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31 Dec 20, 93 tweets, 28 min read
Are you looking for work? Having trouble with job interviews?

You're not alone. Ask me the Difficult Interview Questions, so that I may give my spiteful answer and possibly additional insight.
"I wasn't aware that child abuse was still in vogue."

"Aligned with market rate. Let's first figure out whether or not I'm a fit for the role; if so I can assure you that compensation won't be a barrier."
"Lack of patience for stupid fucking questions, since you asked."

In seriousness, 'dress up a strength as a weakness' is dicey; I prefer 'actual weakness while also saying how I mitigate it.' "I get distracted so I keep a lot of lists."

"While I'm not allowed in the @awscloud data centers, I am assured by people who know that the fire exits are clearly marked."

"Why should I wait until I'm 65 for retirement instead of taking it in bursts while I'm in a position to do fun things with the time? As to short stints, that's a separate question."

Depending upon my mood I was "taking care of a sick relative," "helping a friend with their business," "consulting," or "researching for my upcoming book 'The Dumbest Things I've Been Asked in Job Interviews.'"

"My greatest weakness and strength are the same thing, and here's why."

"That's a pretty rich question coming from someone who wouldn't be a named character in a movie about their own life. We're done here."

If you have other options, take them. If not, I get it; do what you need to in order to feed your family.

"If they have to work here, apparently 'everything in the bar.'"

"Because the last time I tried Amplify it just spat out React/Vue components for backend AWS infrastructure. If it does something beyond that now then someone should check whether its advocates are accidentally under NDA about it or something."
"I'm not really a CSS person."

Don't ever be the most confused person in a conversation.

"Google tells me 168,000. If you want me to approach it from first principles, then 'huh, I bet someone somewhere has figured that out. I should use a search engine to avoid repeating work to discover known things.'"
This is SUPER easy to get wrong!

My opening answer (being sincere (and honest)) here would be "Never twice."

"I didn't come here to be questioned by an eggplant."

"Why would I need to know the answer? The reason I ask is because there's a terrific chance the answer doesn't actually matter and I can just bullshit whatever feels directionally correct."

I will never understand fully why "I have money, you have spreadsheets, we're bartering" is the wrong answer, but it is.

Restate the company's inane mission statement back to them with a straight face and see if they crack.

"It doesn't quite require corrective lenses, but 2030 vision is still a bit hazy."
"On which basis? For some, they're not going to be my customer after we finish the conversation based upon morality. For others, I can indeed smile and take the money from someone who's wrong. Most are in between the two extremes."

"A variety of companies I'm not prepared to disclose at this time, as negotiations are ongoing."

There's nothing they can say to that that isn't massively assholian. Honestly they never should have asked in the first place.

"Let's start with a manual proof of concept. Huh. It seems your office is full of white guys, so who do you propose I yell obscenities at instead?"

"Kubernetes." Then nod sagely. They'll be completely convinced they're missing a marvelous insight.

This is a great question. Start by learning, then implementing things that align. And turn the question back around. What do they expect at those milestones?
"Well, I had to afford things like clothing. Not EVERYONE apparently has their mother dress them."

I'd hit hard because this is fucking insulting. You deserve better.

"Chrome eats all my RAM and the iMac crashes into the sea."

"What the hell is your living situation where you'd ever need more than one?"

"One more than most people realize!"

If I ask you this question in an interview and you live in New York, bonus points for referencing this tweet.

"I think the term is 'acqui-hired?'"

"No, you may not."

Begin as you mean to go on.

"There's extreme value in using higher level things that are provided for you. Otherwise you're going to be building things from scratch via first principles, which is demonstrated by this stupid fucking question."

"Did you ever meet Steve Stevenson?"

"No."

"Exactly."

"Sleep, rest, and stopping work to eat are essential, Mr. Zuckerberg."

"Sorry, I'm not a Scientologist."

"I think what you're really asking is 'would any of those people ever be willing to speak to me again.' In any case the answer is no."

Treat it as an irrelevant piece of trivia for the time being. Sell them on *you* as a candidate first. If they're that enthusiastic, the comp can change--or they can build a higher leveled role for you.

If the number is higher than you wanted? SHUT UP

"That entirely depends upon what you value."

And here's where your hobby-reading of philosophy derails the entire interview.
1. This CLEARLY happened to the person asking.

