Ask HN: Is it possible to get pigeonholed to certain company sizes/cultures?
Hopefully I don&#x27;t get downvoted, but here goes:<p>I&#x27;ve had the same job starting at a small startup, through growth and acquisitions, and I&#x27;ve been involved in hiring through the entire process.<p>Here&#x27;s the dirty secret: startups try to be selective; but they&#x27;re really desperate to hire. This is because startups are so mismanaged and risky that they have a lot of trouble getting someone competent to interview. When we were small, most people we interviewed were either incompetent or incapable of the challenge. Anyone competent got an offer.<p>As part of a mature organization, hiring is different. Most candidates can do the job, and actually want to work for us. (Unlike a startup, we now have good management and won&#x27;t go out of business tomorrow.) Thus, we&#x27;re more concerned with behavior.<p>My &quot;competency test&quot; interview has now evolved to more of a &quot;tell me what I want to hear&quot; interview. It&#x27;s very effective, because almost all hires do the job well without wanting to perform useless refactoring because I didn&#x27;t pick their favorite framework or brace style. It&#x27;s also effective because I know I can communicate about higher level design topics.<p>I suggest, at a certain level, to just concentrate on telling your interviewers what they want to hear. This doesn&#x27;t mean lying, or misrepresenting yourself. It just means that you need to understand who is in charge and play along with the same game everyone else is playing.<p>I&#x27;m also very clear about that when I interview a candidate. I now say something like: &quot;This is a short interview and I try to ask questions that fit into the time. Some of the coding questions aren&#x27;t real situations. The goal is to have a conversation about code, so if something is akward, just play along and do your best.&quot;