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Interview Process F.A.Q.

Any recruiter who reaches out to me will be expected to fully comply with all required pay transparency laws for WA state.

Why do software engineers prefer working from home over going to an office?

Most software engineers I know actively hate driving; I myself want to live a "car free" life. This is a common thing in software, But a lot of people working in Software HR don't seem to understand this or how it changes how they should be interacting with us. After all, why do you think so many of us are trying to build self driving cars? Its not because we love to drive and just dont want others to drive, its because most of us in software understand that driving is an amazingly ineffecent process that wastes valuable time and energy on a massive scale.. and we can actually do that math in our heads.

Either way, if I'm not going into an office, then that also means I'm not exposed to the risks of going to an office.

When I work from home, I'm not dealing with sexual harassment from my boss or peers.

When I work from home, I'm not paying to risk my life on the highway for hours at a time every day, and I don't have the expense a car, of parking or fuel or insurance, to worry about. Every cent I spend on a car that I really only use to get to work is literally just a tax to get to work, not only on myself, but also the company I work for. I would much rather not waste anyones money. My working from a home office is simply cheaper and more effective.

I'm also not risking death from c19 by going into an office. II'm not risking my life, and I'm not risking other people's lives by putting myself at risk of transmitting the disease to other people who might be sensitive or even killed by it. I have lost too many fully vaccinated friends to death from c19.

WFH is just safer. That is why I am only 100% remote with no travel until c19 is fully cured.

Why do you want a clear map of the hiring process we use in advance?

I'm auditing your hiring process to make sure that your company process reflects the ethics and integrity I expect from my employer in all facets of the company.

I'm looking for red flags and things that would scare me away, because I know any bad requests I find in the interview process will only get worse if I allow myself to be hired.

I'm looking to mitigate the risk that I will suffer through a broken hiring process only to find out in the last minute of the last meeting of the interview loop that I'm not interested.

I'm judging how (or if) you value your employees by picking apart your hiring process to understand you better.

Why do you hate panel interviews?

Because they explicitly discriminate illegally against disabled applicants in violation of federal and state hiring standards.

Because I am against any abuse of my fellow humans, especially fellow engineers.

Because they are explicitly designed to create misunderstanding, pain, and suffering, and that is all against my values and ethics.

Why do you dislike and avoid any "level.io-style" scheduling system?

Because as a designer I feel that they have badly designed their system to waste job seekers time and burden them with more work, intentionally, as an intentional design defect used to gaslight candidates and stress them out, intentionally doing harm to job seekers that is needless, unfair, and predictory, in a very evil and nuanced way.

Please use my Calendly instead; I will not use any link for scheduling that requires I do the work to duplicate my entire calendar just to give you my availability, you can just use the system I already have that tracks this without all the additional work and waste that requires I block off more time on my schedule than we would actually end up using. That really seems to be the most reasonable thing to me.

If you don't want to use my calendly, or you instead want me to waste my time, we can't work together. Period. I wont use systems that intentionally seek to harm me, and I don't work with people who seek to harm me that way.

Any scheduling system that requires duplicate effort is simply a poorly designed and ineffective way to schedule candidates. As a engineer, I would rather use the best and most effective tools for the job. As a leader, I value your time, and I would much rather we only block the time on our schedule we actually need to collaborate.

tldr; I am against the wasteful and poor design of level.io's scheduling systems as my personal opinion as a designer is that they intentionally force duplication of effort and actively seek to harm the job search process of the candidate.

Why do you ask that we disclose if any internal candidates are going after the role that we reached out to you about?

Because I fully understand that you may have a legal requirement to post the job publicly, even if you already know you're going to give it to somebody specific. Thing is, I also fully understand that you are making the intentional choice not to be honest in the job description that you are posting publicly... so if you intentionally choose to misrepresent the role I have to hold that against you.

Because if you are contacting me just to check boxes for another candidate, then I believe you are just committing labor fraud.

