Reminds me of an interview I had at a company that works closely with SpaceX and is staffed mostly by ex-SpaceX engineers:
To get ready for the interview I made myself familiar with the technologies they were using. In the interview I was asked basic questions about data structures and interviewers were clearly unimpressed with my answers. Then the manager involved asked a bunch of questions about ability to follow instructions. Giving them examples of me convincing coworkers to go along with management instructions they disagreed with failed to impress.
The whole situation seemed strange, out of place for the context, and even hostile. The position appeared interesting at first, but talking to the people involved it seems I dodged a bullet. Ageism may be involved, but there also seem to be some very strong but brittle beliefs about what tools and approaches work. All that combines with a readiness, even eagerness, to say no to applicants. Which was really strange in this case as I have decades of coding experience and seemed more familiar with the specific technologies being used than the existing team. Maybe that was part of the problem?
> I have decades of coding experience and seemed more familiar with the specific technologies being used than the existing team. Maybe that was part of the problem?
I interviewed at SpaceX and their questions were illuminating.
One question was, "If you supported a set of capable engineers and they were running python scripts in a shared environment, but they were running into performance issues, what would you do?"
My first thought was, "Holy hell, you're letting non-developers run arbitrary code in some sort of Wild West environment and you're wondering why you have issues? Why would you ever do that?"
I did not respond in this way to the interviewer, but my impression of them was somewhat diminished as a result of my discovery and due diligence during the interview.
I think I probably would have responded in that way to the interviewer. Most likely I wouldn't have gotten the offer, but I'm not sure I could have contained myself.
To get ready for the interview I made myself familiar with the technologies they were using. In the interview I was asked basic questions about data structures and interviewers were clearly unimpressed with my answers. Then the manager involved asked a bunch of questions about ability to follow instructions. Giving them examples of me convincing coworkers to go along with management instructions they disagreed with failed to impress.
The whole situation seemed strange, out of place for the context, and even hostile. The position appeared interesting at first, but talking to the people involved it seems I dodged a bullet. Ageism may be involved, but there also seem to be some very strong but brittle beliefs about what tools and approaches work. All that combines with a readiness, even eagerness, to say no to applicants. Which was really strange in this case as I have decades of coding experience and seemed more familiar with the specific technologies being used than the existing team. Maybe that was part of the problem?