19 Ways to Know The Software Development Job Interview is Over

Amusing article!

My personal best was being told by an XP/TDD guru that I should model all objects as interfaces. It took me a few minutes to realize that this fellow had not heard of the concept of domain objects, and could not tell the difference between those and services, processes etc.

Either way, I concluded that he should be prohibited from owning a computer, let alone program one!! I think he is still looking for a programmer though, if you are interested.

Some of the examples were missing some context.

• If I were interviewing someone for a particular job, it might not matter if the interviewee didn't know the difference between a process and a thread—and if it did matter, I'd probably be able to help them learn the difference pretty quickly if they had other important talents.
• "When the interviewee explains that a non-functional requirement is a situation where the software is not working and he needs help to fix the issue." To me, that's a perfectly valid interpretation of what "non-functional" means, and why "non-functional" is a silly name for something that Cem Kaner calls "parafunctional".
• "You require candidates to fill in a technical questionnaire. The interviewee pushes the form back to your side of the table. Three times. It's like a ping-pong match." Albeit this limits the likelihood that you'll be accepted for the job. But hands up everyone who has wanted to do this with a particularly stupid questionnaire. Ah. Lots of hands. I thought so.
• "After I quick scan his site, I considered shooting him with a tranquilizer dart and calling for mental health professionals to take him away." I'd like to see more of that story. It may say as much about the storyteller than the person s/he's talking about.
• The interviewer comments on your tie. That's a complaint? Consider it a valuable source of information. Myself, I would only wear a tie to any interview to prompt someone to say, "Nice tie"—or something else that might tell me something about him.
• Hearing that you're earning less than the regional director is also very interesting information.

It's not that these stories aren't interesting, or that the people involved aren't clueless. It's just that eye-rolling might not be my reaction; more a bemused smile. It's not a waste of time if you can get a good lesson or a good story out of it.

---Michael B.

I was visiting the office of a friend who worked for a certain large software company. He casually suggested that I visit with a manager who wanted to talk to me, and I reluctantly agreed. I realized pretty quickly that I had been ambushed with a job interview. No worries, though, because after sharing my philosophy of software testing with him (which didn't seem very compatible with his) and finishing our talk, I stood up and asked if I could get a business card. The answer, "Sorry, no, I'm out of business cards." Yeah, right. But point taken.

When the interviewer / interviewee keeps interchanging the words "Java" and "Javascript" thinking they are the same?

I had a great experience with a Lead Technical Architecture at a big blue company. The guy was of the belief that the only way to architect projects was to use frameworks like Zachman and Togaf. As per him projects not done in this was were doomed. Another weird aspect he proposed was that code quality was useless and designing a system for flexibility and extensibility was a waste of time.

I was once interviewing for a tech job where all the candidates had to come from one recruiting company. The interview started with one simple (trust me really simple) CS101 technical question. If you didn't pass that one the interview was over. Over the course of 2 weeks they sent over about 12 guys day after day and not a single one passed the initial question. That, in and of itself is not that remarkable. What I found amazing is that I asked the SAME exact question every time (even providing the correct answer for those who failed). It never occurred to the recruiters to tell the next candidate "hay prepare to answer this..."

I once interviewed at a company where people were working out in the hallways with their computer workstations set up on card tables. I saw this in every hallway there. It would be like working in a submarine.

Ok. Went for a job interview. Pay wasn't good, but it was ok and a job is a job. It was a permanent position, but they said after the project was done they'd sack you. Ok, a bit sleazy, but they were up front about so I just looked at it was a sort of contract. Needed the work, so I applied anyway...

Many applicants. Everyone had to sit a test in a big room. I did pretty well, but there were a few questions I couldn't get - the sort of stuff they might ask at a University exam. Didn't hear from them. Figured it was over.

Then, weeks after, I get a call asking me if I was still interested? I asked what happened? They said the guy they hired kept going home at 5PM so they had to let him go. The bastard. You see, despite the fact the pay wasn't good, they still expected him to slave away until the early hours of the morning, working his guts out, which would give them a chance to fire him even sooner.

And yes he was working on a card table in the corner of a room. Poor bastard. The company is still there so I guess they found someone else.

I've interviewed a candidate for a junior Java developer position didn't do great but OK. I still considered him to go to the next round of interviews as there weren't many good candidates around ...

...until I said "Thanks for coming to see us here in company xx" and he replied "I thought I'm in company YY for a C# job!"

...

Well the best one was when the manager asked me if I thought I was really worth the salary I was asking: which was pretty much the regional mean for a C++ developer at the time. Then he gave me his business card. With his personal passwords written on the back. Which I politely returned.

Ok, it might have been an honesty test, but I doubt it. They made me an offer. I said no.

When the interviewer proudly announces that their proprietary database has no foreign keys. None. And is smugly happy about it.

> When the recruiter asks, "How many years of DLL do you have?"

Not an interview killer by any means, he's a recruiter, most don't know very much. keywords and years of experience is about their level. You have to stuff your resume with what should be unnecessary keywords like 'STL' (for C++) and 'sockets' for networking; seriously.

The first job interview after working for nearly 3 years took me to a small internet company. As i stepped in the building i couldn't find the entrance because there was a banner of another company dangling in front of the door.
After some running around, i found a little sticker pointing at the right door. When i entered, a grubby guy came towards me. I introduced myself and told him whom i intended to meet.
He said something like "X, Mr. X. Yeah, i know him, i should. As i am Mr. X".
So we went to his office. And the first thing i saw was this clipped nail neatly arranged on one of the chairs. I managed to not throw up, and continued. As it turned out, he was disappointed by me, being a software-engineer and not a programmer. He could not understand why on earth i wouldn't spend my spare time to become a web-designer, system-administrator and dbo.

I actually did interview someone once who referred to "TCIP".

I once interviewed a fresher out of a training session for the first java programmer job. I asked him the standard question about logging in (authenticating) into an Oracle database for creation of a schema.

He answered " We start by entering the user ID as "Scott" and password as "tiger" and log into the Oracle database!

That was funny and also not funny at the same time! It reflected either on the poor training quality or on the aptitude of the candidate. I ended the interview by thanking the candidate.