Another programming interview I blew | Hacker News Reader

Another programming interview I blew

64 pointsirishguy81 comments

I am an old fart. 47 years old. Thats dead in computer years. First computer at 16. 48k of memory. A closet nerd. closet. I don't look like a computer guy. I know. I know. I have been told so many times. I go back. ms dos.. dbase qbasic. And I know the modern stuff. 20 year track record I won't bore you. 10 years C# SQl server. Im playing with nodejs and vuejs now...

Anyway. I have been to 5 interviews this month and nobody gave me a fucking job. Programming has humbled me I know you can only know so much. I blew 5 interviews this month. 5. Thats crazy. Every single one of these interviews was somebody asking me some random shit. RANDOM shite and if I didn't answer there random generated shite I didnt get the job. I should have been a dentist I would have gotten more respect and maybe more love. Any replies.

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Bullshit interviews are part of the system now. The only way to beat it is with interview-er accountability.

In interviews today, the expectation is that the candidate should be perfect, do this, that, don't forget to do this. But the interviewer has no such requirement. The interviewer can reject you because "They had a bad day".....seriously, this is what companies say. Look at some answers here: https://www.quora.com/What-are-the-possible-reasons-of-being...

So the candidate has to be PERFECT but the interviewer can reject because they are just HUMANS? How the hell does this make sense?

Maybe we need yelp for interviewers. A rating system will weed out bad interviewers and bad company policies.

I believe this is why Starfighters was being made; because the system is broken. Too bad it didn't work out(not the CTF or stock game; the idea). I wish there was a site where, in my own time, I can do some tasks to prove that I can actually do what I've been doing for the past 15 years. As in, "here I reversed a string and this is proof. now can we please discuss something relevant to the role or am I being hired to reverse strings all day?"

But then the interviewer trots out the old adage "but we're not testing your ability to reverse strings. I want to see how you approach solving problems." And yet, a wrong answer is an almost guaranteed no hire. I can't tell if these people believe their own bullshit or if I'm being lied to my face.

"I want to see how you approach solving problems"- Is almost always bullshit.

One person I knew at work had a question he used to always ask in interviews. One day while discussing this I asked him to show me some working code for his question. He struggles for a while then gives up(Note, this is his own question). Then he repeats the same trite - "We are just testing their approach".

And I was like "Oh sure, Their approach towards something whose answer you don't even know, to evaluate against."

I don't know many of these interviewers (I myself interview but I would never ask people to do these silly tests) but I spoken to one of them from Boston a while ago at a party and he said he just has this list of questions and they need to be answered correct; he himself would not even be able to recognise if the person was attacking the problem right or wrong but he says 'I want to see how you approach solving problems' as that is what he has been taught. So in my 1 point empirical research I would say you are being lied to.

Well, now I know! thanks. :)

> I want to see how you approach solving problems.

Which correlates nicely to "You didn't solve it the way I would have, so you're obviously wrong."

HackerRank

Too easy to 'cheat' at. Just look at the comments page for the challenge and the answer is usually there. In the end, you just have to take a risk when hiring people, remembering that it is a 2-way street, and that you have to put in effort to make your employees great ones.

Also their tech is not great. I had one question in the python set which would've been very easy to solve if i could import a pkg from the standard library but it didn't let me.

I had a bad experience, this was some local server hosting company and I walk in there, granted I'm not wearing slacks/dress shirt so perhaps I'm not better but both the people I interviewed with (owner and an employee) were wearing sloppy clothes like basketball shorts, stretched out t-shirt, etc... and I read some reviews from former employees at this company on Glassdoor, I did not get a good vibe due to the mostly-negative reviews. I didn't get the job but what I didn't like the most is they never called me back or anything, they didn't say something like "We're sorry, we reviewed your application, you're not a good fit." I'm probably not the most social person anyway, I have a look on my face like "I'm miserable/tired" but I talked with a low tone/calm. I don't know, at least I have a day-time job and have some clients.

> The interviewer can reject you because "They had a bad day"

The only answer in your Quora link that has a lot of upvotes is by the author of CTCI and she is saying just the opposite, and instead of blaming the interviewer she is putting all of the blame on the person being interviewed. I find this quite disturbing, and you are right there isn't accountability on the interviewer, here are the things the author of CTCI is saying:

> Maybe you came off as arrogant

> A number of different things could happen. But when someone asks this question -- why did I get rejected even after doing well -- the problem is nearly always in the second part: You didn't do well

> If you were interviewing with a big tech company, they have basically infinite programming spots. They don't reject someone because they found someone better; they just hire both.

