Ask IH: Interviews with Software Developers
I've been thinking about doing interviews with software developers for awhile now.
Instead of talking about tech, the interviews would be mostly focused on the non-technical side. Things like productivity, dealing with imposter syndrome, how to approach building out a new feature, etc.
I've been doing interviews in a different website for over a year now, so I have already figured out a process.
Would this be something you would read? What questions would you be interested in hearing about?
I think a small issue you'll find is many of us have our own blogs that we discuss these topics on. It's like the number one thing people tell us to do to build a brand as a software engineer.
An interview is a much different format, though, and could be interesting for a reader. We all seem to fricken love talking about our war stories. I know I do.
I think the fact that there are so many devs with blogs means that:
Unless I'm totally wrong about my thinking here?
You're not wrong. I think the issue is on the other side: your interview site is positioned in a sea of blogs that probably answer most of the same questions. You won't have a problem getting people to interview: you'll have a problem getting noticed by readers.
If you have a solid plan to drive traffic to the site, then by all means.
I would love to hear different developer's views/approaches to the same/similar questions.
"What do you see a developer's role in businesses as?"
"What do you look for first/second when tackling a bug, why?"
"What do you (dis)like most about being a dev?"
I'd also love to hear how devs go from full-time to freelance to product-focused. (Kinda the opposite of Louis)
Thanks for the feedback on the questions.
This idea of showing career progression is quite interesting, hadn't thought of that at all! I know in the past I've wanted to know more about how full-time devs made it into freelancing.
My subjective opinion:
I'm a self taught dev and can happily bang out an MVP for a mobile or web app that's usable and doesn't look terrible.
I also have a secret desire to work as a full time developer! (even though it would be a 'step back' career-wise with lower pay etc)
Yet when I gaze longingly at job postings frm time to time, it seems like the experience I have is nowhere near enough (or even the right experience) to find full time employment as a developer...
If you had interviews and information on going from me to fulltime web-dev employee me, I'd definitely read and pay for the privilege!
I think this is a great idea, and gives a bit more opportunity for monetization.
What if the interviews were also about what it is like to work at <tech company>? I've felt that looking at resumes never really tells you much about what it's actually like to work at a place.
I think that would be interesting and useful (just not really for me so much).
That would take you into a similar territory to keyvalues.com (working out whether you would be a good culture fit with a company before applying there). The founder, Lynne, is pretty active on the forum here as well.
I launched a site a while back called A Hacker's Day (https://ahackersday.com). Here I interview programmers, designers, entrepreneurs and so on where I actually asks questions like this.
Even Courtland Allen who runs this site has been interviewed there: https://ahackersday.com/interviews/courtland-allen-from-indiehackers/ :-)
I love this topic and reading the answers I get back when interviewing. I'm working on a new design and want to increase the number of interviews and maybe start asking a few other questions too.
I believe this would be interesting, but it depends on the angle and questions of the interview.
I read both Founders at Work and Coders at Work, and I like the former better because they focus more on story telling, while the later focus on technicality (I am a programmer).
Some of my preferred topics:
I'm a developer who blogs quite a bit about non-technical stuff. Particularly soft skills are something we should be talking about more as an industry and I would be happy to give an interview.