Toxic tech interviews still rampant

Photo by Tima Miroshnichenko from Pexels

A tweet that is burning up my timeline today:

Anna

@annarages

Some guy interviewing me just called me a junior developer based on my skills and told me "software is not for me" while smirking. How is your Monday going?

19:23 PM - 04 Apr 2022

If that seems outrageous, wait until you read the avalanche of similar experiences in the thread's replies.

Why is this so common, still, in 2022? The tech industry has always enabled jerks and it hasn't changed despite frequent calls for reform over the years. I have collected a folder full of bookmarks about similar issues for over a decade, and, yet, it doesn't seem to end.

• Brilliant Jerks in Engineering

• Be Kind

• The Programming Talent Myth

• The Myth of the Sufficiently-Smart Engineer

Almost as stark as the calls for our industry to do better, are the "Top 10" articles about how you might be a bad programmer, which neglect to mention any human relationship skills at all, such as Signs that you're a bad programmer.

It's rare to find an essay that pushes back on technical skill in favor of "soft skills" like Austin Tindle's You need better programmers.

I don't know how engineering managers and directors aren't fighting this invasive problem more. People shouldn't be in senior-and-above roles in engineering orgs if they are asshats. No one should have to write an article like Tricks for Dealing with Toxic Colleagues but, in fact, we have many of them.

About interviews: the format of the typical tech interview itself sets up a power dynamic that is not productive. Not productive at all. If hiring is the goal, why is it that we put people in the stressful, alienating position of going into a strange room with no windows, that they've never been in, and then send a series of pairs of people in to grill them with questions and problems that don't even resemble the day-to-day work for a person in that position?

Something needs to change.

Dear tech industry: Do Better.