TL;DR
As a candidate over my entire career I’ve great, terrible, and everything in between technical interviews. Therefore as an interviewer, I want to make it a pleasant experience for the candidate without lowering the bar or make it impossible to pass. Being realistic about the position requirements. But bear in mind the entire company and team, in particular, is going to suffer if you allow either an incompetent or a douche.
Situation: Tech interviews.
Task: Evaluate the candidate’s knowledge and reasoning process.
Action: Make the candidate comfy and start a talk giving her/him the ability to showcase their knowledge.
Result: Get a good grasp of the candidate’s current skills and potential.
Why?
To increase the rate of success of the candidate as a new member of the team. To increment the capacity of the team with quality members.
What?
This is a bit controversial and depends on the country, company, and on interviewer. In my case, I want to know a good balance between the familiarity of the candidate with the technology (Javascript / Node), design (OO, REST APIs), best practices (TDD, pair programming, code reviews, etc.), and algorithms. Depending on the answers we could go deeper on each topic.
How?
IMO a code challenge is way better than a weekend project. As a candidate, I’d rather study something that I can use in multiple interviews than deal with a specific context that I will not see again.
After the candidate passes the code challenge, talk with code live session with a little pair programming presenting new scenarios related to the position and asking questions.
It’s okay to don’t know. Do not pretend, charlatans are easily spotted. And it’s expected also to reason about the unknown.
Finally, I want to mention some of the best interviewers I’ve encountered in my professional life: Michael Kuehne-Schlinkert Leandro Silva Marco Talento Nicolas Rusconi
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