Yeah, it is. This candidate had other flaws that made them disqualifying, but their finger drumming didn't help them at all.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

But I would like to point out that a rule that allows someone to openly state they discriminate during interviews but forbids a strong reaction to that statement might require some examination.

You could just as easily argue that people “discriminate” against candidates by making them do leetcode, when leetcode is unrelated to performance at the job. Leetcode is a performance some people look at during interviews, just like how you socially meld in an interview is a performance people look at during interviews.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stimming

I have no idea since I wasn’t there when you interviewed that person but it is something that came to mind.

But that is also a narrow view of the world, no? Who says a suit looks good? What if I think pajamas looks good? I am exaggerating of course, but I often think suits don't look particularly better or anything. It is just some random norm, that society has ascribed to that particular piece of clothing. I often find simple, one color only, no writing on it, clothing looking better.

> And like, if a candidate came in with a well groomed beard would you think “he probably spends too much time on his beard, he must be a bad programmer”? I bet you don’t.

I don't, but I do get a sense of them possibly being a bit vain. But more importantly, I think about why I don't wear such a beard. It is annoying when eating, and I don't want my beard in my food. So I will be a little bit baffled by their choice, but it is their choice anyway. I don't have to like it.

Especially if you’re an interviewer.

Great. Fantastic job everyone /S

At least requiring a suit requires something aesthetically better and more worthy of human dignity. Reverse snobbery demands you dress worse and beneath it.

In the Western world, for a long time, at least 100 years, a suit was considered the proper attire for men. Then expectations changed and now some, many even, consider jeans and a t-shirt as aesthetically pleasing as a suit. Maybe in a few years, you'll go and talk to your lawyer, who will turn up to an hour-long meeting that you'll pay 500 dollars for in a tracksuit and it'll be perfectly fine, you'll even find the attire aesthetically pleasing.

Traditionally, it was a suit and hat. Going suit alone was already "dressing down". It is funny that we now consider that to be the paragon of male fashion.

> Maybe in a few years, you'll go and talk to your lawyer [...] in a tracksuit and it'll be perfectly fine, you'll even find the attire aesthetically pleasing.

It seems we'll question why he isn't wearing jeans and a t-shirt like a dignified man.

Most people off the street would agree that a suit is more dignified, and it's not without reason. Wearing a suit indicates a level of discipline, effort, and intention about the way that you look that simply wearing a t shirt with jeans does not.

To contrast, the historical reason for the t shirt / jeans combo is practicality and convenience; tech as an industry got away with it at first, because techies were not interfacing with clients directly or simply because they're working class.

You can argue about the elitism and class differences surrounding suits versus t shirts and jeans, but I think it's a bit ridiculous to say that suits aren't aesthetically better just because of the media image for hacker types.

So all we have is the tradition that "high status males" in the traditional power roles wear suits when in public, which is true and valid, but it does not translate into the inherent superiority of this garment.

The main benefit of a suit is that it can be easily tailored to fit a person perfectly, which isn’t the case with tshirts/hoodies/jeans/etc. I mean, you can tailor those, i guess, but that’s very uncommon.

For non-suits, the pro-tip is to just focus on finding ones that fit your shape the best (or changing your shape; unless you are one of the unlucky few who has a non-conforming shape, e.g very tall), and that’s their main downside.

Well fitting casual clothing > poorly fitting suits any time. Beyond that, it is situational.

I mean you can argue aesthetics, but it’s a fact that in the western world, a suit is considered by everyone, more or less, to be more formal than T-shirt and jeans, and more formal is widely considered to be more dignified than casual wear. The first principles that matter aren’t aesthetics, they are more likely customs and class (socioeconomic status).

Presumably OP had seen/visited an Apple Store before and knew what employees wore there, so it's not a mystery what the uniform is, and therefore what is probably meant by "don't wear anything formal". It's not some kind of gotcha.

I interviewed elsewhere and one other time I wore an Oxford. I passed the university interview but the hiring manager told me for the on campus interview to not wear that again, or I'll stick out too much. I wore a plain T-shirt and have been happily employed for 10 years here :)

I got the job, but was then told "don't listen to your mother"!

Thanks mom!

I always get a positive response.

But you do highlight the flaw of natural language, where it only works where there already is a shared understanding. When quite often there isn't. Heck, 90% of the comments on HN are from actors having different understandings for technical jargon and talking past each other because they aren't even talking about the same thing. Such is the tragedy of the human existence.