> So despite what you think about your performance, you probably didn't show good algorithmic problem-solving skills

I'm all for self-introspection to assist in self-improvement but her persistence in ignoring the fact that interviewers are fallible is troubling, she is the go-to resource for probably most interviewees and interviewers and I don't like that she assumes that the thing that went wrong is "almost always" the fault of the interviewee. It's some grade-A BS.

That Quora post is exactly what I am going through now. Answered all tech questions. Interviewer said he was impressed. A week later, I got a rejection letter saying I was slow. WTF! The interview lasted 1 hour. I solved 3 tech questions without knowing it's timed interview.

You can rate your interviews on Glassdoor, FWIW. I at least peek there where considering a company.

As someone seeking a job, yes, it's unfortunate. But from an employer's perspective, false negatives are safer than false positives.

>> As someone seeking a job, yes, it's unfortunate. But from an employer's perspective, false negatives are safer than false positives.

- Are you an employer complaining there is a shortage of good developers?

- How many candidates have you rejected in the past?

- How many of those were because of a bullshit interview question? (Eg: Find the maximum subarray of an input array in O(n)...cannot be brute force....within 20 mins)

- If you have faced a shortage of developers, have you considered calling back the people you rejected for bullshit questions?

- If you don't have a problem finding engineers who can solve bullshit problems, your technique succeeded right? How many of those successful bullshitters have you fired or been disappointed by their performance at work? If the answer is zero..great. Don't ever fire them. Else, review your interview process.

Thanks

The false negative/false positive question is more about the costs of hiring a "bad" engineer than how hard it is to find a "good" one.

I've been in that situation: Once, at an old job, I had put in for a new role that had been created. There was also an outside candidate who'd applied for the role. Management felt that having me interview this candidate would have been a conflict of interest, considering, so I wasn't asked to participate.

I knew within 30 seconds of meeting him that he wouldn't last. He didn't. They gave him three months, and we all agreed in retrospect that he shouldn't have been hired at all.

In the interim, I did my old job, as well as his job (in the form of handholding him through everything he did more complicated than surfing the web), and was very quickly given the title of "Senior $role", with him as a direct report.

The other engineers and I spent hours, daily, working hand in hand with him, correcting his code, repeatedly suggesting the same things he could do to avoid having those problems with his code in the first place, &c.

That's just one example of what the thing I thought the grandparent meant by "false positive" can cost you. I'm sure there are worse.

>> The false negative/false positive question is more about the costs of hiring a "bad" engineer than how hard it is to find a "good" one.

I'm familiar with the argument. Erring on the side of caution is wise. Thinking that the current interview process saves you from this is stupid.

Gameable systems are won by people who focus on the game. They are not necessarily going to do well if the job requires something different

The current interview process is a GAME.

From the employer perspective, they can never be sure if they hired someone who memorized stuff for the interview or a really smart guy.

It's very similar to the current US election process. Everyone thought the forefathers made a rock solid constitution. The few cracks it had was fixed with amendments. Lo and behold, the only person who could make it to the top was the one who gamed the system and not someone with real merit.

Aren't the parallels strong?

P.S.: Not claiming Hillary is meritorious, but at least she's not one to make radical decisions without counsel

Downvoted. This thread is about interviews, not politics. There are more than enough political posts on the front page right now if you're in the mood for political commentary.

>> Gameable systems are won by people who focus on the game. They are not necessarily going to do well if the job requires something different >> The current interview process is a GAME.

Exactly what I've been thinking about recently.

Isn't this true for a variety of things? The education system judging on the outcome of exam scores, elections, making money, marketing etc.

I wonder whether all this can be really be 'fixed'.

I'm 47, had plenty of shitty interviews. Forget about them, move on. I changed jobs twice last year because one of the companies went bankrupt. All beyond my control. I specialize in mobile app programming. If the interview strays much beyond that I remind the interviewer of the specific type of job I am looking for. If that does not work then I end the interview. If they did not read my resume then they are wasting my time. For the last shitty interview the interviewer was quizzing me about regex - apparently not being a regex expert means I was not worth moving forward with. A couple days later I had an offer from another company.

