I hate the “write a fully functional, college exam algorithm programs on a dinky whiteboard while they watch” type interviews. I hate the phone screens where all the screener wants to do is prove how smart they are, and that you aren’t.

I don’t memorize shit. I can’t. Unless I’ve been deep into it in the previous six months, the index is gone and I gotta look it up. Shit from college courses? Nope, not going to happen. I look it up if I need it.

I’ve had people ask me to list out all the option names or lines in a config file. The people at Google asked me how to multiply two numbers on the command line (I don’t, I use a calculator, FFS.)

As a Linux engineer, I deal with potentially hundreds of config files per system. I set them up in config management as I need to, if they aren’t default, and then never have to fuck with them again. I was writing templates to put variables in, and a script to do the substitutions in the early 2000’s. Why would I memorize that shit?

The big one I hate on the systems/network side is what I call the “Seven Layer Cake” — the seven layer OSI model that supposedly every networking person uses so much they have it memorized. Yet the only time I have ever seen it used in a work context outside of an interview is when we were discussing a major redesign of our office network, and then only to explain a problem with firewalling, encryption and appliances, and what layer what happened on. So only once, in almost 20 years. But every systems interviewer asks about it, if they think you might even touch a network or some iptables. I actually use subnetting calcs and cpio more often than the seven layer cake.

I prefer the interviews where they dive into how you handled a project, what the issues were and how you solved it. I’m a lot more interested in someone’s problem solving skills that picayune language and algorithm details.

Also, when they don’t get back to you, or you know they rejected you because you weren’t a RCG, it makes you hate the entire industry.