My worst: I had just built from the ground-up a white-label platform for large insurance companies to sell their products via the web (lead web dev). So we're talking entire web stack - front-end, back-end + API. This was using .NET technologies.
I was at a point in my career where I wanted to pivot to PHP or something like it (this was pre .NET Core - I was fed-up with .NET Framework)
I interviewed for a position that was an attempt to pivot to PHP + some Typescript based products. Interview went well. Then the "test" came...
I was given a linux VM and asked to build a super basic web app that just logged the IPs of visitors. Easy enough.
But, the fact I was not very familiar with PHP, a huge amount of nervousness, etc. I just totally blanked and bombed it.
I just had to store unique incoming IPs in a database. Then display those in a table. That's it!
I was told months later that everything went well, but they didn't feel my back-end experience was enough 😂
Anyways, a good laugh looking back.
My advice - just do as many interviews as possible. Do mock interviews. My stumbling block was just mere nervousness. With practice it does get better 😉
Another one, while we are at it (yes there's more!):
Interviewed for a position as a primarily VueJs developer. Everything went well. Last minute discovered that I would be involved in a project that for me was just totally against my ethics.
Had to jump ship last minute 😢
More advice - ask more questions about the nature of the projects you'll be working on up-front!!!
Had to edit and add another one after reading some other ones below! 😂😂
Interviewed for a full-stack developer position. But, with "an eye for design". Sure - sounds like me.
During the interview with the CTO he was asking me only design related questions. Can I use photoshop? Can I produce mock-ups? Can I create animations? Can I make nice infographics?
When it came around to my time to ask questions, I started asking about underlying reasons for choosing the tech stack he had chosen for the company (they were starting to build a new "tech team" for the company).
He couldn't answer any of my questions...🤔
Stuff like:
"Why are you choosing to use MVC vs. a single page application?"
"What will the deployment process look like?"
"Why did you choose to use .NET Framework vs. [X,Y,Z]"
"What front-end technologies are you planning to use and why?"
I always was nervous but in my last interview i decided to don't get nervous and one manager told me "you look too calm for this company" (i think he meant i was lazy), rejected because that, wtf?
Regarding the first one, I don't understand why interview a lead and sack him because he doesn't know the PHP standard library by memory knowing full well he could pick it up quickly and that the value he brings to the company is not the syntax 🤔
Exactly, to many things to memorize, to many versions and changes and if you work with many programming languages, it's hard to know every single function.
Love it! hahaha 😂
My worst: I had just built from the ground-up a white-label platform for large insurance companies to sell their products via the web (lead web dev). So we're talking entire web stack - front-end, back-end + API. This was using .NET technologies.
I was at a point in my career where I wanted to pivot to PHP or something like it (this was pre .NET Core - I was fed-up with .NET Framework)
I interviewed for a position that was an attempt to pivot to PHP + some Typescript based products. Interview went well. Then the "test" came...
I was given a linux VM and asked to build a super basic web app that just logged the IPs of visitors. Easy enough.
But, the fact I was not very familiar with PHP, a huge amount of nervousness, etc. I just totally blanked and bombed it.
I just had to store unique incoming IPs in a database. Then display those in a table. That's it!
I was told months later that everything went well, but they didn't feel my back-end experience was enough 😂
Anyways, a good laugh looking back.
My advice - just do as many interviews as possible. Do mock interviews. My stumbling block was just mere nervousness. With practice it does get better 😉
Another one, while we are at it (yes there's more!):
Interviewed for a position as a primarily VueJs developer. Everything went well. Last minute discovered that I would be involved in a project that for me was just totally against my ethics.
Had to jump ship last minute 😢
More advice - ask more questions about the nature of the projects you'll be working on up-front!!!
Had to edit and add another one after reading some other ones below! 😂😂
Interviewed for a full-stack developer position. But, with "an eye for design". Sure - sounds like me.
During the interview with the CTO he was asking me only design related questions. Can I use photoshop? Can I produce mock-ups? Can I create animations? Can I make nice infographics?
When it came around to my time to ask questions, I started asking about underlying reasons for choosing the tech stack he had chosen for the company (they were starting to build a new "tech team" for the company).
He couldn't answer any of my questions...🤔
Stuff like:
Anyways, I didn't get the job! 😜
I always was nervous but in my last interview i decided to don't get nervous and one manager told me "you look too calm for this company" (i think he meant i was lazy), rejected because that, wtf?
Regarding the first one, I don't understand why interview a lead and sack him because he doesn't know the PHP standard library by memory knowing full well he could pick it up quickly and that the value he brings to the company is not the syntax 🤔
Exactly, to many things to memorize, to many versions and changes and if you work with many programming languages, it's hard to know every single function.
Ya, not sure either....