I think many people would agree with the statement that bad experiences teach us better than good ones. I fall into this group.
A few months ago, I had an interview for a Software Engineer position at a product-based software company. The interviewer was the Head of Engineering, or at least someone in a similar role.
The very first question I got was: Why did you apply for this job? I usually don’t have an answer for this because I’ ve never really cared about the companies that post job openings (I need to improve this). But that day, I actually had an answer.
I told the interviewer that I had randomly come across the company’s blog because I had been using their product for a while. I really loved the articles. These articles were in the format of someone interviewing an engineer about what he had done and what his day at the company was like. I loved them for two major reasons.
First, I liked the person who wrote them. I could feel his emotions—he did his job with passion, not just for KPIs. Second, I liked the engineer featured in the articles. I liked what he had done, his working style, and the way he told his story—just stating facts without exaggeration or unnecessary hype.
I shared all of this with the interviewer.
Interviewer: Who is the engineer in the article?
Me: Well… I don’t remember.
Interviewer: You said you read it. You must know.
Me: Yeah, I read it. I liked the content, I liked the guy’s style, but I didn’t pay attention to his identity.
Interviewer: Have you read about any other engineers?
Me: Nah, I don’t recall, but I’m pretty sure I didn’t.
Interviewer: Did you read my articles?
At that moment, I thought, Damn it. But I just responded clearly: Ah… no, I didn’t.
The second question I got was: Are you a passionate person?
I wanted to be honest, so I said, I like what I’m doing now, but I wouldn’t say I’m truly passionate about it. So, I’d say I’m just a little above average in terms of enthusiasm.
Before I even finished my answer, he cut in:
Interviewer: You don’t need to act humble. Here, we don’t value humility.
I wasn’t trying to be humble—I was just expressing myself honestly.
The rest of the interview was mostly about what the interviewer had done at the company. Every time he asked a question, instead of waiting for my answer, he would turn it into a setup for his own story. Showing your candidates your work style and environment is good, but making 80% of the interview about yourself? Not so much.
While he was passionately explaining how his solution had improved the product’s performance, I interrupted and said, I saw the performance was quite bad—I used it.
I stopped. He said, We’re working on it (his voice is lower, lmao) and immediately moved on to the next section of the interview without commenting on it. At that moment, I knew I was about to fail the interview. (And yes, I clearly did.)
In the end, everything the interviewer showed me was that he was looking for someone to work with him only (he was described as irreplaceable). I want to work with a team, not just one person. Even if I wanted to work with a person, it wouldn’t be an irreplaceable one, lmao.
But hey, he actually taught me a lot about how not to interview someone.
That’s all. Have a nice day!