HACKER Q&A
📣 mannyv

What do you wish interviewers had asked you?


Everyone's had really dumb/bad interview questions hurled at them, and a common theme seems to be "why are they asking these dumb questions instead of the ones that matter?"

So - what questions do you want interviewers to ask? And where should the conversation go?

I'll start - when a backend/infrastructure person, they should ask me "What information do you need to design a backend for X/Y/Z? What technologies do you lean towards, and what tools/budget/personnel do you need?"

This should evolve (some would say devolve) into a discussion about budget, scalability, devops, tooling, skillsets, users, requirements, documentation, etc.

How about for your skillset/area?

  👤 throwaway211 Accepted Answer ✓
"Is there anything you'd like to mention that you've not had a chance to do so so far?"

Don't say it like a police interrogation. Do make it clear there's plenty of time should a candidate need it.

On time, never signal there's a fixed cutoff time until interview over. For the right candidate there shouldn't be. As a manager it's your job to be able to make time.

👤 ggm
"Putting to one side your absolutely atrocious interview code outcome which we put down to asinine youth and stupidity, if we decided to employ you, is there the remotest chance we wouldn't be making a mistake, noting that the code was .. really shit"

I remain unsure how I'd answer. The truthful one is "yes I am educable but no I cannot promise this kind of stupidity won't happen again"

👤 kstenerud
"Here's a sketch overview of our current architecture. Here are our rough numbers, and where we expect our business growth to be. What would you say is the biggest pitfall or challenge we're likely to face, and how would you mitigate it?"