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Comment by 7402 | Hacker News Reader

I interviewed with a company and during the "cultural fit" interview with the VP of Engineering, I asked why they used an open-plan office. I mentioned that there seemed to be a lot of concern in the literature and online about developer productivity in such offices. He said he "wasn't familiar" with the discussion, but he didn't think it was a problem.

I was offered a contract-to-hire situation, instead of the employment I was seeking, and was explicitly told that the reason was because I seemed to be concerned about the open office. So be careful about bringing up "science" with people who aren't interested in it.

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You also have to consider the opposite side of the coin- you should be interviewing them as much as they are you. The VP's responses should have been a red flag to you. Not just because of the fact that he apparently hadn't heard of the debate over open floor plans over the decades, but mostly due to the fact he seemingly punished you for speaking out. Typically, not fun people to work for.

And yes I'm fully aware that sometimes you're in a positions of "I need a job and can't be too picky". I hope you were in a better position than that and had the opportunity to turn them down. If not, I'd be curious how it turned out.

Interviews are tough. There's very little time to get a feel for whether a person would be a good fit for an organization - and often, you have to make a judgment: was this comment just off-the-cuff curiosity, or does the fact that the person brought up the open-plan indicate that he or she would have problems with the way that the company works?

In interviews, the open-plan office is non-negotiable. It's not like you're going to convince them in an interview to change their minds and build closed offices. I can imagine a lot of interviewers going "well, if he or she brought it up and has actually studied literature on it, then it's probably something that bothers them, and if it's something that bothers them, we might have a problem down the road... maybe it's better to test the water than to offer full employment."

To be clear, this is a problem with the interview process, not with you (or the person hiring). There's just not enough time to actually understand a person, so interviewers are forced to make guesses and go with their hunches. And because the cost of hiring the wrong person is high, interviewers will often look for any small thing to refuse a hire.

For someone to be a VP of Engineering and to not even have heard of the debate around office layout and developer productivity is a bit alarming.

Presumably you didn't take up their offer?

I often wonder why companies offer contract-to-hire positions when so many regular employees are at-will anyway. I am especially puzzled as to why a company would offer it as an alternative to both full-time regular employment and a fixed-term contract.

It seems that mixing the two removes all benefit to the worker while reserving all benefits to the company. So why would anyone do it if they had a choice?

I could also see this as the company giving the worker an easy out based on the concerns they expressed about the open office - there is no worry about waiting for the "right time" to quit if you're not happy with the new position when the "right time" comes in the form of the end of a contract period before full employment.

Fit interviews are hard for engineers. Technical interviews are about getting the right answer. Fit interviews are about whether you can tell a convincing lie ("of course I like the working under tight deadlines to changing requirements with minimal support from the business.") It's a tough context switch: from zero-in-on-right-answer to socially-acceptable-bald-faced-lie.

I half-agree with you, because there are some companies that use "fit" to determine how much they can use you as a "resource" rather than a human being.

Where I disagree is whether one has put themselves in a situation where they are desperate for a position at a company where they have to lie to pass the fit interview stage. I'd rather be honest and lose than lie, win and ultimately impugn my integrity.

It is very refreshing when you already have a job and are looking for something new, then you can sit back and take a relaxed approach to finding a good company. Once one is found and you are interviewing with them (and interviewing them, as a previous commenter mentioned), then you can ask all the tough questions. If you don't like what you hear, vote with your feet and walk away.

Now, this isn't always the situation people are in, so YMMV but I throw it out there as a piece of advice for anyone interviewing companies.

I fully agree with you... and yet we disagree on a matter about the outside world.

My experience is that good companies are about 5%, at least weighted by jobs that are on the market. (There could be more good companies that are small or rarely have to hire.) I might be off and it might be higher, but not by much. They're rare, and they're selective, and they tend to grow slowly.

Most people are going to have to swing from one crappy company to another until they find something good. Once you have something legit, you definitely want to hold on to it for a good few years.

Also, on a practical note, there are good teams within crappy companies that are still worth working for. I wouldn't advise, say, most large tech companies or investment banks in general, but most of those huge companies have teams that are really good and make it worth taking the job.

I'd rather be honest and lose than lie, win and ultimately impugn my integrity.

I used to feel this way, but ultimately I'm of more use to the world if I'm occasionally willing to part with honesty. If I see someone in the grocery store who's 400 pounds, shouting "You're obese and if you don't stop eating that crap, you're gonna die!" does no one any favors. It's "honest", but worthlessly so.

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