2. Make them feel like a genius no matter how ridiculous it is.

3. "Wow, I would never have solved it like that!" is honest, uplifting, and a veiled truism if they did a dumb.

"I would sell the island to @FakeOracleLarry and then the people of every weight and hat time will cease to matter because they'll be getting the fuck out within thirty days."

"First, an engineer wants to build something without first gathering data on where the actual paying customers are."

"Why did you leave <discriminatory employer>" is code for "please explicitly put me in a position where I have to prove that choosing not to hire you isn't based upon your membership in a protected class."

Play stupid games, win stupid prizes.
"So how long have you been an ex-Googler?"

"Firing the shitty customer absolutely counts as a solution."

"As a California employee? Absolutely!"

"You can get fired from Google? I mean their Chief Legal guy twice fucked subordinates *IN THE SAME SPOT ON THE ORG CHART* and didn't get explicitly fired, so what on earth would I have to do to get shitcanned, not kill a product?"

Huh. I'm not convinced anyone in tech has ever been asked this question.

"I'm clearly not a culture fit here. Thanks for your time."

"...what the hell is this place's policy about 'outside activities encroaching on work time' anyway?"

"Enough to know that I just reclaimed this half hour, thanks for making it so clear up front!" And then hang up. Because fuck companies like this unless you're actively desperate, in which case take the job but keep interviewing elsewhere.

"Solving bigger problems with better tools. Whether I'm doing that for you or not is going to depend upon both of us."

"Because if that were a hard requirement for the role you would have figured it out and disqualified me long before the in-person interview stage."

"Allow me to demonstrate making like a tree and getting the fuck out of here. I won't ask you to correct that metaphor because it's clear creativity isn't your strong suit."

"You've been asking stupid questions for 20 minutes, are you sure you're capable of recognizing a good one?"

"Please. YAML is YAML."

"I would pass it to @awscloud, who has secured data for transport in a truck."

"Excuse me, this is a professional setting. Please don't encourage me to disregard that fact with irresponsible questions like this."

If they don't like it, they're welcome to use the spoon to eat your ass.

"I don't remember the name of that one AWS service, but it's the thing that does X" is always, always, always acceptable.

They don't put effort into naming the services, why should you put effort into remembering them?

This is a *wonderful* question, full stop. The answer is going to depend upon you. Ask yourself honestly what it is. For some folks it's "no." For others it's "lots of stuff."

"Based upon historical trends, I'd build out an 18 month roadmap. By the end of it nobody will care about the brand anymore and the crisis will have passed."

"Mayflies live less than 24 hours. While that has its drawbacks, the odds would be terrific that I wouldn't hear a question this stupid again for the rest of my life."

"Okay, but only if you agree to go afterwards and tell me which ones I made up."

"Growth."

It's always true, it's always neutral enough, and you politely sidestep the invitation to openly talk shit about your fuckstick of a boss to someone who for all you know might have been in their wedding party.

"Rust. If you disagree, please post that opinion on the internet and then wait."

"I'm concerned you people have no clue what you're doing."

“Honestly I’m just tired of seeing the role apparently go unfilled for so long.”
“Your commitment to empowering the world via machine learning on the blockchain (as mentioned in your mission statement) profoundly moved me.”
“Apparently considerably more than I spend tracking my time like some sad cosplay of an accountant.”
“Because I do most of my posting on Twitter, not writing letters to the editor of Sad Sack Monthly.”
“Let’s back up a few steps and figure out the actual problem you’re solving for here. I’m serious, pull up your résumé.”
“I’ve always tried to structure my career so that I’m the dumbest person in the room. It’s pretty clear that that isn’t going to be the case here, so let’s talk instead about how I’ll adjust to the transition.”
“Because Stockholm Syndrome is a phenomenon, not a guarantee.”
“Because weekends are strictly reserved for Perforce.”
“Based upon that question alone I have no further interest in working here.”

Be sure to see if any of the staff need you to call the police for them on your way out.
“That’s irrelevant; the important question is whether you believe I can do this role.”
“I applied for this job a year ago and didn’t get it. I took a step back, applied myself, framed your predecessor for embezzlement, and am now applying again. Consider your next statement carefully.”
“I have a standing policy against performing actual work for companies during interviews, and I can tell that I’ll be doing that a lot if I work here.”
“It turns out the thirteenth amendment to the US Constitution has a pretty serious exception case.”
“Busybox. I think it’s pretty clear I’m technically correct, so how about we instead have a question about the role itself instead of trivia?”
“Yours.”
“I pay @AAA_Travel specifically so I don’t have to know the answer to that question.”
“I don’t, and they shriek like the souls of the damned.