I've taken a lot of shitty interviews. I have also interviewed many devs.

Testing a candidate in one hour is really hard.

CV's can be very deceiving. What I look for is folks who are good coders and good communicators. I don't care about culture fit. Our team is diverse from 50 year Olds, 19 year Olds, males females, black, white, brown etc.

Having a github profile with interesting projects is a boon. Even better if you've contributed to some meaningful open-source projects. This is great because it gives lots of data. The issues you file, the commits, comments and code give good insights about you. Much more than a one page CV.

I use the same question on every candidate and evaluate them.

I allow my candidates to use google/Bing, chrome console, whatever resources they would usually use in day to day work.

I look for understanding of basic data structures like maps, sets and techniques like recursion. I also give a ton of hints to guide in the right path. I can only help though if the the candidate wants help. Some candidates really don't get the hints even after multiple repeats.

Some candidates just dive into code and then get stuck. They confuse them selves.

The best candidates are the ones who ask lots of clarifications at the start, they break down the problem into little pieces without writing a single line of code. They emulate a computer and trace the steps in an abstract manner. They think like "to solve Z, I need A then do B and C and D." They then slowly write code for the little steps.

I love candidates who can give me a deep dive into a subject they are an expert on. I get to learn a ton on random things. Also gives insight on what makes them tick.

Don't give up. Please keep on trying. Feel free to PM me for any help. I really want you to succeed.

Some candidates just dive into code and then get stuck. They confuse them selves.

My thoughts exactly

Get out and meet people at software meetups, etc. This is and always will be the best way to get a job. If you are finding resistance down the path of interviewing, go down a different path to find a job. Big companies like Google will pretend it is the only way to get in, but that is a lie anyway. Smaller companies are easier. If you find that you are struggling in that venue, ask for help. Developing emotional intelligence is something you can do easier in your older years, and some companies really value that.

The proper answer is to sabotage the process.

If you go to an interview and they ask contrived questions, go to their page on Glassdoor and post everything they asked.

Once their filter gets too noisy, they'll have to start interviewing for the actual role they're trying to fill instead of this oral exam bullshit.

I think you just need a pair of glasses, even if they are not prescription. I'm in the same position as you and I think glasses are what makes the difference. Almost hysterical to the point of tears, I know, but it seems more true the more I experiment.

Keep at it -- places that don't have a thoughtful enough interview process to ask you something practical and relevant aren't companies you probably want to work at anyway.

You got spunk

The job market and hiring processes for software engineers are screwed up.

One problem is that it's hard to get good information about which candidates and which companies are the ones you want, since the bad ones also pretend to be good.

Another complication is that recruiters are often not technical, and the hiring managers in startups are not always experienced, so you have to pass through too highly imperfect filters.

I can tell you that, a couple years ago, there was so much demand for Ruby and Python developers that good recruiters wouldn't even take the assignment of looking for them, because they knew it was fruitless.

One way to get around the problem of imperfect information is just to build stuff that resembles what you think people need, with the tools they advertise that they are using, and then to post your code on Github. Or commit to an open-source project. Really, the smart companies have scouts watching those projects and if you show competence, reliability and culture fit (being nice) you'll probably get an offer.

I used to write about this a bit from the point of view of a technical recruiter, which is not popular on HN, but fwiw, it's good for SWEs to understand the gatekeepers.

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/20141003230509-13992315-how-t...

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/20140922170916-13992315-if-yo...

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/job-markets-information-probl...

44, myself. I tend to interview well, which frankly surprises me, because I'm on the whole not as good at people as I'd like to be. I think, though, the thing that has best served me in that regard is walking into every interview remembering that I'm interviewing the company, as much as it is me.

Are these people I can spend as much of my life with as I would by taking this job? Do I respect them? Does the person I'd be reporting to seem like someone I'd be okay reporting to?

I've no shit been in a place where getting this one, specific job was the only chance I had — less than a month's burn rate in the bank, and with no other prospects — but walking into an interview like that has, in whatever part, landed me an offer every time.

I should have been a dentist I would have gotten more respect and maybe more love

I have had similar thoughts.

