I basically bombed every single interview at my current job and got hired anyway, i think you’re over thinking it. Have a drink, watch the WS, and forget about it

Oh, I'm ****ing on it, and pizza on the way. Going to be passed the **** out by 10pm. I am tired, it's like the brain version of how your body hates you (but kind of in a good way) after running a marathon or whatever.

worst case interview again in 6 months.

I have a passing familiarity with all the major sort methods but the only one I focus on implementing is heapsort because it's so easy to explain and if put on the spot not too hard to implement.

It's a ****ed up industry as far as hiring goes, see my recent post about how my job wouldn't hire me if I applied today.

Jmakin, iirc many people (myself included) thought it sounded like your interview went very well.

Well, the feedback from them was that I basically had very poor technical
Knowledge but that I thought and reasoned extremely quickly.

Curiously though, the interview I thought I really really bombed, the guy that did it told me this week that he gave me the strongest feedback he’s ever given to a candidate - but he also said he expected absolutely nothing from me because I had boat captain on my resume.

I didn’t know the answers to any questions they asked me and just tried to move the conversation along and explain what I thought I knew. I also couldn’t solve the second part of the take home they gave me.

After being involved in the interview process now I can see how I got hired anyway, lol.

Just trying to say that I know the feeling extremely well and that he probably didn’t do nearly as bad as he thought he did.

Goofy,

I wouldnt say anything and would let it ride.

This is based on my "theory of awkwardness in an interview in which by directly referencing an instance of awkwardness you are making it more likely they focus on that instance and not the other more successful parts of the interview".

But yea I'm sorry dude that does sound kinda ****ty but you are obviously very smart, talented, and passionate so I'm sure [99%ComperableMegaCo] is still available to you

Yeah, I had the biggest of eyerolls at that story. Do you work at a high-reputation company that can afford to be that selective? Or did the bosses just decide that this is what they had to do to hire the right people, despite it being plainly bone-headed?

Mmm, yes, intriguing theory. I think both "it couldn't hurt" and "talking about awkward thing magnifies it" have their own arguments and merits.

Oh, and while I still remember - one question I had I was thinking about, how much detail do I give the companies I'm talking to about where I'm at in other company's processes, before I have offers?

Like, if a company says "what's your timeline/who else are you talking to" and I have offers, I should obviously say "I have offers" (maybe name the company, maybe not, not sure). But I'm wondering if, say, I'm talking to this recruiter on Monday or talking to the people who just asked me to do an onsite - do I tell them "I just had an onsite at <desirable Bay Area mega-co>"? On one hand that makes me look more like an elite candidate to them, but on the other if a week later they say "oh what happened with <DBAM>" and I say "oh they didn't give me an offer", feels like that lowers my cred and my negotiating power.

A friend of mine was suggesting I should casually drop with the phone screen company "oh I have an onsite at <DBAM> tomorrow" (this was yesterday) and I was thinking that's not a good idea.

having competing offers will help your recruiter get the hiring/compensation committee to approve a higher offer. without that, the HC just goes, meh, X00k should be enough for someone like goofy. get a credible DBAM offer in the mix and they re-evaluate their position. you don't need to neg your recruiter.

So I’ve been at my new job a bit over three months now. Quite enjoying most aspects, but miss having a good dedicated test team and a strong devops team supporting me.

Someone from my last employer contacted me a couple days ago and asked if I would entertain coming back. I wasn’t sure what to say. I told them I would consider it but it would have to be a very very strong offer.

Anyone here ever been in a situation like this?

I mean did you leave just because more money? If you weren't happy there I wouldn't go back unless the money was crazy high

@goofy: If you think 4/5 isn't good enough to keep you in the running then I would definitely email the recruiter.

I would only expect 4/5 to not be good enough at a startup / very small company.

My only comment is to study more than 2 weeks next time you do an interview at a bay area mega company. The stuff that happened is pretty common and will happen from time to time. Very few companies have seamless interview processes.

Rusty, what are the ten schools? Do you really get enough applicants for this?

I think it's trying to fight a perception that we don't hire people who are "good enough" but honestly I'm not sure.

I don't actually know which schools. I think it's more likely that it's not a set list and it just has to be justifiable to the CTO, i.e. a place that is well known for it's high quality CS programs like MIT, Carnegie Mellon, Stanford, UIUC etc.

No, I would not say we get enough applicants for this.

This may be old news to you, but: if you can negate key values, you can use a min-heap to build a max-heap and vice versa. The only difference between a min and max heap is the comparison operator used for ordering.

I wouldn't bring it up. It makes you sound like you are a whiner and that you might be difficult to work with. It also focuses on the fact that you did poorly on part of the interview when it might otherwise be overlooked.

If they come back and say that the 6th question was why you failed, then I would bring up that you were tired, that it wasn't really fair, etc.

The bottom line is that you nailed 5/6 interview questions. If that is not enough to get you hired, I'm sure studying another couple of weeks will get you over the hump at a similar company.

Just lie and tell them that everyone has given you an offer.

This. I also think that you should avoid bring up anything potentially negative in an interview, such as "Well, I live an hour from here, but with traffic it can be an hour and a half"... that stuff never helps you. They are asking how far you live for this very reason.

Interesting article from this week's Hacker Newsletter: iPhones are hard to use

The author touches on a number of cases for which this is true, but picking one out - text size - I think is illustrative of more general problems we all probably fall victim to in software development, in failing to think deeply about users whose experience is unlike our own:

Its totally valid that the 6th interview was rough because after a long day of interviewing you were tired and exhausted. That's super understandable and worth bringing up in a case like this if you get rejected because of that (although I can't imagine it ever changing anyones mind).

You can't ever bring up the "not fair" thing. It's true. And it definitely sucks that it happened. But from the company's point of view its still a data point that they'd be silly to throw away just because maybe it shouldn't have happened.

You don't have to be 85 to need reading glasses to use a phone. It's pretty standard for 50 year olds, even late 40s. For me, I'm ok if I'm not wearing my contacts, but need reading glasses if I am.