Stop the Interviews

3/5/2026 at 1:37:34 PM

> What an incredible waste - of the candidate's time, of the company's time. Oh, and they didn't offer him the job.

Perhaps the job's criticality justified that extra diligence?

by chrisjj

3/5/2026 at 5:10:21 PM

Everybody says that their job is critical, their code is high quality, their children are the smartest and their toys are the best. Reality begs to differ.

Let's just look at the data. If a bit under 1% of all not-previously-known applicants get hired, the system is provably broken and not worth the time of a not-previously-known applicant.

I'm sure there are a metric gigaton of examples already documented on this site explaining why this is bad for Tech, the Economy, our Society.

Want to know why there are so few young(er) people getting into the industry who are competent and instead you're inundated with frauds who can't write FizzBuzz? Here's your answer.

by i_think_so

3/5/2026 at 5:42:19 PM

Agree. When someone leaves a company, rarely is the impact that tangible, besides the emotions or perceived feelings of loss. We're all replaceable.

by jms703

3/5/2026 at 5:22:18 PM

This part of the essay makes me feel moved by the author's situation.

> I am sitting down after a long walk outdoors. It should have been relaxing, but I was processing - processing another interview pipeline that has fallen through. I'm in my 6th month of unemployment, despite job hunting 40 - 60 hours a week, starting literally the day I was laid off - because the company needed to make cuts and remote workers were top of the list.

That sounds really tough, and I'm sorry the author finds themselves in this situation. Six months sounds grueling.

I think the interview process is likely to be completely overhauled in the age of AI. I don't really know what will happen. I used to be in favor of the standard code-at-a-whiteboard approach, but nowadays the actual work is even further from that. But I haven't seen an AI-aware interview process yet that seems like an improvement.

At any rate, these systematic changes are likely to come too late for the author. Hang in there. Maybe it's time to consider a bigger change, like moving cities and looking for in-person work. I like working remotely but it's harder to get a remote job, and the in-person stuff does have upsides. Good luck out there.

by lacker

3/5/2026 at 5:26:35 PM

Another piece on the subject that starts out great but then fizzles out.

I think the solution that is alluded to is to let several qualified folks work as contractors for a bit. But companies are unfortunately set in their ways, refuse to think, and continue their incredibly expensive charade. Because google does it, or some other nonsense. As Joel told them to, but most of these folks are not old enough to know Joel or what exactly he advocated. Like “agile” metastasized into something pernicious as directed by B and C players, so have interviews.

by mixmastamyk

3/5/2026 at 6:26:27 PM

The solution is simple. — make prospective employers pay for the time of the people they’re interviewing.

We can argue the rate and which industries it should apply to, but if companies had to pay even a moderate amount out to even just some people to interview them you’ll fix this problem almost overnight.

by Teever

3/5/2026 at 5:50:21 PM

> I discussing this with a friend who is an surgeon, he said he has never had to prove his technical skills in an interview. Why? Medical candidates have licensure, continuing education requirements, a case history, and (potentially) litigation history ... In contrast, Software Engineering has largely ignored certifications, has no uniform system for gauging continuous learning, and the vast majority of candidates' professional work is closed source.

Every time someone brings up the possibility of licensing or certification to software engineering, the response is collective shrieks of outrage and insistence that It Couldn't Possibly Work For Us, as if we're so fucking special. I've seen this since the Slashdot days twenty years ago. And so, we got this instead.

There are a lot of problems in the industry which can be blamed on corporate culture and clueless management, but I think this is one case where we pretty clearly did it to ourselves.

by Analemma_

3/5/2026 at 5:56:24 PM

Okay, but how would it work? In particular, if AI is such a problem in the interview world now, how would it not be an even worse problem in the "taking tests for certifications" world?

by zahlman

3/5/2026 at 9:03:38 PM

It's one reason I am actually going to continue pursuing the 'physical engineering' side of my career rather than the software development (software 'engineering' side of it).

I studied CS at UCL years ago but worked mostly in teams with electrical, chemical, and mechanical engineers and on projects relating to various things in relation to various different industries as different as pharmaceutical and ship building. During that time I got qualified as a CAD engineer among other things I was required to by my employer(s).

Now, when I look at software jobs and the way software developers are being interviewed...I just can't. You would never ask eg a mechanical engineer in an interview 'so, you say you know SolidWorks? Ok, design me a sphere with a chamfered cylinder extruded from the centre of the top. It should be chamfered at a 46 degree angle to a plane passing through the centre of the sphere. Also, sweep a five pointed star around the sphere at the point that is midway above the plane and the top of the sphere'.

This is effectively what Leetcode tests etc are asking. It is a waste of everyone's time because they will either do it and think 'ok, that was weird' or they will refuse and think the company is insane.

There should just be accepted certifications for software development AND THEY SHOULD BE HARD. They should be very much failable and you should expect good people still to fail once or twice (like engineering or medical exams). Then just ignore the Leetcode stuff. It serves no-one.

Then all it really comes down to is frameworks etc and if someone is familiar with that particular framework or not. Just let people qualify out of this stupid algorithmic vetting process because it's utterly daft in the context of most jobs.

by SolubleSnake

3/5/2026 at 6:53:19 PM

Can we not trust degrees and work experience? That's 99% of doctors too? I mean this whole zero trust thing about people’s backgrounds is getting really fucking tiresome.

by gedy

3/5/2026 at 7:58:05 PM

It’s also funny because we seem to trust and select doctors by google reviews and assume they have a valid diploma and license to consult us for our lives, but we have to grill some poor software engineer previously working in faang with another 10 leetcode interviews to be ‘sure’ he’s a good fit. lol

by higeorge13