I shudder at the thought of being a dentist. Imagine your first day on the job, looking into people's mouths all day... then going home and thinking that this is what you will do every working day for the next 40 years.

Dentists, I heard, have high rates of substance abuse, depression and suicide. These are very talented people (they have to be to gain admission to dentistry), who have to spend their life... doing dentistry.

Not just looking into people's mouths, but half of your clients are terrified of you (far more than any other profession) and you have to cajole them. You will also be causing pain to people in the course of your job (can get minimal, but there will always be some), which some clients really can't handle. I imagine you get used to the smell of drill-burnt rotten teeth eventually, but the terrified people... I don't know how they do it.

The way it is now, I mostly write code that will be ripped out in a few years, if not months. At least being a dentist I could be sure that every day, I would go to work, and help someone.

In the computer industry you have to screen out companies that don't help people.

I doubt looking into mouths is a big deal. I don't see how that's any worse or better than being a surgeon. The problem is so much of dentistry is cosmetics which is a horribly shallow thing to be dedicating your life to.

What's so shallow about giving back self-confidence to kids and adults who didn't win perfect teeth at the genetic lottery?

It's a cultural perception. Japanese girls are happy with snaggle-teeth because in Japanese culture these are cute. Some even want fake crooked teeth.

https://www.japantoday.com/category/lifestyle/view/why-japan...

So don't get too hung up about perfect teeth.

I'm not a software developer. I have passable understanding of what computer science is, and what goes into software (a few semesters of programming at a bad level). The following list is some things I keep in my list of ideal interview parameters/meta-questions. I'm not sure if they are really for me, since I doubt I would ever be interviewing a developer for a job, but who knows, maybe I'll need to find a technical person some time.

1. I feel strongly that people should be allowed to prepare for interviews by seeing the actual questions. In fact, I think the questions should be public. What might these questions be? I want to immediately know if someone took the time to do some diligence and also to make certain that my own biases didn't cause me to avoid hard questions for candidates I liked.

2. I don't want to ask something which can be easily googled. Simple answers aren't any good; I need something where it is open ended enough and the answers to the question can be "good enough" where I feel the completeness is sufficient for the role.

3. I need to be able to practically communicate what the real purpose of the role is. the Job posting will not always be allowed to do that, but through the interview I need to make it clear what work I actually need done. Should I do this via questions (keep this a secret from the interviewer) or tell them the honest truth and risk losing potentially excellent employees. Both employee and employer have high frictional costs in this case.

4. Interviews are a mostly artificial format - similar things do happen in sales and client-facing scenarios, but usually in a toned down way. In an interview, the risk of performance is entirely on the person interviewing, in a customer-facing scenario, the person is representing the company, but also has the company support behind them. How could you put the interview into a position where the interviewee felt as if the company interviewing them would back them up to help them succeed? (could you do a pair interview where someone already hired for the role helps them work on an interview problem, while someone else interviews them?)

My last interview was through a recruiter and I got an email back saying they liked me and we'd hear something the following week then I never heard back from the recruiter. Emailed a week later no response. emailed again another week no response.

I did eventually get a job.

I've decided to work on getting my loan officer license.

If we started talking about recruiters, I am pretty sure HN would crash due to the longest threads ever made! I don't know if this is just recruiters for software dev jobs that act this way but they make the whole process a lot more stressful than it needs to be.

Because of all the BS involved in building software, I am considering starting my own food truck. I used to enjoy writing code and solving problems...

I had one that didn't get back to me for a month once but then gave me a job offer starting the next week. Turns out they'd hired someone else and he quit after a day.

You're not alone. I'm older than you are. Theoretically I'm too old to be employed as a programmer. Yes, I've lost out on a lot of jobs because they asked trivia questions about some language or computer science concept I hadn't thought of in years. I prefer to look at it as their loss. It seems to me that the emphasis on memorization of abstruse detail tends to favor younger people. Us older folks don't remember quite as quickly but we have more experience in solving problems. Therefore, those interviews show a fundamental misunderstanding of the needs of the job. In other words, you might be better off avoiding those places anyway.

All that said, I have been almost continuously employed for a dozen years or so. Periods of unemployment are short, and when I work the pay is high. While I may fail to answer the random BS questions at several interviews in a row, I get far more interviews than people I know in other lines of work, and wind up employed again after far shorter periods of time. Sometimes it's freelance or contract work but even those are paying excellent money for programmers these days.

