I despise interviewing for software positions. Engineers love to treat interviews like some kind of hazing. They're gonna make you quiver and sweat and if you can still solve their stupid brainteaser maybe they'll give you the honor of working with them. Problem being, this has basically nothing to do with how good you'll be at the job. I spend 0% of a normal day with someone I don't know staring me down and judging every line of code I write in realtime.
I much prefer medium sized offline coding challenges, both for myself and for hiring my team. You give a good engineer a small project to work on, an he should crush it. Because that actually has something to do with what engineers do on a day to day basis. Personally, I get the job pretty much every time if I am told to build a small project, and I crash and burn almost every time if I get the SWAT team of surly technical interviewers.
It's worked fine for me because the small companies I like to work for are more apt to give out the projects, but still I could do without some of the awkward interviews I've gone through with companies who use the Google-like process.
I remember one such interview. I had to write a relatively small and simple routine. I was supposed to start talking/coding immediately, when I stopped doing that for maybe 5-10 seconds (I think it's pretty normal that you might need a little bit of private time with your brain...), I was asked to tell what I'm thinking about. This question was being repeated throughout the whole interview. But how can I think about anything, when I have to constantly blabber?
I'm a software developer. By far the best interview I've had in the past few years was with a very small startup in NYC with some cool tech. We had a fairly extensive and relatively detailed tech interview over the phone that included mostly general questions like explaining how DNS lookups work. They then gave me a fun, throw-away programming project to do offline in a day or so that utilized their preferred stack, and they PAID ME with for it with a $150 Amazon gift card. I can't tell you how many bonus points they earned with me, both for the enjoyable, puzzle-free interview and for signalling that they understood that my time had value. I was ultimately told that they had "changed direction" and weren't going to hire at all, and I have no reason not to believe them. I don't feel like my investment in time with them was wasted or that I was insulted/abused in any way, quite the opposite and that was refreshing.
I actually enjoyed the few times I was asked to do a small project, and I think it's much better way of evaluating someone, if done right.
First off it's a sign of commitment from the candidate : as small as the project can be, it will require on his/her part to invest more hours than the one/two of a live technical interview.
Second, it's much closer to what your real job will entail : being given a task, committing to deliver on a definite deadline, and doing it using whatever tools and sources of information you are more comfortable with.
A live interview should still be the final step, but in this case the candidate should defend and discuss how the project was realized, possible improvements and problems : this way the company should be able to confirm that the project was actually done by the person being interviewed as well as judging his ability to explain, communicate and work with other people.
I believe this is exactly how it should be done. I don't think it very likely that someone could cheat on the project and then still be able to speak intelligently about the solution.
Nowadays when recruiters ask me more than two algorithmic questions in the same interview I just tell them gently to fuck off because "I'm not an algorithmic dictionary and when I need to use one i google it and it's done."
I agree with you that a lot of SE interviews are frustratingly pointless, but I disagree that coding challenges alone are adequate. A very important aspect of being on a team of engineers is collaboration, which often comes down to solving tough problems as a team at the whiteboard. I spend maybe 5% of my work time doing this, yet it's some of the most efficient use of my time - the hour I spend fleshing through an idea with a coworker often saves me 10 hours meandering through a problem on my own.
Interviews are not collaborative. They're intensely hostile experiences, even when interviewers are trying hard to be nice (many don't). It's silly to suggest that a job interview is a venue to evaluate how a candidate collaborates.
Admittedly, I don't have a huge interview experience (on either side), but that hasn't been my experience. Apart from the implicit pressure of the fact that you are being evaluated, most of the interviews have given me the impression that the opposite party are really trying to learn about me, not putting me through a hazing experience.
I much prefer medium sized offline coding challenges, both for myself and for hiring my team. You give a good engineer a small project to work on, an he should crush it. Because that actually has something to do with what engineers do on a day to day basis. Personally, I get the job pretty much every time if I am told to build a small project, and I crash and burn almost every time if I get the SWAT team of surly technical interviewers.
It's worked fine for me because the small companies I like to work for are more apt to give out the projects, but still I could do without some of the awkward interviews I've gone through with companies who use the Google-like process.