zlacker

Reminds me of: https://twitter.com/mxcl/status/608682016205344768?lang=en

How exactly could a PM interview process (which is just asking you to walk through a bunch of design scenarios) give a stronger hiring signal than having developed a product the company wanted to acqui-hire? Honestly somewhat insulting that they made him go through a full external interview loop. At most it should have been some informal chats of the sort you get when transferring teams internally.

>>ahelwe+(OP)
> Honestly somewhat insulting that they made him go through a full external interview loop.

Wait, what? So if someone is a "name brand" celebrity, they should get to jump the queue and coast by with an "informal chat?" How is that fair? I don't care if I'm interviewing John Carmack, he's getting the same evaluation process I would give to any other senior candidate. Software Engineering's got enough problems with interviewing--it doesn't need an aristocracy that gets special treatment.

>>ryandr+Ua
Technical interviews aren't a hazing ritual that we should all suffer equally out of some misplaced idea of equality. They're just one way of informing the decision of whether to hire someone.

>>ryandr+Ua
I find it unlikely that even large companies put their superstar famous hires through the same hiring process.

>>jjeaff+5g
They don't for sure given a certain point. It is known. Have you ever heard of a formal interview process for execs.. No.

>>ryandr+Ua
That's absurd. What he has built literally demonstrates he has the ability that the role requires - which is entirely what the entire interview loop is trying to ascertain. If you can ascertain that a person has a skillset without that loop, it is completely unnecessary.

>>ryandr+Ua
The point of an interview is to figure out the capabilities of a candidate. If they are already known, it makes most of the interview process pointless.

>>defnot+Jg
Actually there are processes for execs too, the board has to justify appointments. But yes, they can be a formality.

>>ahelwe+(OP)
I think the reason this process was used is because if you are some random employee at Microsoft, you don't have the ability to just acquire a company. You probably don't even know who to look for to ask for such a thing. But what you can do is create a req for a position and refer someone you know for it.

I am guessing that the average "higher up" at Microsoft does not know what AppGet is, or even what the priorities for package management in Windows are. It's just not a high level strategy thing, it's a low level engineering thing.

>>nsains+qj
Perhaps the role actually required skills other than those used to build Homebrew?

>>nsains+qj
That is simply not true, he wrote the package manager as a side project, that says nothing about if he is a good cultural fit for Microsoft.