I guess it's a trade off. You have to endure a lot of frustration to get to the satisfying and successful bits. Don't give up hope! (But do see if there's a side project that can tide you over. Programming skills can support many baskets to put your eggs in)

No offense, this is a huge pity party you're throwing yourself.

You said you "blew" five interviews without providing any information or taking any responsibility. Also, you say that you've been doing development for 20 years. Do you think you're entitled to something purely based on your experience, even though it might not be relevant?

Also, five interviews is just a drop in the bucket. What did you expect your interview pass rate to be, over 20%? That seems highly unrealistic.

It may be stressful, but I would not sweat it. In my experience, the only way to get better at interviews is to do more interviews. Then the random questions start becoming more common.

I interviewed a guy once who was trying to talk his way into a VP-level position. Except he was talking to me, and I was just a hired hand suited only to make a recommendation for a n additional developer. The guy had a sound mind but the company was not hiring for his role.

At the same time, I mostly don't want to work at the companies that do puzzle interviews, though you may feel differently. A lot of times these center on approaches like recursion algorithms, but I'm a full-stack/backend web developer, and I've written less than 10 recursion functions for production. I now ask these interviewers how often they write recursion algorithms and the answer I usually get the line "oh it's just useful to know the underlying concept," except it isn't. I can write them, but I don't care for them, and the concept isn't particularly mind-blowing, and you'll have to explain it to the rest of your team.

Anyway, hang in there, best wishes

As a full stack dev, I write recursive stuff all the time. It's a very effective technique.

I do agree though? A lot of interview questions are trick questions.

Last week I got the following answer: "We cannot process your CV for security reasons." I sent them a plain text CV_name.txt. "Please send us your CV as PDF."

This was for a security related job. I guess we are just not a good fit.

Tough but not unusual. For the record, I'm 33 and I have had a similar experience. I am not sure it has anything to do with your age but ageism is very real and I am trying to prepare for it because 40, assuming I'll make it, is just around the corner.

I did 3 interviews so far this month and even though I didn't get any rejections, I still don't have any offers. Things around here do move slow(Australia) but I am not holding my breath.

2 of those interviews asked me questions about algorithms even though the job had nothing to do with that and I explained that I am not good at those puzzles and that I preferred to discuss my experience.

I don't know your situation but you have to keep trying. Even 20-30 interviews, whatever it takes. Not getting an offer from an interview says nothing about you or your abilities. Every single user on this site can tell you horror stories when they were looking for a job so you're not alone.

You could also plan for another life (style) (because approaching 40 for which we started planning early 30s) which is what my wife and myself did. We prepared a few years to make sure (we invested money and time in that) we had remote gigs all over the world set up and then moved to a much cheaper country and to the cheapest part of that country. Not only did we find, after a while, that life is actually nicer, we don't miss anything we had before and we literally need a tiny fraction of the money we needed in the popular city. Obviously you need to be a certain kind of person to do this, but many of my friends now did / are doing it and feeling the same experience. Most of them come from high paying IT jobs which means they have enough money in the bank (especially after selling their house) to provide additions to their pension or even live out their entire life without needing income in a much cheaper place.

Edit; now planning for 50 by removing dependency on doing development gigs

The theory is sound but it assumes that I am able to move to any country legally to live there. That requires certain types of passports which I was not born with. It also has more assumptions to what my financial/family situation is. I don't meant this in a negative way of course since you don't know me but what I am saying is that this plan is not always possible.

The idea of keeping expenses down and foregoing frivolous luxuries is what allows me to wait for a better offer inbetween jobs if i needed to. So I strongly agree with that bit.

> since you don't know me but what I am saying is that this plan is not always possible.

Ofcourse, did not mean to imply you should pack up and leave, but it is an alternative scenario for some and they might not have considered it (well). It took us years of planning and checking out locations when still in fulltime employment, so it's not this 'f*ck it, we're off' kind of thing.

Edit: checked your profile/site and I do believe the 'unintended privileged' (you cannot help where you are born or who your parents are) like me cannot really understand how it is not to be able to just travel anywhere, so sorry if I stepped over that too easily. I just try to help as I was in your position 10 years ago work wise, but not in quite in the same region...

