I really enjoyed this session, but I can see how it could be stressful to others.
I really enjoyed this session, but I can see how it could be stressful to others.
So we set up a small project using this framework, and mildly wrecked it. Made some really basic mistakes, made some more subtle mistakes, added a bunch of dead code, wrote good tests for some of the broken stuff, wrote broken tests for some of the good stuff, etc.
Candidates came in, and we asked them to add some simple feature to the app, which we warned them may be broken. We had someone sort-of-pair with them as they work, to watch what they do and keep them on the rails to an extent. We then evaluated whether what the candidate did was sensible: did they run the tests, did they pay attention to the failures, did they find and fix the mistakes, did they get distracted by the dead code, etc. Candidates didn't have to do everything perfectly, but there is plenty of scope to go really wrong. I remember one case where the very first thing the candidate did was delete all the tests. Thanks for coming in, we'll let you know!
The company did quite a lot of rescue missions, where we would pick up a project that another consultancy had started and failed to deliver, and get it live. This interview wasn't just a trick, it was testing everyday skills!