I'm really on a kick these days applying Maya Angelou's quote to people in our industry: "When someone shows you who they are, believe them the first time."
People who say arrogant things, even in a light-hearted joking tone, often truly are arrogant. Whatever people show you early in an interview process is often true. If they show you good things, believe it. If they show you bad things, believe it. If they either get off-track or hyper-focus on the wrong things... believe it.
You didn't do anything wrong. Odds are that "Adam" was a scammer. Perhaps he doesn't know how to code at all and was looking for a job that would hire based on his resume, let him cruise for 2 weeks while "onboarding," let him flail around for 4 weeks, be put on a PIP for 2 more, then fired with severance after getting 8 free weeks of bay-area pay.
Or perhaps he does know how to code but was looking for a second job (to do the exact same thing I mentioned above).
You didn't do anything wrong. You just dodged a bullet.
maybe he wanted to the subcontract the work but was looking for a remote job to make that easier. the trigger to him ending the interview could have been the interviewer mentioning the office
This guy sounds more like the people we've encountered in our careers who seem to get by entirely on confidence and bullshit. All he needs to do is find one vulnerable company that has a weakness in its hiring chain, nestle in, and schmooze his way as fast as possible to a Director or some other "thought leader" job where he doesn't have to write code. It's a tried and true strategy.
Usually the schmoozers don't take such an aggressive route right from the start, but I can see it working on a certain type of company.
In the rare chance that "Adam" was, in fact, as good as he said he was, you still dodged a bullet because nobody wants to work with a brilliant, arrogant jerk, no matter how good he is. Someone could have the demonstrated programming skills of Linus Torvalds and John Carmack put together, but if he acts and talks like "Adam" I'm not going to hire him.
It sure sounded like he was interviewing at a lot of places. For all we know, at the time of this call, "Adam" was one of those mythical folks who's holding down four jobs at a time, slowly rotating through them as he gets fired.
Again it seems that working at an early stage startup where the work culture is notoriously crazy with very clear deliverables would be the last place such a person would want to work.
but if he was a scammer, "Adam" didn't have to follow up with a vitriol-filled email chain after abruptly hanging up. This felt personal, he genuinely felt wronged because the small startup calling him back for an interview was not begging to get him on because he was the "best Node/React developer in San Francisco by far" just from looking at his GitHub profile alone.
They dodged a bullet alright, because "Adam" isn't a scammer. He is just incredibly and utterly toxic, and would be extremely damaging to everybody he would be working with and/or for.
Yes, he did something wrong. As soon as he saw the words, "I am the best React developer in SF," he should have known this candidate was a clown. Anyone who says something like that out loud or on paper is not the best anything.
I worked with a guy who introduced himself by saying "Hi, I'm firstName and I'm the world's best Java programmer." He would say that while shaking your hand and looking you in the eye like an otherwise normal person. I gather he had won some international Java programming competition.
Luckily I didn't work with him very much. He was a technical consultant for a customer of ours. He was brought in to hold us to account so he wasn't going to be fun to work with even without the ego...
How to tell the difference between someone who's been burnt a few times too many and someone you probably don't want to work with in one easy conversation.
Hiring is a hard problem of computer science, maybe even harder than naming things!
I was given a job "offer" for an international company without any interview whatsoever. It seemed like a scam so I insisted the recruiter set up an interview with the hiring manager. I blew them off as I was traveling for another interview and at least one party was definitely shady. I got a call from an irate recruiter while in the airport returning from a successful interview. Their comeuppance was a delight.
The first mistake was not tossing the application after "Yes, I'm the best". If this is the vibe he's putting out at a time when first impressions are being made, not sure why you'd expect anything different later. This played out very unsurprisingly for me (though I gotta say, I haven't seen that level of negging from a candidate before). Perhaps there are shades of Nigerian scams here: "if they eat up my original ridiculous message, I bet I can get away with more."
Given how everything went it seems clear that Adam was just trolling from the start. He seems awfully bitter about something else in his life and decided to harass an interviewer. At least he did it in a somewhat novel and amusing way so that Daniel could get a good story out of it!
