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Comment by w33ble | Hacker News Reader

The poor interview process is one thing, but what irks me most is that almost nobody offers you a chance to meet the team, even when they make you an offer. That's been my general experience so far anyway. It sucks, because your only exposure to anyone was the hiring manager, and maybe a lead, and all they did was ask questions about what you memorized about whatever language(s).

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My pet peeve is that you are interviewed as though you should be God, and you would be so lucky and privileged to work on this pristine, perfect codebase...only to find out that the codebase is not all that perfect, and the development processes are not scrum or agile or XP, but instead "run around like chicken with your head cut off, just get it done!"

Perhaps this is the queue for someone to suggest "that's why we try so hard to prevent bad people from getting hired". :-)

> you would be so lucky and privileged

I hate those interviews and interviewees that have that attitude too. Especially since the opposite is actually the case. It's so incredibly easy to find work as a developer right now, you need to tell me why I should come work for you. Remind me why I'm sitting here talking to you instead of somewhere else that could be more exciting.

That's odd; at every tech company where I've interviewed, the majority of the interviewers were potential peers on the team (or from another team, to have an "outside voice"). The hiring manager is usually mainly there to judge culture fit and, if they like you, to help sell the company.

At the companies where I've worked and have interviewed people, the hiring manager would of course have veto power, but would never hire someone without the agreement of the team.

At my current company (Twilio), even the first phone screen (after a possible initial recruiter call) is done by a team lead or member of the team. But often the candidate doesn't end up on the same team as the phone screener, since we don't always know what team would be the best fit until after the screen.

I think of hiring as everyone's job, as it's right up at the top of the list of things that will determine the course of company culture over time.

(Shameless plug: having said all that, if you're an Android developer who enjoys building frameworks and APIs, email me at my HN username at twilio.com.)

> I think of hiring as everyone's job, as it's right up at the top of the list of things that will determine the course of company culture over time.

That's what bothers me so much about it. The team and the culture is hugely important. I appreciate that the interviewer has determined culture fit, and that's fine I guess, but I want to know that I'll like the team I'll be working with too.

Sure. It goes both ways. As the interviewee, it's your job to ask your interviewer questions that will help you learn whether or not you'll like the team.

Friendly advice ... don't settle for an offer, make a request. The team is too important in helping determine if you'll be happy working at a given company.

When I'm interviewed, I take it as a bad sign if I'm not allowed to meet other members of the team. Typically they're included in interviews, in which case it's a non-issue. In other cases, I make a friendly request to meet 2-3 members of the team for a short conversation. I've only had to do that once though.

That's definitely what I should be doing. Usually though, I've gone through 2 or 3 interviews already for this position, one of many I am interviewing for, and I'm tired and want to be done with it all. The last round, one 1 company sat me down in front of their team, and that's the job I took, because the team seemed cool and I enjoyed that part of the process a lot.

It's just surprising that this is consistently a problem. I shouldn't have to make the extra effort, it should be part of the process.

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