Reading about a lot of poor technical interview experiences (lately, but not lately, more like always), and I'm reminded that your technical interviews still suck.
So time for part 3 of this book.
Part 1: Your Technical Interviews Suck
Part 2: Engineering Leaders, Stop Failing
This time, I'm calling out Utah engineering leaders.
Utah engineering leaders: why on earth are you decades behind in your hiring process? Is it because everything else here on a societal level is also decades behind? Honestly, I'm starting to wonder.....
In a land of pioneers, you're pioneering nothing. But in a land of keeping up with the Jones', you're, well, doing an excellent job there. A+!!
Anyway, seeing the processes out here and reading the Glassdoor reviews of experiences people have shared (oooooooof) you're clearly still failing.
Stop giving live coding challenges.
Stop using HackerRank and LeetCode nonsense.
Stop asking gotcha questions.
Stop sitting behind your laptop, not paying attention to the candidate.
Stop giving take home assignments, and never once referring to them.
The common denominator I've seen for decades and am still reading about is this: You don't have a strategic hiring plan. You're ego-driven. You're testing for memorization, not capability. You're optimizing for your comfort, not for finding great engineers.
"God, it's bad." - Jake 1:2
So What Should You Actually Do?
I've said it before and practiced it for decades and I'll keep saying it until it sticks.
Have a Conversation. 🤯
A real one. Not a quiz show. Not a performance review for a job they don't have yet.
Ask them about something they actually built. Let them explain a decision they made and why they'd make it differently now. That's how you learn if someone can think. Not whether they memorized Big O notation for the interview and will forget it by lunch.
But How Do I Know They're Technical Enough?
If you can't tell from a 45-minute conversation about their actual work, the problem isn't them. Your questions just suck so it's a you problem.
Utah, It's Time to Catch Up.
The rest of the industry is evolving. You adopt AI and now type into a prompt, updating your resume and LinkedIn to "AI Architect", so why not also adapt and evolve your broken hiring process? Remote-first companies figured this out decades ago. Startups that actually want to hire good people figured this out.
Why are you still clinging to broken processes??! I'm convinced your favorite programing language is VBA.
Build a strategic hiring plan. A JOB DESCRIPTION IS NOT A HIRING PLAN. Define what you're actually measuring.
If you're a Utah engineering leader reading this and thinking "we're different", prove it. I'd love to be wrong. But the Glassdoor reviews, and people sharing their stories with me, say otherwise.
❤️
Jake