Why do you charge full professional per-diem rates for projects assigned as tasks in interviews?

Because these kind of requests are explicitly illegal per the minimal wage laws of Washington State.

Because my professional experience working at the top tech companies in the world - See my resume - have shown me that this sort of request is only done by pretender companies that don't know what they're really doing, so you show me you are not a good company to work for when you request this.

I have no issue with doing an actual interview; But asking me to solve the problems your own top employees can't solve without hiring me first is a deal-breaker, and I consider it an abusive form of employment fraud on your companies part because you can't legally use the interview process to collect solutions or free work, or it really is considered employment fraud.

Because asking an engineer for a free project they work on and complete by themselves outside of a scheduled interview meeting under the guise of an interview is a form of illegal employment fraud and abuse in my state, as it has been explained to me by a lawyer.

Because shady companies who just want free work for larger projects done that have been scoped out to be the size needed for interviews as an illegal form of labor fraud have harmed me in the past, so my policy is simply not to allow it out of a sincere desire to help myself and others not be abused by these imposters and bad actors who do not represent the bulk of the tech community.

Why wont you do a hacker-rank style test for us?

Because requiring them in an interview is always illegal.

Because even the terms of service for them generally always state they should not even be used for hiring under the laws of the state they are based in, much less my own, as I live in a different state, so its illegal for me to take them.

Because these websites are often intentionally illegally hostile to software developers with disabilities, and so because they do not respect the ADA as federal law mandates or follow web accessability standards, they cant possibly be legal to use in hiring under federal law as I understand it.

As an incursive and collaborative technical leader, I can't support any company that intentionally discriminates against the disabled when they are looking for work. This includes any company that requires an illegal interview process like that.

Because even if "Griggs v. Duke Power Co" didn't make it federally illegal in the 70's because it violates civil rights laws, the terms of service for that website says its not legal to use it for hiring in that way, so I can only assume that any hiring team doing so is either unsafe to join due to what they do not know, or possibly has intentionally malicious intent.

Because any team that reaches out to me and has to use third party tests or third party companies to successfully complete a simple technical interview that any real, competent, hiring managers should be able to handle by themselves without any help from a third party, is showing that they lack the credibility to be trusted as my employer, as they are not a real tech company. This is also showing they lack the technical leadership as a company to have long term business continuity without depending on third parties outside of their company, and this is highlighting a weakness in their own business model that shows they are not technically competent enough to handle their own business needs without the support of third parties that I know they cannot really depend on.

Any company that places itself in this position is showing that they are not technical enough to handle their own business continuity needs from an engineering perspective.

A company doing this is showing they are not technical enough to handle their own business; these third parties they depend on are just effectively controlling that part of their company for them, instead of the company taking ownership of its own fate. I want to work at a company that wants to control its own fate.

If you want to see my skills, check out my LinkedIn or my Github. I have been doing this for too long to fall for these sort of dumb and illegal requests. If you are really that desperate for free code, you have already failed, so go away.

Why are recruiters required by law to only tell the truth and be 100% transparent and forthright?

Its's the law in Washington State that all HR, Recruiters, or other "Labor Agents" (aka anybody working in staffing or recruiting or HR) be 100% honest and transparent at all times as lying or misrepresentation is explicitly illegal under https://app.leg.wa.gov/rcw/default.aspx?cite=49.44.050

It is important to note that this is *in addition* to all other HR/Recruiting/Staffing laws that exist for WA state AND in addition to any laws of your local state.

So if its legal to lie in your state when hiring, it is no longer legal to lie in your state, when you reach out to me, as that would violate federal laws, due to my state law being broken over state lines.

Why are unpaid projects in interviews always illegal?

