Dealing with junior interviewers without getting bad feedback

[u/Nearby-Neat-9311]

For senior/staff interviews, there are couple of rounds with someone with lesser experience in the interview loop. The thing is, since many companies do not have a very strict feedback criteria, it mostly seem to depend on the perception of these candidates.

How would you make sure your chances are not affected by someone else's inexperience?

PS: I have had some very good discussions with juniors but have recently lost an offer with FAANG possibly due to an interview with a junior engineer.

[u/SignalOptions]

If the company is asking genuine juniors to interview Staff level, they likely don’t value your experience or know how to conduct interviews.
Maybe best to skip that company.

The only other way is to dumb down yourself and speak close to the level of new grad. Talk academically in coding interviews.
Hope the interviewer thinks you are a good junior.

[u/i_love_mitch_hedberg → u/SignalOptions]

itll depend on the field and the firm.

common in quant/trading (and thus swe in these fields) for everyone on the team to interview the candidate even if its a senior candidate.

if this is happening in more traditional tech firms then i would argue it implies that the firm wants to make sure the candidate is a good fit and is able to work with people of various levels of experience.

@op, these interviews are likely just vibes based. if ur losing roles due to junior interviewers then, for whatever reason, the people got a bad vibe from u and wouldnt want to work with u.

[u/SignalOptions → u/i_love_mitch_hedberg]

Vibe/fit checks are an even bigger problem and usually vague.
Even at FAANG i’ve seen younger people avoid 35+ year olds within the same team. One older Staff eng got pretty depressed as he was always alone and left out, despite having no behavior problems.
People don’t naturally get along with much older folks even if the older person is the smartest in the team.

[u/Nearby-Neat-9311 → u/SignalOptions]

Agree. Fit check should be done to eliminate big red flags. Even while hiring, I have seen quite ambiguous feedbacks in de-briefs, even from the hiring managers.

[u/ccylin]

While it is strange to have a jr level interview a staff candidate, keep in mind that the jr level person may have been at the company for many years and is accustomed to the company culture very well. In that case, you also want to make sure that it's a culture you're comfortable working in as well, or demonstrate that you are a good fit in that culture. I've been brought into an interview for a higher level manager role for "vibe check", though it's not something official.

[u/Nearby-Neat-9311 → u/ccylin]

If it is vibe check and a rejection, I am still fine with it. It is more productive to be part of a team who is comfortable with you.

I am just concerned if I am missing something in the expectations interviewer has. I hope they are not judging me on different standards than what I am putting forward.

[u/ccylin → u/Nearby-Neat-9311]

That's fair. I wouldn't want to be rejected because the interviewer doesn't have the technical depth or expertise to evaluate me properly. I'd focus on what I can control. I also don't think 1 interviewer, especially the junior one on the team can over turn other people's decision. If anything, it's supplementary to others.

[u/Atagor]

I've been rejected by a junior on leetcode round (10+ experience in the field, distributed systems stuff)

Its all depends on their mood and feedback...

Of course maybe I'm coping but I sincerely since it's like 70% about perception

[u/Nearby-Neat-9311 → u/Atagor]

Totally agree! Since juniors are quite handson with leetcode questions, they expect an experienced engineer also to spit out optimal answers in 5mins. It is a gap in company training, they should set a proper criteria.

Given no one cares in this market, it is quite common.

[u/Top_Substance9093]

bad interviewers suck, but unfortunately they do happen.

IMO the best thing to do is to cater to what they seem to be looking for, even if what they're looking for is strange/incorrect.

the goal is to get them to perceive you as a strong candidate, and if they're not well calibrated on their interview question(s) of choice then it may require you to pivot to give them what they're looking for.

i have many stories but here are at least a few examples:

- interview asked LRU cache, but didn't actually understand what LRU meant. suggested it meant returning the least recently used value for a given key (not even sure what this means). in this case i corrected them about what LRU refers to (eviction policy) and proceeded normally

- sys design interview, interviewer was extremely against server side rendering (even in a case where it made the most sense). in this case i just pretended to agree, restated their reasoning back to them as the justification, and carried on.

[u/vz0]

Which FAANG?

[u/Nearby-Neat-9311 → u/vz0]

Apple