Mock Interview with Shawn McGrath
Why Hacker News recommends it
HN cites it as the example of a better alternative to whiteboard and fizzbuzz-style interviews.
What it is
A live mock programmer interview in which Casey Muratori interviews game developer Shawn McGrath using a less confrontational format devised by Chris Hecker. It gets deep into technical details while showing how the candidate actually thinks and works.
Recommended by 6 HN commenters across 6 different months, 2017 to 2023.
What Hacker News said
Recommends jblow · 2017-01 · on “Ask HN: What are good software architecture interview questions?”
It's not specific questions that are important so much as the process. You want the questions to be tailored to the candidate. See this example: [this video]
Recommends lj3 · 2017-03 · on “Tech Interview Torture Chamber”
I don't know why you're being downvoted. This is essentially what I suggest for an interview process and I'm not the only one. [this video]
Recommends zozbot123 · 2018-11 · on “Google's interview system: it's not about solving the problem”
To any hiring managers that might be reading this, please watch this alternative method of interviewing: [this video]
Recommends yakubin · 2020-09 · on “Ask HN: What is a better approach to interviewing?”
Casey Muratori showcased a new model of a programming interview here: [this video] It shows to the interviewer how a given person works in a programming job, how they researched solutions to the problems they were faced with in the past etc.; as opposed to the usual exercises that have nothing to do with the job and won't really show you how well they will perform. It's also less confrontational which should put the interviewee at more ease.
Recommends PainfullyNormal · 2022-08 · on “Why is recruiting developers so difficult?”
There are ways of discovering if somebody can code without making them do fizzbuzz. This is a good process: [this video]
Recommends andai · 2023-12 · on “NN-SVG”
This is great! I'm currently learning 2D graphics from scratch (making vector art software), can anyone recommend any related resources? I found this interview (one relevant bit at 29:55) very interesting. Shawn McGrath did the graphics code for the game N++ which is very vectory, so he found efficient ways to render it on a GPU. [this video]