Unpaid projects, also known as "Working interviews" are generally not considered to be legal in Washington state due to the Washington Minimal Wage Act (MWA, codified in Chapter 49.46 of the Revised Code of Washington (RCW)). This law establishes the minimum wage for workers in the state, as well as the conditions under which individuals may be considered volunteers, interviewers, or interns, rather than employees. Employers should avoid using them in their hiring processes as under the MWA, an individual must be considered an employee if they are performing work tasks that are controlled or directed by the employer, and if they are not receiving training that is similar to that which would be given in an educational institution.

This means unless you are paying somebody a fair wage as an employee, you can't ask people to do work for you, legally. Your states minimal wage law mitigates this risk by design, and if your state does not have a minimal wage, then the federal one still applies and so that still makes this impossible to respect when asked for. Anybody asking for this is always breaking the law and trying to hire illegally in violation of these strict minimal wage laws, and as it was explained to me, this was actually one of the big reasons minimal wage laws were passed as civil rights laws.

Why is a labor agent (recruiter, sourcing, HR, etc.) saying they have no set pay range 100% always a red flag?

Because I'm in Washington state, and by WA law you must have a pay range on the job description or it's not a legal attempt to hire.

It's a red flag if you tell me you don't have a pay range because my prior experience with hiring means I'm fully aware that hiring requires a process that most people don't see that includes a requirement to find the budget so that the company can know what it can actually afford to spend every month for the employee that it's trying to hire as part of the labor compliance paperwork for accounting. So if you lack this kind of range/budget, that tells me you don't actually have a budget to hire with, and so that tells me that logically you are not really hiring, because your not following a process that can be trusted and by doing that, you are showing me that you can't be trusted. At that point, I MUST consider you to be a scammer/grifter/fraud every time. Most of the time people attempting this scam (and thats exactly what it is) are just trying to commit labor fraud of some kind by either misrepresenting themselves and their budget. Besides, Why would I want to work for somebody who wants to intentionally lie to me from the start?

Why is a hiring manager calling out a persons prior contracting experience as "jumpy" actually a red flag that the company hired the wrong hiring manager?

The ability to do short term contracts or "job hop" shows you are not only capable and skilled enough to get that new job easily, but it also shows that the leadership from prior roles made mistakes and you recovered from them without them, further proving that the mistakes they made were not yours. This calls out the possibility of their own inability to lead; that makes them really uncomfortable. If it makes them REALLY uncomfortable, they will also often make this claim out of ignorance. I have found that these two things often intersect; after all, a hiring manager is not going to be scared of a person who can replace them unless they can actually do so.

As a result, hiring managers that call out job hopping often have weak egos and poor skill sets, because they're typically under skilled and under engaged in the company most times themselves. That is why they are not leveling themselves up to be able to do the same contracting and growth as the people who are skilled enough to do contracts and get the jobs that the hiring manager is too scared to get experience with themselves; So this means that when a hiring manager calls out somebody who was good enough to do contracting, and claims that its really just "job hopping", they are explicitly showing that they are ignorant of the market, what is possible, and showing that they lack critical industry experience and are scared of what that person can do for the company.

Because every time I did a contract at MSFT, I beat out hundreds of thousands of other people who applied for the job, every time. And I did that multiple times, over many years. So anybody who says that a contractor has less value than an employee, is telling lies out of either ignorance, or intentional malice.

As a result of that, they themselves do not work on their skills or improve in their roles. This leads to a plateau in their technical abilities as managers and that is why a job hopper scares them, because they know themselves that they could never go out into the wild world and actually get a different job every few months, because they are not skilled enough to do that, They know it. So if a job hopper turns them off, and they don't want to hire somebody that they now know and have evidence is more skilled than they are, and has more skills and abilities than they do, that puts a person like the hiring manager at risk of losing their own job and being replaced by the person skilled enough to get a new job every 6 months. And so that is why job hopping is called out so much by weak hiring managers, because weak and under-skilled jr-level hiring managers see that as an indication that the person might be able to replace them. The best way to show strength as a hiring manager is to not worry about it, because that will help you stay in your own role as well to have good people in your org you can ask questions and learn from.