Eye of the Storm

Sometimes developers are overworked. As more and more time-sensitive tasks are thrown their way, good developers will still do their best to meet their deadlines. They will work harder, faster, and even put in some extra hours because they care about their work. However, when there is so much work do be done that, no matter how hard they try, there is no possible way for them to meet their goals, something unexpected happens. Like a switch, the hopelessness becomes undeniable and, right in the middle of the crisis, developers will lose all sense of urgency. It’s analogous to the eye of a hurricane. As the storm hits, the weather conditions get worse and worse until, right in the center of the storm, there is a sudden, eerie calm.

​ Assessing Aptitude

​I have sat through too many interviews where the candidates claimed to have plenty of experience and they were even able to rattle off good answers to all of the technical questions, but then, when I would ask them to actually write a short program to solve a simple problem, they were totally unable to do so. Sometimes the contrast was downright shocking. Situations like this make two things readily apparent. First, requiring candidates to write actual source code as part of the interview process is crucial. Second, standard technical questions are not always effective.

The reason that such a stark contrast can exist is because most technical questions test for knowledge rather than aptitude.