Why I went with them and not you: feedback to an interviewer

http://jamesob.nfshost.com/2011/04/01/them-vs-you.html

by jobeirne • 15 years ago

214 174 15 years ago

jamesob.nfshost.com

pdenya• 15 years ago

A lot of good points that would definitely influence me in picking a company. Especially developing on windows, I would personally list that heavily in the cons column.

redthrowaway• 15 years ago

It would be for me as well, but there are many people who swear by Visual Studio, and Microsoft is generally very developer-friendly. I'm sure there's reasons beyond corporate dictate that many companies choose to develop in Windows.

jrockway3• 15 years ago

I've used Visual Studio at work.

The first C++ program I wrote caused the compiler to segfault. It was hello world compiled as managed code using the .net string class. The solution was to wait for the next version of Visual Studio to be approved by the Internal Software Approval Team.

I switched to Haskell + Emacs and never looked back. If you're stuck on Windows, that's a damn good development environment. Miles ahead of anything Microsoft could offer. (But visual studio lets you refactor shit by right clicking. Yeah, but Haskell lets me write code that actually works.)

lwhi3• 15 years ago

Bravo on scoring two jobs, but a little bit boastful all the same. What a show off :P

InfinityX0• 15 years ago

In the developer job market, I think this is OK - because they are in such high demand. If this compared jobs as entry-level marketing associates, I would've felt more dissonance towards what you mention - but in this situation, I think it was OK and not too ego-driven.

lwhi3• 15 years ago

Why would an applicant care whether other employers score good developers over sating their own desire for an ego boost?

I don't buy it.

gyepi• 15 years ago

Great points. As someone hiring for a "company Y", I firmly believe in the design process and culture and try hard to make candidates feel that they would play meaningful technical and cultural roles in the company.

j_baker4• 15 years ago

It may seem arbitrary, but the platform an organization uses is indicative to me of a whole lot.

Was anyone else a bit annoyed by this statement? It's a good, wholesome, and healthy thing to say "You guys use Windows and I like using Unix", but it's wrong to say "You guys use Windows, and that says something about your organization."

Why do techies have such a tendency to phrase "I don't like x" as "It is wrong to use x".

jobeirne5• 15 years ago

I never said using Windows is wrong or implied anything negative about its use; I said that I don't prefer to develop on Windows and that I like the principles behind Unix.

danilocampos• 15 years ago

You're very diplomatic.

Unless a company is specifically geared around a toolset that doesn't exist in OS X or *nix (game developers come to mind), institutional, mandatory Windows use seems like a great signal for "shitty company right here!".

j_baker4• 15 years ago

I think what you mean to say is you didn't intend to say that. Whether or not you actually did say that is another matter entirely. In this case, the majority of your post seems good. But the big bolded sentence that grabs your eye first seems to be implying that there's something wrong with an organization that uses Windows.

I mean, imagine telling someone you don't like their cooking and then saying "The fact that you use margarine instead of butter says a lot." You're not directly saying anything bad about them personally, but most likely they're going to take it as a roundabout way of saying "Real cooks use butter, but you use margarine. Therefore, you're not a real cook."

tialys• 15 years ago

Right or wrong, there is a sense that some people have that any place that mandates Windows usage to developers is the equivalent of "Initech" from the movie Office Space. At least, that's the feeling I get from similar discussions with my undergrad friends.

forensic2• 15 years ago

My anecdotal experience indicates that this is an accurate heuristic.

gaius7• 15 years ago

They are clearly using Macs at Initech, look at the screens.

wewyor2• 15 years ago

Well he did say that they develop in Windows and deploy to Linux, which in my opinion is just weird even if you are working on things like virtual machines and such why are you using windows for that?

I can't see an advantage that favors Windows for linux deployment but I can definitely see an advantage over Windows by using something that behaves more like a linux system (in this case OSX).

bigiain• 15 years ago

On the othe hand, some one recently (maybe Zed Shaw? Or dzubia?) had a great rant about the idiocy of developing on MacOSX when you need to deploy on Linux. Im not sure I completely agree with the rant (being one of e many MacBook toting Linux deployers myself), but there were at least a few points that had me nodding my head in agreement.

