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I have been told I give some of the most technically challenging interviews most people have ever experienced.. once a lady couldnt answer any of my questions, even the easy ones, and just started crying.. little did she know she got the job because im not looking for people who know the answers, I'm looking for people who ask the right questions to arrive at and understand the answers.
@freemo
Did she accept your job offer after that interview?
@tatzelbrumm She did, and its been I think a decade since then and I have long since moved on from that job and we are still in touch. She did a wonderful job, and I got to teach her a lot in my time as her boss.
@freemo
Just out of curiosity …
what, for example, do you ask in interviews?
And what, if anything, do you say or do in interviews to overcome the discomfort of the unequal treaty
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unequal_treaty]
situation of a job interview??
@tatzelbrumm Usually if the interviewee is struggling or stressed I will remind them of this story, that I have had people who couldnt answer a single question that I've hired and that I care more about how they reason their way through a problem than what they know... so hopefully that helps the unequal treatment somewhat.
As for some of the questions I ask, I usually have a range of them from simple, to advanced but most of them are designed to have multiple levels of answers.
Also keep in mind since ive worked in so many diverse fields, usually as the boss, that the questions vary dramatically based on the field. Hiring chemists are very different questions than programmers, or medical doctors, or electrical engineers. So its hard to give you good examples that really covers the gammut.
I think you're a programmer IIRC so let me give you some examples from there:
On the whiteboard, in psuedocode, write for me an algorithm that will check if a number is prime. How would you be able to optimize it if you were asked to generate a bin of primes rather than to test for prime?
What is the difference between little-O, big-O little-omega and big-omega?
How would you evaluate a conventionally written algorithm to determine if it is likely to be suitable for GPU acceleration?
What is the fork-join pattern useful for and why is it so important?
@tatzelbrumm Ya know oddly enough i cant remember ever being interviewed for the EE positions I've had. I was just offered the job no interview, or started as a non-EE and moved over once in my early career.
@tatzelbrumm @freemo The OSI stack is the seven layer cake of one I know, yet forget most of the layers.
@Romaq @freemo
Never forget layers 8, 9, and 10.
https://community.infosecinstitute.com/discussion/28801/osi-layers-8-9-10
@tatzelbrumm @freemo oh god...
@freemo @tatzelbrumm (reads through the questions...) "OK, I'm so out of here.
Probably the exact thought every single person who has ever worked for me had the first hour or two they met me :)
I am always glad when I hear people like it here and appreciate the style of moderation I brought. I appreciate that thanks for telling me.
I know I started #QOTO because i wasnt happy with any of the moderation on any of the servers out there. So I wanted to create my ideal moderation paradise. I never though so many people would gravitate towards it, its great!
@freemo @tatzelbrumm The admin roles I take on, such as running game servers, is purely a matter of self-defense. I hate working for detailed arse holes that demand my focus every waking minute and to do the work free... And yet that's who I work for... me. It sucks. I don't like it.
@freemo
Actually, I'm a physicist and analog designer.
In the interview that went best, ever, the software engineering question (what is the OSI stack?) was the one I couldn't answer and told the interviewers point blank that I was unfamiliar with the concept.
The minimal surface question was no problem (this was the company that illuminates both Titanic and Endurance, and has some sunk cost on the seafloor in the Titan debris),
and I answered the "draw an op amp circuit" with a transistor level schematic, knowing full well that that was not the answer they expected.