Give the candidate a problem not in their area and see how they do with it while guiding them as a good teacher would—with a hands-off approach, seeing what they learn with each step.
This is how Sandia National Labs interviewed me as a college student. They asked straight up if I had any experience in parallel systems. Nope, I said. Then we went through some exercises to see how fast I could learn the material—how well I used the underpinnings of my undergrad and grad work to understand the problems he proposed to me. They were, I later found out, very simple, beginner level questions but ones I could not solve had I not been able to learn on the spot.
I got the job offer. I went with Amazon instead though, a decision I regret immensely, and not just because the interviews were so generic that I had no idea why they wanted me. Turns out they just wanted a cog.
Sandia wanted me because I could learn.
Life would have been different. And I'd probably be doing coding still, instead of burning out after a decade and turning to art.
Yeah I did the same Amazon, but I actually landed a good team at Amazon that would have helped me grow better. Though I took a chance at AWS to learn more. Worse decision for happiness.
Working at places that are way above your experience level does teach you new things quickly, but you don't really master them. Just cramming every day and having a half-assed skillset + burnout.
One of the problems is that the job market pushes you to make a choice quickly in sub 2 weeks (exploding offers). It really takes a while to figure out whats the best element, but then you get marked as a job hopper, etc etc.
AWS's issue was more that it tossed people at fires while needing to create long term solutions. Not that they never did so, it's just that there's something that resulted in them tossing devs into their oncall hell rapidly. My last position at Amazon was at AWS, and also the one that landed me in the hospital and prompted me to quit before the job literally killed me.
Ah Amazon. AWS was the worst. And I spent five years in the trenches of one of the most stressful areas of Ordering, and I still rate AWS as The Worst.
Yeah the on-call sucked, but I find the worse is that human compassion is only given to those who perform. If you are struggling and not "killing it" at all times, your manager doesn't offer a hand or suggest a transfer (until you hand in your 2 weeks).
Which is why I find this article relevant. Companies will hire to fill quotas / on-call bodies, but not all them vet or can vet everyone properly so as a candidate you can't even trust that the process is correct.
Gotta be prepared / have the confidence to quit within a weeks / month if it doesn't work out.
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Give the candidate a problem not in their area and see how they do with it while guiding them as a good teacher would—with a hands-off approach, seeing what they learn with each step.
This is how Sandia National Labs interviewed me as a college student. They asked straight up if I had any experience in parallel systems. Nope, I said. Then we went through some exercises to see how fast I could learn the material—how well I used the underpinnings of my undergrad and grad work to understand the problems he proposed to me. They were, I later found out, very simple, beginner level questions but ones I could not solve had I not been able to learn on the spot.
I got the job offer. I went with Amazon instead though, a decision I regret immensely, and not just because the interviews were so generic that I had no idea why they wanted me. Turns out they just wanted a cog.
Sandia wanted me because I could learn.
Life would have been different. And I'd probably be doing coding still, instead of burning out after a decade and turning to art.
Yeah I did the same Amazon, but I actually landed a good team at Amazon that would have helped me grow better. Though I took a chance at AWS to learn more. Worse decision for happiness.
Working at places that are way above your experience level does teach you new things quickly, but you don't really master them. Just cramming every day and having a half-assed skillset + burnout.
One of the problems is that the job market pushes you to make a choice quickly in sub 2 weeks (exploding offers). It really takes a while to figure out whats the best element, but then you get marked as a job hopper, etc etc.
AWS's issue was more that it tossed people at fires while needing to create long term solutions. Not that they never did so, it's just that there's something that resulted in them tossing devs into their oncall hell rapidly. My last position at Amazon was at AWS, and also the one that landed me in the hospital and prompted me to quit before the job literally killed me.
Ah Amazon. AWS was the worst. And I spent five years in the trenches of one of the most stressful areas of Ordering, and I still rate AWS as The Worst.
Yeah the on-call sucked, but I find the worse is that human compassion is only given to those who perform. If you are struggling and not "killing it" at all times, your manager doesn't offer a hand or suggest a transfer (until you hand in your 2 weeks).
Which is why I find this article relevant. Companies will hire to fill quotas / on-call bodies, but not all them vet or can vet everyone properly so as a candidate you can't even trust that the process is correct.
Gotta be prepared / have the confidence to quit within a weeks / month if it doesn't work out.