Oh yes, it's pretty good advice in general. Thank you for that.

Luckily, I am in a better situation than most, having the chance to move to Australia a year ago as part of their immigration system. I say luckily but really it took a lot of effort and planning to apply and then wait for the process and take care of all the details. Its a great country but I still face some issues being a foreigner.

P.S. The mountains in Spain... Sounds great!

Which country you moved to?

Spain, the very south and in the mountains.

I am not as old as you, but old enough to be done with the hiring BS for software engineers. I also get pissed when I get asked a random-ass puzzle someone found on the internet.

I've had interviews where the question / puzzle took the interviewer 30-40 minutes to explain and he needed an answer by 45 minutes.

The whole system is just fucking stupid.

I graduated quite a while ago with a CS degree, and am still searching for my first entry level position.

I have been asked the most ridiculous questions in phone screens and on-sites.

"What is your SAT score?"

"Why did you choose your university over a better ranked one?"

"Tell us about how you used connection strings." (is a CS grad really supposed to know this)

"Do you volunteer teaching kids how to code on your off-time?"

"How do you use this HTML API?" (stuff like micro workers)

"How do you find about the latest tech?" (they weren't satisfied with just HN and Reddit)

Some companies gave me comprehensive projects to spend two weeks or more to work on, in a dozen or so technologies I never encountered.

With one company, I spent a week working on their project. They told me that since I had only 90% done, I didn't pass. Two weeks later, they call me back and ask me to complete the last 10%. It sounded like they were asking for free work. I finished it, then they lied about the expected salary. I wanted an X average salary for the area. They cut it down to X/2 with no benefits, a 6 month probationary period, and no perks.

Another company wanted me to solve a challenging, practical problem. I spent a month figuring it out. Then there were two more parts to this prescreen. The next one wasn't too bad. For the last one, they wanted a written report. I wasn't smart enough to solve their impractical problem for the report. Don't forget this was only step one of the interview process.

Sometimes company reject you due to a bad day. I interviewed with Walmart. The recruiter never set up an appointment, then decided to randomly call me in the morning. The person who referred me to the position said there were no hard requirements about knowing a technology. The recruiter on the phone questioned why I had C# projects instead of Java keywords like Spring listed on my resume. She kept yawning throughout the call. She thought I applied to the wrong job, then abruptly ended the call.

Sometimes I would pass interviews, and told I made it to the next round. Months passed, no reply, not even a rejection.

I'm still searching for a job. I'm honestly scared of all these job posts I see that require experience in a dozen different frameworks. It's getting harder every day.

I'm honestly scared of all these job posts I see that require experience in a dozen different frameworks. It's getting harder every day.

Don't worry about it too much, just focus on improving your interview skill and you'll get it. When I first graduated, it took me a year to figure out the hiring/interview process, failing everywhere. Then once I figured it out, I suddenly had plenty of offers. You'll do the same.

It's the crazy companies that are hard to figure out. Don't seem excited working there for 10+ years? Auto-rejection. The last on-site I was able to pass, at a startup, but then they changed it into a contract at the end. Full time promised, etc. Last week came. Oops, nevermind about that full time, and we can't extend the contract.

Keep up the good fight. Hell most would probably have given up by now. Do you have a portfolio or fun projects that you spend time on? Almost everywhere I interview asks for my github account. Also the book "cracking the coding interview" is awesome and only 30 bucks at Amazon.

Be direct and tell them that you aren't interested in answering their random internet puzzles. Offer to complete a programming assignment directly related to what you would be working on in the job, on your own time. (Assuming you are willing to do that.)

Feel for you. I've been in very similar positions. Just today I had an interview with a very well known company and the interviewer sounded like he couldnt really care. Ive 20+ years pro experience and over that time, if you are a good problem solver, you end up getting a whole bunch of experience in different things. Problem i've found is everyone is looking for specialists that fit into a narrow box. I really don't, and i'd guess most people with any length of experience don't either. Perhaps startups are your best bet?

Wow, I hear you, that's hard. Can you share some more thoughts on the interview itself, perhaps we can help you here if you provide more details as to the questions and the response.

Work out which company you would actually want to work with (ask questions) and just do do their friggin puzzles if that's what gets you in the door.

