An interview code submission that wasn’t even submitted changed our process
I&#x27;ve been long frustrated about how technical interviewing takes place in our industry (and I&#x27;ve written about it quite a bit as well eg. <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.neilwithdata.com&#x2F;developer-hiring" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.neilwithdata.com&#x2F;developer-hiring</a>)<p>I think many companies through the hiring process completely lose sight of what they are actually looking for. They forget that the barriers they erected (whether they be whiteboard problems, take-home coding tests, algorithmic dance on your head textbook problems, etc.) are simply signals about the actual person and their capabilities...and usually, they&#x27;re _exceedingly poor signals_. That&#x27;s why you end up with situations where extremely accomplished and talented developers don&#x27;t pass many technical interviews at companies where they would have otherwise gone on to be outstanding employees.<p>And it keeps happening, and happening, and happening.<p>Interviewing for a developer role should be far, far, far more holistic than it is today - rather than throwing away my entire history of accomplishments and creations and just assessing me on the spot in a 2hr winner-takes-all high-stakes game of whiteboard&#x2F;technical trivia.<p>For example:<p>* If I have a strong GitHub portfolio of projects I can prove I worked on, that should 100% take priority as a signal as to my capability and how I think about committing regularly, writing clear commit messages, etc.<p>* If I&#x27;ve built products I can prove I alone built and I can walk you through my code, that should 100% take priority as a signal as to how I write code, my proficiency with a particular language, etc.<p>* If I communicate clearly over email, have a blog with my writing demonstrating my ability to clearly communicate technical topics, that should 100% take priority as a signal as to how well I communicate.<p>etc, etc.<p>Sadly, today, I&#x27;d say ~90% of technical interviews completely and utterly ignore all the above and want you to do the technical monkey dance...because clearly, what makes a developer great is grinding leetcode for 3 months and then pretending you haven&#x27;t seen the problems before during the interview.