If you're just coding higher level stuff in php or python or perl, you're unlikely to get bitten by MaaOS/Linux differences, but the same can be said for (an appropriately set up) Windows development machine.

If you're tuning databases or hacking middleware or performance tuning your NoSQL backend or in memory cache, you really need to be doing that on the closest you can get to the deployment platform.

One big plus to doing web app development on Windows is not having to switch out of MacoS (or Linux) to do Internet Explorer testing...

mikeklaas• 15 years ago

I don't know; why do techies have a tendency to misleadingly paraphrase someone's statement?

He didn't say that using windows was wrong, but that it is indicative about the philosophy of the company (which, I agree, it can be).

bkudria• 15 years ago

Err, have you used Windows?

jdietrich• 15 years ago

The majority of skilled developers prefer Macs or Linux. I've been at large conferences and not seen a single Windows machine. Some developers like Windows, that's fine, but just as many hate it. It's not wrong for a developer to use Windows, but it is wrong for a company to impose it, or even to have it as the default option.

For a company to say "at our company, we use Windows" is to say "We don't give a shit about developers". The issue isn't Windows, the issue is a workplace culture that places the preferences of management over the preferences of developers. Life is too short to work for people who don't respect you, especially when you've got one of the most valuable skills in the world.

j_baker4• 15 years ago

The majority of skilled developers prefer Macs or Linux.

You don't know that, and I seriously doubt you can prove it. Please don't offer conjecture as fact.

(Spoken as someone who does prefer Macs and Linux)

jarrett• 15 years ago

Every developer I've met in person prefers Mac/nix for any situation in which Windows development isn't mandatory.

Am I looking at a biased sample? Maybe, maybe not. I mostly operate in the web development world, but I know developers of all stripes. And none of them prefers Windows.

That being said, there are developers and companies who prefer to develop for MS platforms as a business decision. I.e. they want to target that market. But that doesn't mean they actually prefer developing on Windows. It just means Windows is imposed on them by their business choice. Analogously, I don't care much for Xcode or Objective-C, but I still write IOS apps because it's an important market.

cnkeller2• 15 years ago

I'd argue that is largely based on the type of conferences you go to. At Google I/O or WWDC, I'd agree with you in a heartbeat. If you go to a .NET conference, I'd guess you wouldn't see too many macbooks actually running OS X.

Windows developers are out there, they're just probably not attending the same talks as you are and probably not reading many of the same blogs.

ronnier3• 15 years ago

I like how my workplace does it. Everyone gets a linux desktop. You then get the option of either a MAC or Windows 7 laptop, totally up to you.

dotBen• 15 years ago

It's not wrong for a developer to use Windows, but it is wrong for a company to impose it, or even to have it as the default option.

I agree with the only caveat being if the dev shop is working on a platform-native stack (like .NET or iOS) - in which case you obviously have to use the 'family' platform for consistency and to be able to obtain all features (like being able to compile + emulate an iOS app - which can only be done on a Mac).

seanx• 15 years ago

"The majority of skilled developers prefer Macs or Linux."

Do you have any data to back that up or is it just an uninformed opinion? In my experience the majority of skilled developers use windows but I wouldn't try to extrapolate from my experience (as a windows developer) to a univeral truth.

There are reasons for mandating windows (or osx or *nix) devices. Whether they are valid reasons depends on the circumstances. Personally I prefer to develop on the system that I am developing for but that is not always feasible (ios) or desirable (anything involving xcode).

ThomPete2• 15 years ago

The majority of skilled developers prefer to develop rather than talk about which environment is the best.

And the skilled developers aren't the young cats, they are the old dogs. Don't confuse what's popular with what's good.

kami8844• 15 years ago

Complete bullshit statement, from the Facebook Hackathon where 25 of the most skilled software developers from all over the world competed:

>And all twenty-five coded atop, um, Windows machines. Facebook offered a choice of Windows or Mac, and according to Alves, no one wanted a Mac.

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/03/12/facebook_hacker_cup_...

dangero4• 15 years ago

I agree.