Hi Irishguy - I believe there was a fellow here that was promoting a job board for very experienced (i.e.: non-teenager) software developers. I remember he had 100s of comments after putting together a simple google doc. I am sure there must be lots of jobs on that board already. In what cities are you looking for a new position?

oomph. old geek jobs. now only 2 are specifically for old geeks, the rest are just culled from other job sites.

i've seen some really nice pallet and tarp houses around lately

Very sorry to hear about your case. As a 35 yr old programmer I hear you. Its hard. Praying for the best

My advice is to network, to never give up and to attend more meetups. Its a numbers game. Eventually you will find the right match.

There are some pretty good interview practice sites. Read glass door. It's a hoop you have to jump through.

If you're looking to vent, then I'll say, "That sucks, dude. Keep in there, it's all a numbers game." Tomorrow will be a better day.

But, I'm going to be bold. I'm going to out on the limb and suggest that: maybe it's not being asked "RANDOM shite," but maybe your attitude. Generally speaking, I've had to do three to five or so interviews to get an offer. Depending on the market and the timing, I've had far, far worse. I once spent four months trying to find something, anything. So, here are a few thoughts for you or anyone else.

People who have 10 years (or claim 10 years) C#/SQL are a dime-a-dozen. You're competing in a market that is dying, the same way Java developers are dying: a smaller and smaller group of employers who are stuck on the tech. Microsoft lost, which is why they are trying so desperately to incorporate Linux/Open Source technologies. You're going to be valuable to company if you're either inexpensive or the best-of-the-best. Your skill set is dated. Get it back into shape. Luckily, our profession is one of the cheapest to retool. Unfortunately, you should have been doing this two years ago. Spend your free time learning, always. Get yourself up to speed with NodeJS/Vue/React, etc. If you don't have experience with Linux, get it.

Companies want one of two things: a reason to hire you or a reason to not hire you. Be involved in that process. Is it a really a random problem? Or, are they trying to gauge how you think and approach problems? How did you respond to it? Were you inquisitive or were you as hostile as this post? When I've been a hiring manager, I always ask questions like, "How many baseballs will fit in a 747?" Good candidates say, "Well, I'll just estimate that a 747 is 100 feet long and 30 feet wide and so.." Great ones will point out that if packed it full, it may be overweight to fly. Bad ones say, "I don't know." The interview is there for you to present what you know and what you're interested in. Your resume should be tailored to present things can talk about. It's all about selling you. If you have a recruiter, talk with him or her. If you're not using a recruiter, get one. Have them get feedback on the interview. Then, take it to heart. Period.

On the flip side, there are companies want conformity. You're either "it" or not. If I don't get an offer, I don't want the job. There is zero point in being in a place that questions your ability to fit in. I've gotten turned down from some pretty cool places, but that's life. I wouldn't have had the career or the friends in my profession that I do had some of those jobs worked out. I even found out later that whole groups of people got laid-off, quit, etc.

The important thing is: getting a job is not a right and it doesn't come from meritocracy. It's people looking for people who solve the problems the company has and doesn't bring more problems to the company. Think about it from their perspective and try to figure out how you, your experience, and your attitude is benefit for them. If you've been in this profession for several decades, you have it in you.

By the way, my first computer was at nine and it had 4k of RAM. I always sell that: "So, I got into computers when I was nine. After punching in two plus two and see it spit back four, I instantly wanted to know how it could possibly know that. I've never stopped learning since." Right then and there I set the tone for the company: You may have problems I don't understand, but I will figure out the answer.

> People who have 10 years (or claim 10 years) C#/SQL are a dime-a-dozen. You're competing in a market that is dying, the same way Java developers are dying: a smaller and smaller group of employers who are stuck on the tech.

I think your in a bubble. 90%+ of the jobs around here are c#, java and php. Only one local company seems to be doing anything with node (and not something node is suited for), in fact, I haven't seem them advertise for a while, so it's probably zero now.

I do not deny certainly that 90% of the job offers are C#, Java and PHP. Recruiters are always trying to get me to look at various offers, and I agree; however, they're pretty much all large, established companies that are desperate to hire people because the word on the street is that their projects have spun out of control, are behind schedule, etc. At least, that's the running M.O. in this city.

