Hiring

A little bit of sour-sweet memories I’ve been in many job interviews. Few as a candidate but many more as a Technical Leader or Hiring Manager. There are many questions I’ve been asked and many tests I passed. I remember one test, where I had to install and configure Apache Tomcat on a Virtual Machine, under Windows (which I don’t use for years), without access to internet. There were more traps there, like some files in the locations where Tomcat is normally installed were blocked for write with chattr immutable attribute. I was able to configure the application to run, but then I asked what’s the point of this exercise? Main explanation was to “understand my knowledge”. I asked more questions: ...

Why? Hiring people is hard, but having a new person in a team is not a work done. It’s important to monitor how people perform during probation period and share feedback with them. Personally, I like to ask the whole team, with a bunch of open questions, which allows me to look from higher altitude on the new hire. My point of view might be biased but by checking what others think, I can fill blind spots. ...