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Here’s an idea for fair interviews:

Interviewer and candidate meet at time X for 1h session of “live coding”. A saas throws at them both one problem at random. Let the game begin. The company can decide if they want interviewer and candidate to collaborate together to solve the problem (the saas is the judge) or perhaps they both need to play against each other and see who gets the optimal solution.

You can add a twist (faangs most likely): if the candidate submits a “better” answer than the interviewer’s , candidate takes over their job.

An LLM could be very well behind the saas.

Oh boy, I wouldn’t feel that nervous anymore in any interview. Fairness is the trick. One feels so underpowered when you know that the interviewer knows every detail about the proposed problem. But when both have no idea about the problem? That’s levelling the field!



Might be a whoosh, but really don’t understand the idea of seeing the interviewer as an adversary. Stress in interviews comes from many places but honestly one of the roles of the interviewer is to bring it down.


I think maybe the problem being alluded to is that a lot of interviewers aren't that good at this and instead give off vibes that play up the "I'm judging you from a default presumption that I'm more competent than you" angle.

(Really, it shouldn't be surprising that most technical interviewers aren't that competent, since they usually aren't selected for it.)


Oh god. I’ve met some seriously incompetent people when interviewing - to the point where I’m glad they are the one conducting the interview cause I never want to work with them. I’ve actually finished an interview where I was the candidate with “thank you, but I don’t think this is going to work out”.


To be clear, my point is more that lots of people who are competent at their core jobs and would be perfectly fine coworkers suck at interviewing (but are pressed into service doing it anyway).


Why would anyone agree to participate in interviews then? Do we then force developers to conduct interviews? If so, which ones? The superstars or the ones on PIP? You can see where this is going..


I guess think of it as a promotion/relegation league system, except you get relegated to the "unemployeed" league.


> if the candidate submits a “better” answer than the interviewer’s , candidate takes over their job

Corporate life meets the squid games (I quite like it:)




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