When my company is hiring, and we lose a candidate like this, I often send emails that are similar, "Sorry to hear you're not accepting our offer. Can I ask why you didn't choose us?" This is actually the potential hire's chance to pay me a compliment, give a small amount of feedback, and keep the door open for the future in case their other "better" option falls through.

I think this blog shows a terribly self absorbed reply. My response to receiving this would be to forward the reply to my team and say, "Glad that didn't work out for us... Blessing in disguise. See below."

Know your audience. Remember, the person you're emailing works there, so you're essentially telling them that their job and work environment sucks when you write something like this.

xentronium• 15 years ago

> Know your audience. Remember, the person you're emailing works there, so you're essentially telling them that their job and work environment sucks when you write something like this.

What's the point in asking a question and waiting for a meaningless (but diplomatic) response?

ilikepi• 15 years ago

> This is actually the potential hire's chance to pay me a compliment, give a small amount of feedback, and keep the door open for the future in case their other "better" option falls through.

Out of curiosity, is the compliment required for you to consider keeping the door open? I'm guessing you didn't mean for it to sound that way, but I'm not quite sure how else it should have sounded...

marcomonteiro4• 15 years ago

"This is actually the potential hire's chance to pay me a compliment, give a small amount of feedback, and keep the door open for the future in case their other "better" option falls through."

That's quite narcissistic and self-absorbed. You're really not that important and to take a letter like this and try to paint it as a "blessing in disguise" is arrogant and foolish.

He doesn't want to work in a Windows shop. He wanted to be able to work with particular technologies. He's a new grad and idealistic. He has preferences and opinions and had the insight to skip working in an environment he believed he wouldn't do well in. He's not a bad hire, just a bad hire for your organization. Get over it.

robryan2• 15 years ago

So you ask someone why they didn't choose a job but only accept the reason as valid if it is positive? With that attitude what happens when someone in your company suggests some of your current methods suck and could be improved? Dismiss them out of hand because they are being negative?

lusis2• 15 years ago

It's not a matter of "it's wrong to use X". It's a matter of "I don't want to spend my time working in Windows and dealing with all of the headaches and banging my head against a wall with the differing OS paradigms."

True story. At my previous company, it wasn't made clear during the interview that Windows was the ONLY thing allowed on the network. Despite the fact that all of the servers were running Linux (this was a major financial institution), we were forced to use Windows XPSP3 and we couldn't even use VMware (that changed a month or so after I got there luckily).

Neglecting to mention that was a CONSCIOUS decision by the people doing the hiring because it cost them employees. Not only did it cost them employees who turned down the job based on that fact, they had people LEAVE once they found out about it (developers and operations folks alike).

Talented and skilled people can get a job anywhere. They don't have to put up with stupid bullshit illogicals like "You have to use Windows even though we trust the financial records of customers of EVERY MAJOR CREDIT CARD COMPANY to live on and be processed by Linux servers".

Pahalial3• 15 years ago

You're kind of robbing that phrase of its context by omitting the 'deploy to linux' part. I have nothing against windows devs developing on windows - in fact, I can't offhand recall having met anyone developing desktop Windows software in anything other than Visual Studio - but when you're deploying to Linux, it makes an awful lot of sense to be developing on the same platform. Otherwise you're just begging for issues with dependency management, platform-dependent tests failing (you ARE running a test suite before committing, right?), even simple things like \n vs \r\n.

It's useless trying to figure out why they're developing on Windows without having talked to them, but I for one can't come up with a good reason that doesn't warrant at least mild condemnation.

technomancy2• 15 years ago

> but when you're deploying to Linux, it makes an awful lot of sense to be developing on the same platform.

True, but he goes on to say the company he accepted deploys to Linux but develops on Macs. Huh?

dmlorenzetti• 15 years ago

I picked my first career essentially on the basis of interviewers.

My undergrad (at U.Cincinnati) required all engineering students to take a co-operative education job for 6 months a year. You pick your first job after the freshman year. At that stage in the game, I had no idea what I would find most rewarding (I was in an electrical and computer science program, which left a lot of room to choose).

