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gymbeauxHNSource author
Lessons learnedExperience excerpt · English

I’ve always been fascinated with the idea that someone can be a software developer for 5, 10, 20 …

I’ve always been fascinated with the idea that someone can be a software developer for 5, 10, 20 years and bomb in interviews, and I’ve always wondered if they really don’t know these things, or if it’s just the environment- like in my experience I can wax and wax and wax in a non-interview setting, but in an interview setting, even from the comfort of my home office, I seem to block out- not forget, because in the moment I know I know something- parts of my knowledge. You might say “well you should practice interview more” or something to that effect, but I have to wonder, if so many developers seem to “know nothing” despite their supposed experience, perhaps it’s not that they “know nothing”. On my LinkedIn I have the following: what I currently get paid by my current employer (!!!), what I am looking for in my next role, both regularly ignored by recruiters of course, and then I have links to my StackOverflow, Medium and Github profiles, any of which ought to demonstrate my “expertise” as well or better than an interview ever could. …

Original discussionThe developer job market is insane260 source comments · at import
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trentnixHN

No doubt, the number of interviewing antipatterns out there is nuts. Leetcode games, hiring by committee, and a market flooded with candidates with resumes that look and read the same. On the flip side, I’m interviewing candidates with a decade of experience (per their resume) that can’t discern the difference between basic data types and how they are stored with the very language they claim expertise. Once upon a time the stereotype was that hiring developers is hard because they can’t communicate. Now candidate after candidate is able to communicate like they are a professional podcaster but they can’t seem to solve problems well. If you’re skilled, don’t despair. Most companies are terrible at hiring and terrible at business as well. Those rejections from the gauntlet of flaming hoops they make your jump through are doing you a favor. Rejection is God’s protection and all that. And I…

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chasd00HN

> I’ve always been fascinated with the idea that someone can be a software developer for 5, 10, 20 years and bomb in interviews i cant remember who said it but many people with 10 years experience really have 1 year of experience and 9 years performing tasks doing the same thing over and over.

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re-thcHN

Most people aren't this consistent. At work does someone say that I will watch you code in a particular time of the day and you will be able to perform on a random question that's useless? No. Interviews have 0 context that's needed for anyone to perform. Usually you can't use your IDE, your settings or your ways of working and you've never paired up with the interviewer so might not feel comfortable. To make matters worse the interview topic is 90% chance not what you do on a day-to-day basis. No 1 is answering leet code questions at work. We're going to be using a library or tool and not to try write an analytics algorithm.

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2muchcoffeemanHN

I've bombed interviews numerous times only for the answers to come to me when the interview is over. My best outcomes are when I am relaxed (already have a job ;)) and I've gone through some basic material and whipped up some example programs. I've never had a problem in a real world setting or writing code.

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