…wait, was there a second question? Something about foxes?”
“Just today I learned that while candidates agonize over learning how to interview, some interviewers just completely phone the whole thing in.”

In seriousness, always be learning new things.
“…you folks know that you can buy tools written by experts to handle your build / release process, and you don’t have to build them all yourself, right?”
“Well, on last quarter’s earnings call your CEO blamed ‘bad luck’ for your results, so why do you ask?”
“If you’re asking me this question for the reason I suspect you are, hiring me is a win-win because I have no goddamned filter left so someone upstairs is about to learn something new.”
“This is under NDA so whatever you do don’t repeat it, but they’re launching an AWS/400 at reInvent next year.”
“If they’re a good baker, I’d advocate for a location near my house. Otherwise, I’d suggest a location near yours.”
“Whatever billing model you’re considering, I’d urge you to re-examine.”
“You’re hand-waving away an entire branch of civil engineering down to ‘solve it on the fly on a whiteboard’ levels of presumed triviality. Exactly how much did Google Ventures invest in you folks again?”
“Thanks for doing this. It’s a big moment for me—I’ve spent my entire career wondering what gcc would be like if it were a person.”
“How does your team do at handling the unexpected?”
With me. Come run marketing at the Duckbill Group: apply.workable.com/duckbillgroup/…

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More from @QuinnyPig

Corey Quinn Profile picture
30 Dec 20
"I want to insert a static header into every HTTP response, can I do that on CloudFront?"

"Sure, write a custom Lambda@Edge function to do it."

Excuse me--what? Pay you to dynamically run code for every request to inject a single header? Are you serious?
"Did you just now discover this, Corey?"

No, I discovered it in 2017 and not a single blessed thing has changed since then. lastweekinaws.com/blog/a-static-…
"Well there are super technical reasons for this."

Okay, sure, fine, whatever. Magically @fastly has worked around that, but I'll suspend credulity.

Lambda@Edge then becomes an implementation detail. Why do I have to worry about it instead of you?
Read 5 tweets
Corey Quinn Profile picture
30 Dec 20
Time for me to tend my GitHub Issues!

github.com/DuckbillGroup/…
The first PR comes from @benbridts.
I suppress my reflex of smashing the Merge button sight unseen and actually read it.

Well that's embarrassing. I briefly contemplate fixing and rebasing main, then asking him WTF he's talking about, but that would be petty.
Read 11 tweets
Corey Quinn Profile picture
30 Dec 20
What should I dunk on next?
Open source software licensing maybe?
That weird @quinnypig / @IanColdwater crossover episode?
Read 19 tweets
Corey Quinn Profile picture
30 Dec 20
Okay, let me break my own rule and put on my Prediction Pants for a minute.

The day @GitHub gets a "deploy to @Azure" button that Just Works @awscloud is going to find itself in serious trouble.
I don't see what @chetanp does with respect to GCP, but it's a mighty big industry. I suspect we're both pawing at different parts of the elephant.

The single biggest impediment to @azure near-term looks like Old Microsoft playing stupid licensing games to win stupid prizes.
But consider this for a second: You're a developer puttering around in your idle hours. Your @azure free tier resources / limits are a function of your @GitHub activity (social or otherwise). Suddenly it's gamified and profoundly compelling.
Read 6 tweets
Corey Quinn Profile picture
29 Dec 20
While I'm waiting to get unstuck in the @azure thread, let's check in over at @GCPcloud. I just want to invoke this function via cron, buddy.
I need a key value store. I'm immediately confronted by a one-way door.
To enable a Cloud Function, I of course need to first enable the Cloud Build API. Because CI/CD is *IMPORTANT*.

I can't decide if I love or hate this requirement.
Read 4 tweets
Corey Quinn Profile picture
29 Dec 20
Last night's @azure discussion got me curious.

First I have to verify a phone number (Google Voice not allowed), now they want a credit card as well. Which box do I leave blank to *not* get information, tips, and offers?
So far this isn't the experience I had hoped for.
Now to figure out where to generate API keys. Security Center? Doesn't look like it.
Read 8 tweets

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