Most companies sent engineers to the campus recruiting center. They tended to ask dry questions about classes and training. The guy from RCA Semiconductor was personable, warm, and knew how to sell his company. He also "got" that frosh aren't really at the stage where grilling them on technical knowledge makes much sense when deciding who to take a chance on, so he steered the conversation more toward life experiences, interests, and working style.

I went with RCA, with no reservations. Happily for me, it turned out that Tom reflected the company culture in the factory that sent him. Was it the "best" decision? I can't say, but I do know that a truly professional interviewer had a profound impact on the path I followed for many years of my professional career.

Lost_BiomedE• 15 years ago

Interesting. It has been quite a while since i have done an interview for an office job, but I will start doing so soon. I worked in the restaurant industry as my last non-entrepreneurial career.

Seeing the developing on Windows and deploying on Linux as a big flag sounds analogous to noticing a dirty walk-in fridge, burnt-out light in the dining area, or a deer in the headlights look and lack of smiles in a busy line-cook.

Is it common for the interviewee to ask as many questions about the employer as the employer asks of the interviewee? In most business dealings or past job interviews, I have taken it as a red flag if this was not the case.

Were you able to ask why they used Windows or was it expected that you were to just answer their questions?

michaelpinto• 15 years ago

You may vote me down but this reminds me a great deal of how things started to feel right before the last dot.com crash circa 2001. I imagine most of you are too young to recall it, but before we hit the end programmers were worth more than gold. You'd get kids who didn't even finish this CS degree looking for stock options, aeron chairs and other perks (...and do you have a sushi chef on site?). And small companies gladly did this because even getting a warm body was better than not.

And then it hit. First one company and then the next. Each week you'd read about another 100 people being laid off. You knew that even if 1 in 10 razorfish employees were decent that 90 amazing people were now hitting the streets. Our guilty pleasured was reading f*ckedcompany -- a website that just covered the daily implosions.

I hope that history won't repeat itself on that scale, but that said this point in time feels like that point in time. I see other signs too: For example a German car company just opened up a VC fund. I know that Facebook could be the next Google, yet I was recently shocked to see a content farm go public. With any luck the rest of the economy will recover to buffer an industry stumble, but you never know.

haberman2• 15 years ago

I think it is unwise to send a letter with this tone to someone you've turned down. I say this as someone who used to do exactly the same thing. You think you're being honest, but to be on the receiving side of this it comes off badly.

Especially as a new grad, it's not really your place to lecture someone about how Unix embodies the essence of good software engineering when they have probably been doing this a lot longer than you and have their own ideas about what good software design is.

You could have given the same feedback in a way that is much less likely to come off badly by simply saying "I've really a UNIX kind of guy and a Windows shop probably isn't the best fit for me."

Pahalial3• 15 years ago

I don't know that I agree: you're essentially advocating dishonesty, in my opinion. If he legitimately feels that a Unix shop by nature will espouse certain qualities, why should he hold back?

They solicited his feedback. Unless he wants to hold them in his pocket as a fall-back, I can't see why he should sugarcoat his response. Yes, you could call his opinion essentially hubris if you disagree and wanted to be antagonistic, but it's at least honest, straightforward, and not unduly confrontational.

I say this as someone who's been off-and-on involved with interviewing and sent out this kind of question to people who turned us down - the only two times I got a response, they were devoid of any information and just platitudes to butter us up. Literally not a single negative point about us or our process, which needless to say was not helpful and personally annoyed me far more than a letter like this would have done.

haberman2• 15 years ago

What about "I'm really a UNIX kind of guy and a Windows shop probably isn't the best fit for me" is dishonest or devoid of information?

This makes it clear that he prefers UNIX and that was a factor in declining the position. It stops short of passing sweeping judgements on people who do not prefer UNIX, which is very likely to annoy somebody who prefers Windows.

epynonymous• 15 years ago

pahalial, i agree with you; feedback is king. you can take it with a grain of salt, but if you learn to take things constructively, it could possibly lead to improvement.

i think this candidate's response was quite detailed, like for example the fact that he didn't see value in the being grilled on theoretical puzzles.

bcaulf• 15 years ago

I agree. Softening, sugarcoating, removing the negative aspects of a comparison, is dishonest. It is incomplete and misleading. And as such it is not the most useful information for the recipient.

