Comment by t43562

Interviewing is difficult IMO - asking imperfect people to judge imperfect people in a short time.

In my experience, which is not that great, it's the attitude that people have which is more important than the perfect answers. You're usually hiring for a team so someone who is prepared to be decent to others is essential and IMO their 10xness is much less important than this.

Then I want someone who is interested in computing or things in general - not purely motivated by the money. That sort of person who is going to try to do a good job for the sake of it and who wants to learn something new - who will be ok with doing things they're not yet experts at.

These 2 sort of areas are not easy to have together IMO. If I find people like this I am eager to work with them.

What I get from being the interviewee is that other people are not always looking for these characteristics. They're often looking for someone they can dominate. This is like my point about being part of a team but taken further obviously. In a team you cannot have everything your own way but you get to put your point across and see if you can convince others, as a peon in a feudal system you will have nothing your own way and must not only do but also say and pretend to think what you are told.

Bullshit is just really a test for whether you're amenable to being part of the propaganda. Some people have no trouble doing this but I think there's something about being a programmer that tends away from fakeness. That's not to say that we haven't got an overload of bullshitters but at the root you have to be able to make things that work.