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Comment by mrweasel | Hacker News Reader

Is this mainly a US problem? Every job I’ve ever interviewed for has mostly been to see if I’d fit in. If my resume says that I know how to do something, that has always been accepted as good enough.

Technical talks are never about coding, but more a conversation about previous project and perhaps a little side track on how to tackle large projects.

The style of interviews discused here on HN show an alarmingly low level of trust in the people you want to hire. That’s a bad way to start a relationship.

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It's not just the US but yes the lack of trust is a major component. Everyone seems to have a horror story of how someone made it through and sucked and caused problems. It's bizarre how traumatic that is allowed to become because people don't get rid of those bad apples quickly. And it's funny how people over-index on this in the engineering realm when it's a much larger problem in management.

But there's also a bunch of other dynamics going on. 'Geek machismo' is a very non-trivial one. Other's are akin to hazing. One friend of mine described one value of very high bar hiring is that people in the bubble can (go back to) assume that the colleague is smart, etc. rather than assuming people are stupid/incompetent until proven otherwise--and that can be a good thing from the culture/sociology standpoint.

Just make "Assume good intent" a part of your culture, and that will accomplish the same thing (and as a bonus, make your company a much nicer place to work).

When building your own culture, of course. However, that also misses the fact that there's also the larger context of e.g., silicon valley "norms". So much cargo culting of behavioral patterns from unicorns, the spread of the various "mafias" from them as they go to other companies, etc. Add in the various management level sillinesses and it's a harder problem to solve for most people than your comment implies.

Some people - to say at least - exaggerates in their CV. You can’t trust someone automatically.

Sure you can and you should. You’re not wrong, at least in some cases, but the Nordic countries have a huge level of built in trust in other people.

It also seems weird to lie in your CV, what are you going to do if you actually get the job? You’d fail horribly and get fired.

My point is that in some parts of the world you can actually trust resumes. If companies start making outrages demands, like 15 years of experience in a 10 year old technology, then of cause desperate people will lie.

Performance of developers within the same team and between companies differs hugely. Someone with some years of experience may be considered senior, and list some technologies in their resume that they've actually worked with, but their level of mastery may not be what you hope for. The differences you get by probing this or not during interviews will add up across a team, and be a real competitive advantage or disadvantage for your organization. And that goes for culture (hiring assholes, or even something more benign, like hiring people that are inarticulate) as much as it goes for technical skills.

And I don't think people typically lie on a resume. I do think there's a category of people that makes things look nicer than they are. I do think there's another category of people that just have a different perception of "mastery" than I do.

Outside of development there are very few jobs that have a competency test as part of the hiring process. Some industries have "continuous testing" through certification, and some have tests of things like physical fitness, but in general it's assumed that if you're applying for a role then you're capable of doing it. The economy isn't collapsing under the weight of corporations hiring the wrong people all the time.

I suspect there are technical tests in developer interviews because there can be rather than because they're actually a useful way to appraise someone.

There’s very few jobs as specialized and desirable as software engineering without any formal credential requirements.

The incentive to bullshit your way in the door is way higher than most other fields. Imagine if you could get hired as a doctor, without having to graduate high school.

I never knew it was different elsewhere! What country are you based in, out of curiosity?

I’m in Denmark. Others may have different experiences of cause, but I never knew interviews to be anything other than a pleasent conversation, mostly about the job.

I have seen small programming task presented to candidates at a previous employeer, after I was hired, but that sort of failed. All the candidate actually submitted perfectly good solution and the process just reverted to just talking to each candidate in a relaxing setting.

Edit: I actually once interviewed for a job that required a personality test, because HR need to justify their existance I assume. I will never apply at a company which uses personality tests again. Not only was it wrong, it’s also kinda traumatic. But this was after actually getting the job, the test was sort of a “before we actually sign, please take this test”

I think a big reason software engineers earn more in USA is that they use more technical interviews. In Sweden I doubled my total compensation going from a typical software engineer job to Google. And from what I've seen you would double your compensation doing the same thing in Denmark. The salaries for normal jobs are still ok, but doing those technical interviews is the fastest and easiest way to get paid really well. And you don't just get a higher entry level salary, Google has very generous raises so I doubled my salary again the next few years just doing my job coding and staying at Google.

So my starting salary was close to what typical software engineers earn as a seasoned senior, and then I got to twice that within a few years. That is why I care about technical interviews.

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