One great thing about techie and science culture is the wide agreement that being straight and blunt is the way to go. It allows us to identify the problem instead of getting into a game of reading between the lines and trying to figure out what was really meant. In this case the interviewer wanted to know why his offer was rejected. The more complete and direct the answer, the better.

jarin4• 15 years ago

I don't see why it's unwise at all, unless employers start using past interviewers as references. It's not like he insulted the guy's mom, he gave his honest and straightforward opinion. And as a non-"new grad" who's been a developer for over 10 years, I agree with pretty much all of his points.

Jach• 15 years ago

Not to mention that some "new grads" have also been programming for 10 years (probably not all in a professional environment, but nevertheless), whether they started programming at 13 or just finally got around to getting a degree.

If feedback and criticism are asked for, there's little point to apply sugar, especially when you probably won't have much contact in the future. Sugarcoating is required in environments where saying something that could be taken as insulting can get you killed or a much lower status.

dwc• 15 years ago

After 25 years or so coding professionally I also agree with pretty much all of the points.

And let's remember this wasn't the initial "thanks for your time, but sorry" letter. It was solicited explicitly. The OP delivered. And there's every reason to think the recipient of this will be smart enough to take it as a data point for the future.

jobeirne5• 15 years ago

Thanks for your honest advice.

    You could have given the same feedback in a way that is much
    less likely to come off badly by simply saying "I've really
    a UNIX kind of guy and a Windows shop probably isn't the
    best fit for me."

This makes a ton of sense. I admit that I saw a chance to soapbox, though I thought constructively, and leapt at it.

jclaassen• 15 years ago

I fully agree. Technology and platform choice is often the most thought-over decisions that a company's engineering staff has to make. I personally would shy away from saying anything that indicates the slightest criticism on that particular decision. However, I'm sure the review of company X's interview strategy will be very helpful.

dave_sullivan• 15 years ago

I agree, but I suppose those are the lessons best learned first hand. I'm sure he's very sharp, but once he's gotten his ass handed to him a couple times, he'll come around. There are some great opportunities for new grads now, it almost seems like a waste to give that to people before they've learned what to do with it :-)

mweil3• 15 years ago

Youth is wasted on the young, eh?

gommm• 15 years ago

As an employer I usually ask and like to hear this kind of feedback... So it really depends on the person on the receiving hand and what kind of vibe you have from him...

rbanffy2• 15 years ago

> You could have given the same feedback in a way that is much less likely to come off badly by simply saying "I've really a UNIX kind of guy and a Windows shop probably isn't the best fit for me."

This also has a good chance of being interpreted badly. Depending on who reads it, picking Windows for your development environment could make sense. Lots of Java development is done on Windows and Windows laptops are a very common sight on Java-related conferences.

elbelcho• 15 years ago

I'd be interested to know if the author finds this article embarrassing in 10 years.

When I started in professional software development 10 years ago (about), I probably would have made many similar points.

I see a lot of the same attitudes in CS students today. They are just absolutely CERTAIN that the entire world can be easily categorized into their predefined concepts.

As you get older and more experienced, you'll realize that a lot of your early opinions were naive at best. I have a feeling the article's author will feel similarly in the future.

jarin4• 15 years ago

I've been a developer for just over 10 years now, and I would say the opposite for myself. 10 years ago, I would never have written a response like this. Now, I would in a heartbeat.

