You can't build a reputation on what you're going to do. - Henry Ford.
You Can't Build a Team in The Thunderdome
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Transcript of You Can't Build a Team in The Thunderdome
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Who is this?
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What do I do now?
Release Engineering at
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Caveat Audiens
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What is a "Technical interview"?
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What is "The Thunderdome"?
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Obligatory Audience Participation Moment
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Technical interviewing is a bad time
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My bad interviews! Let me show you them!
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SourceControlCo
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Rando Security Vendor
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VideoEncoding, Inc.
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But you don't have to take my word for it!
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We are kind of terrible to candidates
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TRIVIA 20%
IRRELEVANT Q.'s 18%
ANTAGONISM 16%
UNPREPARED 15%
WHITEBOARD 13%
Q. MISMATCH 9%
TOO LONG 9%
NO FEEDBACK 9%
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“They almost didn't hire me because I was "too pretty and might distract [the] engineers."
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“They left me in a conference room long enough that the motion-activated lights turned off and I had to wave my arms around to turn them back on.
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“Drove me to a separate site for half of the interview and didn't provide me with a way back to somewhere served by public transportation; I ended up walking two and a half miles in my interview shoes.
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“ Interviewer missed their scheduled call and called back at 11pm, my time (they're in another time zone). Insisted on finishing up the interview right then. Asked a single question and bailed out in 10 mins.
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“Stump the chump; interviewers asking trick questions to trip you up.
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“They got my lunch order wrong and I couldn't actually eat it, but I was alone in a room so I had nothing I could do.
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“ I was told there would be no technical questions, then was asked technical questions. I told them "you said there would be no technical questions," and he said "I said that so you wouldn't prepare for them."
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Do we do anything right?
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CONVERSATIONAL 13%
CULTURE FIT 12%
COLLABORATION 11%
RELEVANCE 9%
INTERESTING 8%
PREPARED 7%
NO TRIVIA 6%
RELAXED 5%
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“ I felt like I had a good idea of what working there would be like, and I felt like they understood me pretty well.
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“There was guidance supplied by the interviewer when needed to try to keep things moving along, as well as in-depth discussion on parts that were challenging or technically difficult to solve.
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“ I was given opportunities to showcase what I excelled at.
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“Most of the great interviews carried a feeling that people were trying to know me better and they cared about me and my career.
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“The interview seemed intentionally designed around my skills and experience, as well as how those play into the role I was interviewing for.
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“Everyone was prepared with questions, and they approached it as if I was already working there and part of the team.
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Why do we do things this way?
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Industry Inertia
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Industry Immaturity
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Industry Arrogance
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Repetition Compulsion
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For Comparison
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The R & D Engineer
• Didn't have a lot of time to share; Engineers are busy
• HR screens out candidates without the required credentials
• Process is highly idiosyncratic, team by team
- Specialized teams have specialized interviews
• Often prioritizes ability to learn & adaptability
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The Assistant Professor, Ph. D
• Turns out that Professors are really busy
• HR screens out candidates without the required credentials
• Heavy use of reference letters
- Basically a web of trust & reputation
• Often relies on group interview process for team & lab fit
- There's just one decision maker (head of the lab)
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The Corporate Attorney
• Spoiler alert: also CRAZY BUSY
• Interviews & offers happen when you're still in law school
- Contingent upon passing the bar exam
• The job is basically all research, presentation, and discretion
• Interviews focus on screening for the ability to follow a verifiable process according to the law
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“My pal, The Attorney (with a CS degree)
"Working from memory is malpractice; in technology it'd be considered negligence."
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So what?
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Our vocation is a babby
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How did we change this at Puppet?
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We listened to candidates
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What did they say?
• Communicate clear goals and expectations
• Don't resort to trivia or puzzles
• Keep their day relevant and bounded
• Tighten the feedback loop
• Be nice!
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We "borrowed" what works
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What did we "borrow"?
• Have clear goals and expectations for the role & team
• Collaborative code reviews as part of the screening
• No one comes on-site until we're sure they can do the work
• Pairing during the interview
• Be nice!
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We ate our own dogfood
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What's in that dogfood?
• We take our own tech challenge questions
- If we can't solve them, we don't expect you to
• Let the candidate speak but offer direction when needed
• Work together to solve problems
- Let the candidate teach us
• Be. Nice.
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How'd that work out?
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First Iteration
• 1 Open Junior Req
• 30 candidates
• 5 code reviews
• 3 on-sites
• 2 simultaneous offers made
- YOLO
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Advocate for the candidate if you think it's
the right thing to do
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Second Iteration
• 1 Open Intermediate Req
• 41 candidates
• 26 code reviews
• 3 on-sites
• 1 offer made
- 8 great candidates I still want to hire
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#humblebrag
After the Second Iteration, the Release Engineering team at Puppet
is now 3/5 women.
In January, that becomes 2/3.
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TL;DR
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Stop using antagonism &
duress as filters
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Collaboration is 😍
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Respect the candidate's time
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Respect the candidate's
circumstances
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Respect the candidate
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Push candidates back into the pipeline
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Resistrepetition
compulsion
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Be nice.
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Thank youYou're wonderful. Thank you for letting me
rant at you for as long as you did.
@the_mckern
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Questions: who has 'em?