Sr. Software Engineer, Reliability, Release Engineering, Agents of Webapp

Final day of engineering interviews:

General Tech and Automation: Supposed to discuss/review your submission of the technical challenge and evaluate qualifications listed in the job posting. Results vary. We discussed only one item listed in the posting’s qualifications, and we did not review my technical challenge submission.

Teamwork and Collaboration: There are five prompts the interviewer is instructed to use. These are prompts, not scenario questions evaluated by double-blind studies to prevent bias. The candidate is expected to provide narratives. Expect to be evaluated on whether your experiences have been generally positive and ended favorably; if the interviewer can relate to your experiences; and if you make the interviewer feel comfortable. The prompts fail to distinguish between the candidate's actions or decisions and the way the candidate was treated by other people (which is highly biased). Results vary. I was asked additional questions about my past and was unsure what information the interviewer was asking (technical information?). In light of the agenda, I answered the additional questions with information relating to teamwork and collaboration. This was the wrong approach.

Troubleshooting and Debugging: Asked to describe an incident or an outage I had experience with. Role-playing debugging an incident. Candidate to ask specific questions; the interviewer will respond with system information.

Hiring Manager (HM) Interview: Asked about my preferred style of recognition and appreciation. Asked about what I do when I am bored with a project at work. Asked what (I believe) had prevented me succeeding in previous roles. Before answering this, I spoke to the HM about empathy and how empathy is a set of skills which can be cultivated, specifically attunement and resonance. Then I described the epidemic of prescription amphetamine abuse in the tech industry which causes hyper-aggression, and how being the target of aggression has prevented me from succeeding in previous roles. HM did not show attunement: "I can see that is really troubling you" or "I can see how talking about this makes you sad and anxious." HM also did not actively listen and show resonance: "I understand how being the target of aggression would be exhausting and demoralizing" or "I understand how being the target of aggression would be a roadblock to success if the organization did not support you."

Their decision: I failed their communication test (Not a good culture fit for the team). My decision: They failed my empathy test (Lacking attunement and resonance skills).

Teamwork and Collaboration:

Describe a bad interaction with a past teammate, and how did you handle it?

Describe a time you disagreed on a technical matter with a teammate, and how did you resolve it?

Have you ever worked on a team of people with different specialties (product, frontend, design, etc.)? How did you handle issues within the team?

If you had a magic wand and could change anything about [a previous employer], what would it be? (This was not an approved prompt).

Troubleshooting and Debugging:

Describe an incident or outage you have experienced.

Describe an incident or outage you have experienced.

Role-play debugging an incident. The candidate is to ask specific questions, and the interviewer will respond with system information.

Hiring Manager (HM) Interview:

Preferred style of recognition and appreciation.

What do you do when you are bored with a project at work?

Asked what you believe had prevented you from succeeding in previous roles.