I do think that he will find it embarrassing in 10 years, but for different reasons (like in 10 years, Windows is a super awesome development platform, or running on Amazon Web Services is like running on IIS, or jQuery is the new VBScript, or something like that).

gaius7• 15 years ago

There is nothing about "the cloud" today that wasn't said about "the mainframe" back in the day...

jrussbowman• 15 years ago

My experience has me at the point where I won't go into detail explaining why I don't take s position. I tried when I turned down a government contractor for a position maintaining a couple servers for a position where I would be responsible for a few hundred for a lot less. They just pushed the money and got offended not understanding I needed the challenge and learning experiences. I left the situation feeling a little guilty and then just figured out you need to do what's right for you and not get into explaining it to people who won't even remember you in a few months.

coffeemug• 15 years ago

The degree of entitlement among new grads in the software development industry is incredible. I know because I've been there. Now I see it from the other side as an employer, and when I think of the way I acted after I graduated, I want to go back and kick myself. In retrospect, this was a sign of immaturity and self-aggrandizing.

I genuinely believed at the time that Emacs and Linux and Common Lisp somehow made me special, when in reality I just wanted to convince myself that I was a better developer than my peers. I wasn't. I was a good coder, but I was immature, wasted a ton of people's time, and refused to listen to people who wrote code that solved real problems while I was on my "let's switch to Linux and Lisp" crusade.

I can point out a ton of examples where Windows is significantly better than Linux and vice versa. Same goes for most programming languages, development environments, and software methodologies. Saying "I like UNIX more and prefer to develop in it" is one thing. Saying that a choice of the OS tells me something about an organization and that their particular system of choice is somehow based on worse philosophical principles than my alternative is naive and condescending beyond belief.

The rule of thumb is to understand before you decide you've understood. If we used this principle more often, the industry overall would be a much more nourishing environment to work in.

dasil0032• 15 years ago

On the other hand, for a while it seemed that more often than not an idealistic stand against Windows was the only viable type, and I daresay we're all better off for those who took it.

davidw3• 15 years ago

I've been using Linux since I started developing professionally, in 1997, and for the things I've worked on (mostly the web), it's always been a valid alternative.

beambot2• 15 years ago

The article does not rip on Windows. It implies that OS / language choice says something about an organization's developer culture. I share this belief, and it would be an important job criteria for me as well.

Consider three choices: (1) Big company X on Windows + .Net, (2) Big Company Y on Linux + C++, or (3) co-founding a new startup using whatever I prefer. I wouldn't fault anyone for having pre-conceived notions about the cultures prominent at these companies, would you?

munificent• 15 years ago

Yes, I would.

dangero4• 15 years ago

I agree, but I think writing that in a long email where you bold that sentence is pretty condescending. I think that's the main issue people are taking with it. If you want to engage in a discussion about cultures and platforms, I think that's a valid discussion, but this email was not the place to do it.

iamdave2• 15 years ago

The rule of thumb is to understand before you decide you've understood.

Yeah, no.

The rule of thumb ought to be find your own path, go with what works for you and forget everyone else's establishments. Clearly this guy saw a job with a culture and environment that he got a good vibe from, he liked their approach, he liked their people, he chose them.

On the flip side, I personally don't know where this attitude comes from that the younger generations should have to toil and sweat and bleed before they get that opportunity engage in something that clicks with them. Life is short, but JUST long enough to get those experiences in whatever way they come along in our lives.

Personally, I'm just as sick of old curmudgeons coming along dictating to young people how they should run a career just because said old fogie had to go in a different direction just to get his in the world as you are with recent grad students and their "entitlement".

barista3• 15 years ago

Not toil and sweat but as a fresh graduate do you really have enough experience to make decision about culture? And that too based only on a couple of interviewers?

Not working on windows because you don't agree with its design philosophies is ridiculous. It's not that you are working on building windows. It's just a platform. You select the tool that works best to get the job done. Not because you agree with the tools philosophy.

If I got such a letter I'd actually retract offer to this candidate. Flexibility and eagerness to take on challenges and learn goes a long way in your initial days as a developer. Lacking these qualities is a big no-go for me at least.

rasur• 15 years ago

>On the flip side, I personally don't know where this attitude comes from that the younger generations should have to toil and sweat and bleed before they get that opportunity engage in something that clicks with them.

It's that whole "paying your dues" mentality, isn't it? Which might be fine, if we weren't all participating in an industry where a well executed idea can turn things upside down.

nupark2• 15 years ago

Personally, I'm just as sick of old curmudgeons coming along dictating to young people how they should run a career just because said old fogie had to go in a different direction just to get his in the world as you are with recent grad students and their "entitlement".