I also agree that NodeJS is jumping the shark. But, again, if your at where he/she is, there is where the more up-to-date Microsoft companies are hiring. NodeJS is the new hotness (five years late) in this town.

Personally, I'm already working on exiting Node. Having used it hard core for high-performance APIs, I've found all the sharp edges and failure modes. Node really falls down when you have to get fine-grain control of flow control, such as processing files and large data. Ironically, I'm seeing a resurgence of Ruby.

I've been working on tooling myself back in to Ruby (did Ruby for five years), Elixir, and Docker/Flynn/etc.

> C#/SQL are a dime-a-dozen. You're competing in a market that is dying [...] Get yourself up to speed with NodeJS/Vue/React

I think you are out of touch there. Maybe all your friends are web UI devs, but web front-end development is a minority of programming jobs - smaller than writing CRUD apps that interface via SQL, and smaller than writing the desktop applications that create all the data that the web dev guy gets to doll up and push out.

I wholly agree with your advice on constructive interviewing and seeking feedback.

Their interview process signals their strengths and bullshit. You also signal to them things which have to filtered correctly.

Also, interviewing is partly arbitrary hazing to make incumbents feel valuable.

Five is not very many interviews at all. 30 would be significant. In good interviewing, much more time is wasted to have many more offers.

If you're going for instant respect, wage slavery is the wrong port to chat up. It's always earned over time by demonstrating invaluable performance as useful to the current business "growing pains."

Finally, the usual standards: positive, hygiene (no nasty ear, nose, neck hair), fit, energetic, quick, confident and dressed impeccably. And, all the usual canned answer "brain teasers" which are Glugglable. Perhaps tactfully-suggesting how such arbitrary mental fappenings apply to the job without pointing out how they are often ineffective shortcuts which may make the interviewer feel superior. Oh joys of big ol' corporations and their bloat and waste.

show me your Github profile or your learning blog, you need to build a personal brand as a developer... :)

I abhor the notion of developing a private "brand" so strongly and resist-fully that it's hard to keep my cool commenting about it. That said, it would be cool to have a service that would take all the code you have and some of the stuff you've made, and make a decent portfolio for you. Like <pour years worth of work into wood chipper> -> out comes a shiny portfolio site

Build it! Just a simple matter of programming.

The idea of github and a blog are the cancers of the industry. Both are so easy to fake that they are hardly worth the space they take up to link on a resume -- however, recruiters don't seem to have discovered this fact yet.

Isn't a new thing, is it? There have always been new ways to test/differentiate candidates, but soon candidates identify the advantage and prepare for the test instead of actually becoming better at what they do. The scores of "Interview questions" books and websites are the evidence of this.

This is perhaps just the next thing, setup a blog and a bunch of repos on github, and if that makes the recruiter think you a better candidate, I am sure shortly everyone will do it, if they aren't already.

A blog, perhaps. But a github profile?

What's the point behind publishing code to prove that you actually can code if no one is going to look at it?

To the OP: 5x developer here so I must be in the software afterlife, keep it up there are places...

To the whole Github thing, just had this happen.

Got a call from a recruiter from an company I interviewed with a year ago. We couldn't make things work then, but in the words of the recruiter, "Everyone loved you and we have new spot that you fit perfect".

Fortunately for them I open right now so I say I'll be glad to talk to them, and he says he'll get right back.

Next day I get an email from someone at the company, saying before they move to the phone screen he has a couple of questions. What's my Stackoverflow presence, my Github, and what Coursera course have I taken.

Never heard back in over a week since I replied negatively about those items.

Going to call the recruiter tomorrow to let him know he has at least one person now that doesn't love me.

I should not posted comment in such post, telling them what should do, and get minus points... haha

> I have been to 5 interviews this month and nobody gave me a fucking job.

1) People don't "give" you jobs, you earn them.

2) Swearing is unprofessional

> SQl

Hmm, ten years of SQL and you can't spell it correctly? Something is fishy there.

> Every single one of these interviews was somebody asking me some random shit

I admit a lot of interviews focus on the wrong stuff. But there is actually a LOT of leeway in interviews, where you can show your understanding of software engineering even in the presence of dumb questions. If those companies were actually dumb about hiring, then you probably didn't want to work for them anyway. Find some quality companies to interview for.

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