Comment by koevet | Hacker News Reader

Comment by koevet | Hacker News Reader

I'm a freelancer based in Germany, been a freelancer for a long time (20+ years). Worked on a LOT of different projects in several (European) countries, as developer/architect/tech lead - whatever the client need was.

Since my relocation to Germany, I decided to try the "no-tech-interview approach": does a client wants to work with me? Let's talk, for hours if needed, let's meet in person, whatever is required to make both parties confortable with each other.

I'm more than happy to answer questions about my previous projects, how did I work on a specific solution or technology, which mistakes I made.

But no technical interviews (as in whiteboard coding, riddles, take-home assignements). I have 25 years experience, I have references, I have code on github in several programming languages, I wrote a technical book.

This approach has been working so far. Some clients still insist on doing a coding challenge or a classical technical interview: I politely decline and move on. There is no shortage of contracts, so I have always some lead in the pipeline. I would say that 50% of the leads are from me being recommended by people I worked in the past: this is obviously the value added of having lots of contracts under the belt. If I feel that my experience would not be a good fit for the project, and there is not enough time for a ramp-up, I would also decline.

I do realize that this no-tech-interview approach would probably never work for permanent positions, especially when it comes to hire junior developers. Having said that, I strongly believe that the most valuable asset for a team is a decent person.

Very few teams work on hard-problems, requiring super-specialized knowlege (say, AI for self-driving vehicles). The majority of technical skills can be learned, if one has the passion, willingness and humbleness to learn (and the employer wants to invest in the team - which, sadly, is often not the case).

Someone I hire as an employee I want to have a good understanding of their capabilities, because - let's face it - letting someone go is not a good option esp. culturally in Germany (it would still be possible within first half year "Probezeit"). But I do prefer to hire someone that I am certain can contribute to the team for the next years.

As someone who interviews, I can say that while there is a correlation between CV and coding skills, you do find regularly that really simple coding problems cannot be solved by applicants (slightly above FizzBuzz complexity).

And for most applicants, there is no Github-Account.

So I think its only fair to have some coding problems that don't overdo it of course for permanent positions.

When you are consulting the situation is of course a bit different. The situation is temporary. Getting and verifying references is actually legal and possible. So I can definitely see that you get gigs this way (you'd also get hired without solving a coding challenge because many companies don'T do it actually).

I just personally would feel much safer joining a company as an employee where I can be certain that my colleagues can at least code and have been selected with appropriate care.

In general, I do agree with you.

In Europe it is very difficult (and expensive and convoluted) to let go of an employee, so a company must find a way to validate the hire, regardless of the Probezeit (probation).

I'm not advocating that companies should suddendly stop running interviews, and I would be very wary of a company who would hire me permanently without conducting a technical interview, especially for system-design level positions.

In my particular situation, I found that coming forward very clearly about my intentions as paid off so far, but I also realize that it may not work in the majority of cases.

> Getting and verifying references is actually legal and possible.

Is it not legal to verify references for a permanent position, in Germany?

Arbeitszeugnis are pretty much a standard reference mechanism in Germany, and a bad one can make a stink for years to come.

> Is it not legal to verify references for a permanent position, in Germany?

Not a lawyer, but I think you cannot call up a former employer. IIRC there are several legal reasons that make it almost impossible and too much of a hassle for everyone involved. Your ex-employer must give a written reference for example. It must be beyond doubt that the applicant has given their voluntary consent to you calling an ex-employer, because otherwise if you don't hire the applicant, the applicant could sue you, etc.

There is the Arbeitszeugnis which as an employer-to-be you can request. And the language of the Arbeitszeugnis in itself is a science of its own, because it may not contain negative wording so there are various phrases that are used to communicate negative behaviour, etc.

PS: I wouldn't rule out that here and there a phone call to an ex-employer happens. It's just pretty risky if the candidate should find out.

> it may not contain negative wording

it must not contain negative wording would be more fitting. I find that a bit silly to be honest. On the other hand an employee wouldn't show a bad reference, but it is quite ridiculous.

freely translated: "He always wanted to learn and completed his work to our satisfaction" is basically an F.

Your new employer is allowed to call your old one if the employee consents. He is only allowed to ask about certain things like the content of the reference he gave.

> freely translated: "He always wanted to learn and completed his work to our satisfaction" is basically an F.

Technically even that would be invalid in Austria, if you actually go to the AK (Arbeiterkammer)[1]. So this in turn results in everything being in the superlative. Along with that, the AK is something you just do NOT want to get into trouble with.

[1] https://www.arbeiterkammer.at/dienstzeugnis

In Germany you can also go to court and certain phrasing needs to be dropped according to the courts.

The valuable piece of information in an Arbeitszeugnis that it will tell you is, if the person "verlässt die Firma auf eigenen Wunsch", i.e. if the person resigned from their position, or whether they were let go.

I work in a FAANG and have a handful of German people on the team. They had to consent to have the former employee even called. Whether or not it was done , I don't know, but the new company can do it if the new hire consents to it. And the consent request was on a yes or yes basis.

If they would get a German work contract in their German office, this would have been borderline illegal.

> I do realize that this no-tech-interview approach would probably never work for permanent positions

This. Booking a freelancer is a completely different game than hiring an employee. There are legal aspects here because big company A hires small service provider company B aka freelancer to do work. In my experience companies looking for freelancers need experts with very specialized skills on framework X or cloud provider Y.

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