... and as an "old curmudgeon" who runs a small company and has been working in technology for nearly 15 years, I'm bemused and slightly weary of young graduates who seems to know everything and seem to have a very difficult time listening to senior engineers and managers when they're told differently.

The end result is that we have to be exceedingly careful to maintain a high ratio of senior to junior engineers, lest we be overwhelmed with individuals campaigning for some technology of the date -- be it NoSQL, switching the whole company to some new VCS, or otherwise -- instead of applying their experience to making carefully reasoned choices to actually getting the job done.

There is always room for change and innovation, but after you've been around long enough to see the cyclic trends in the re-invention of software technology, you become more conservative about spending resources leaping on hyperbole of "next big thing."

jrockway3• 15 years ago

What's great about the programming industry is that demand for good programmers is higher than the supply of good programmers, so if you're a good programmer people have no choice but to make you feel special for liking Emacs and Common Lisp. If you don't want to work for a Windows shop simply because you hate the default desktop background, that's their problem and not yours. You have a job, they don't have a developer. You win, they lose.

That's what's great about being a person instead of a computer program. You don't have to be rational!

gaius7• 15 years ago

Except that this isn't true. Look, despite what we do all day at first glance, no-one gets paid to "write programs". You get paid to solve other people's problems, it just happens to be with code - it doesn't matter how hardcore you are, that's what you do. The guys working on compilers are solving the problems of the guys who need optimized code, and they're solving the problems of people who want to simulate cars in wind tunnels (or whatever) and they're solving the problems of people who want to save fuel... And so it goes.

Part of actually doing that is that you have to be able to work with a team, and you have to write code that anyone in the team can pick up, and the organization has to be comfortable that if you get hit by a bus (or throw a strop over emacs vs vi) they can get someone to build on what you've done on behalf if their customers. Sure Emacs and Lisp are great - but are they the right tool for every problem? Of course not.

This is what we mean when we say new grads have no experience. Sure you might have written a load of code, but it's the "solving other people's problems" bit that is true experience. By all means be a prima donna - but remember that real artists ship.

hernan7• 15 years ago

"In retrospect, this was a sign of immaturity and self-aggrandizing."

Or maybe it's your current self-aggrandizing now that you were given a smidgen of power.

jobeirne5• 15 years ago

I wasn't aware that acting on preferences and then articulating them when prompted counts as a sense of entitlement.

You must get angry a lot.

pz• 15 years ago

i'd be interested to see him revisit this letter after he's had the chance to sit on the other side of the table in an interview.

jbarnette• 15 years ago

I don't get the impression that many of the commenters here are spending a lot of time trying to hire good people right now. I am, and I'd be grateful to receive an email like this.

I wouldn't like it, but honest, personal feedback on an interview process is hard to find.

grammr• 15 years ago

Considering how strongly the author feels about developing exclusively on *nix, I found it surprising that it took as much as an interview for him to learn that "company X" uses Windows. Almost all software job reqs. offer reasonable insight as to what key technologies they use.

Other than that, I found his response reeking of condescension and inexperience.

dhume3• 15 years ago

I found it surprising that it took as much as an interview for him to learn that "company X" uses Windows.

I didn't catch anything in the post saying he didn't find that out until the interview.

kenjackson2• 15 years ago

Then why did he interview? If it was a phone interview... sure, no biggy. But an onsite interview requires some DD by the applicant. You don't even accept the interview if there's no chance you'd work there. And if you do it anyways, maybe for practice, then you don't give this type of feedback.

It's like going out on a date with a girl you're not attracted to just for practice. And then when she asks why you didn't go on a second date saying, "Because you're frankly not very attractive." You were kind of a jerk for going on the date in the first place, but the feedback made you a certified one.

