What not to do when giving technical interviews (2014)

In the ten years since I became senior enough to be asked to interview people, I have conducted a great number of technical interviews, been part of a lot of teams at companies big and small, and watched the effect that different types of hires have had on those companies. Don’t hire people for what they already know; the pool of people who do exactly the thing you need them to do is much, much smaller than the pool of people who are smart enough to be good at that job. Joel is (or was) also pretty big on understanding pointer math, which is an interesting “can grasp a complex topic” question but likewise outside the experience of many excellent engineers, so while it can be a useful thing to try talking about, it shouldn’t be an acid test.

Source: seldo.com