In any case either the candidate doesn't do the type of reasonable DD that I'd expect from an applicant, even a college hire. Or he's bordernline unethical.

zafka• 15 years ago

I agree with the sentiment of your letter, I feel that it might not have been the most diplomatic thing to say, but there is a pretty good chance you won't have to worry about it. Keep improving your skills so you can voice opinions with out worry that it will kill your career.

biotech• 15 years ago

I see many comments pointing out that it may be a good technical decision to develop on Windows. This is a good point; many skilled engineers target Windows and .NET with great success. In that case, having a Windows development environment makes sense.

However, it sounds like the organization in question was not deploying to Windows - from the article:

...it seemed to me that most of your development happens on Windows (though it’s almost needless to say that you deploy to Linux)

I won't judge you for using Windows over Unix (even though I prefer Unix), but I will judge the choice of using Windows for development when you are targeting Unix. I have had this experience, and it was a Management decision - not an Engineering decision, and it resulted in significantly less productive work environment. Given two opportunities that are otherwise equal, I would definitely choose the company that develops on the same platform that they deploy on (assuming we're talking about Unix or Windows - there are obvious exceptions in the embedded world).

One caveat: It is common for an organization to use both Windows and Linux for different tasks. In that case, the choice of development environment is more complicated.

Either way, I'd say that the candidate should have asked up front during the interview, "Why are you using Windows for development, and could I use Mac/Linux instead?", instead of judging them based on what seems like a lack of information. They may have a good reason. If they don't, your decision is that much easier.

asnyder• 15 years ago

It would be nice to know what type of shop they were, after all in some places your OS just provides a text editor or IDE where you work on files remotely and run in a browser off of a *NIX server. If that was the case it doesn't matter what OS they're developing in, as anyone should be able to develop in the OS and text editor of their choice so long as it can hook up to SSH.

Luyt• 15 years ago

The asymmetry of the situation strikes me. Where a company which decides not to hire someone can only say "we're not following through with your application at this moment" out of fear of litigation, the candidate can freely comment on his decision to not take the job.

It would be nice when companies were able to do the same.

v21• 15 years ago

I live in the UK, and have gotten good feedback from jobs I didn't get. Even though they were rejections, I often agreed with their points and choices. I liked the companies more as a result. If I had solicited, and then received this email, I would be very grateful - this kind of opinion must be very difficult to find.

pnathan• 15 years ago

I believe that things can only be improved with honesty and transparency. I would rather work with someone who gave real feedback than give a mealy-mouthed reply.

The OP is very straightforward and - to me - non-insulting. It might be a bit of a bitter pill to swallow, but when one asks for feedback, one should be grateful when it is given...

my 2c.

mruniverse• 15 years ago

What a little snot. He likes Unix because that's what he knows and he's not comfortable developing in Windows.

I know a lot of middling developers (I include myself in that group) that are like this. The really good devs I know don't care much about the OS. They're more interested in the problems to be solved.

d4nt• 15 years ago

What I hear when reading this is "I feel a greater sense of belonging with Compant Y". Everything else could be just rationalisation after the fact, people are amazingly good at rationalising why they believe the same thing as their friends.

ideamonk• 15 years ago

I got in a similar situation, I interviewed for company X & company Y. I fulfill all the requirements of company X's jobs page. But when it came to the interview, they threw 4 well known questions after a short introduction which sounded more like a pointless formality unlike a real conversation I get when I meet devs at confs.

That night I was interviewed by an employee of Y, and he did spend first 20 minutes asking me questions on two of my side projects, grilling down to details, catching up on new trends. And then there were questions to test my cs skills, and an invite to face-to-face.

Overall I loved the way interviewer from Y dealt with me. I definitely could connect more to the person from Y than from X.

cnunciato• 15 years ago

Of course tools and technology definitely matter, and do influence culture, which also matters, but if someone sent me a letter like this one I'd be genuinely relieved it didn't work out.

arethuza• 15 years ago

I honestly don't see what the problem is with what chap wrote - it's more than 20 years since I graduated and I felt pretty much as he does about Unix, and to a certain extent I still do (even though I don't have any problem using Windows).

I've hired a lot of people over the years, for my own company and for others, and if someone wrote this to me I'd thank them for their feedback and wish them the best luck with their career.

Why I went with them and not you: feedback to an interviewer

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