> Yes I am the best Node/React developer in San Francisco by far.
This reminds me of candidates who put "Expert in C++" on their resume. To me it's a good indicator that someone is on "Mount Stupid" of the Dunning Kruger curve[1].
As someone who has acted in a similar way, I would strike this up to mental health issues.
He feels he has the power in the relationship and gets his jollies off playing the big shot and trying to tear you to pieces. If this is a foreign concept to you then you are probably emotionally stable and not consumed by self obsession and fear.
Again, I have been this way in the passed, but have hopefully worked it out with professional help and happy pills :).
Normal people don’t act like this. They need help. But until they get help it’s best to avoid feeding the monster.
OP - I felt like he was contemplating all along (to do or not to do the interview) & suddenly made a decision during the interview. He wasn't prepared to end the interview gracefully. Even if he is an excellent coder, I don't think he would have helped you much.
I used to think "they'll tell me what to build and I'll build it." I was plain wrong. Good business doesn't work that way. The more correct way to think is "we're going to figure out together what makes sense to build, from many perspectives, and then we'll build it iteratively and collaboratively."
That implies that on the way to success there will be a lot of communication, push-back, changing requirements, slipped deadlines, disagreements, compromise, shortcuts, refactoring, team meetings, celebration, interviews, promotions, and growth. The best companies have people who work well with other people. The best companies don't need prima donnas.
Wow. Dodged a major bullet. Your process is very similar to how I would like to run interviews on both sides.
I expect that guy is playing a different game - looking for overemployment or obligated to apply for a certain number of jobs per week. He might also just be in a really bad mental place right now and unable to see not everyone is stupid and against him. Absolutely doesn't excuse the bullying and rudeness but might be part of an explanation.
If Adam reads HN maybe these comments will push him to reflect or get some help.
This is part of why we still need to do interviews!
There are many possibilities around the candidate's behavior. They could be going through a manic episode, or autistic, or just a jerk, or scammer.
OP handled it well, but two things I would do differently in responding.
1. "Sorry you feel that way". I never apologize for other people's feelings, only my own actions, when am am sincerely sorry. "Not-really-apologies" are, IMO, always in bad taste.
2. Not sign emails using "best". Best what? Obviously this is up for interpretation but a dangling best is (IMO) corny and exudes "I am writing unnaturally and I think this is how professional people write"
This article seemed to be going good/interesting places, with a few good questions to explore, but then (as told) it suddenly degenerated into someone who appeared to have a personality problem (or going through a really difficult time).
Not only did the personality thing derail other topics in this particular conversation, but the Adam character is tainting some valid points by association.
I’ve hired at the largest tech companies and the smallest.
Generally you filter out toxic personalities as an absolute priority so this interview was a success.
I also think your process is appropriate for a smaller company. The key difference in my experience is that at the big high paying companies you filter on red flags and the green flags are just checkboxes that must all be passed. At the startups which simply can’t match on salary you have to instead hire on green flags instead and allow some red flags to pass. It’s harder to manage but it’s the only choice you have. So your interview which looks for green flags and is ok with some potential red flags was a sensible process.
Adam seems too naive to understand that different companies by necessity have different processes. Smaller companies are more informal and are looking for green flags not red flags. He couldn’t pass even at a smaller company willing to allow some red flags to pass.
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[ 2.9 ms ] story [ 124 ms ] threadPeople who say arrogant things, even in a light-hearted joking tone, often truly are arrogant. Whatever people show you early in an interview process is often true. If they show you good things, believe it. If they show you bad things, believe it. If they either get off-track or hyper-focus on the wrong things... believe it.
You didn't do anything wrong. Odds are that "Adam" was a scammer. Perhaps he doesn't know how to code at all and was looking for a job that would hire based on his resume, let him cruise for 2 weeks while "onboarding," let him flail around for 4 weeks, be put on a PIP for 2 more, then fired with severance after getting 8 free weeks of bay-area pay.
Or perhaps he does know how to code but was looking for a second job (to do the exact same thing I mentioned above).
You didn't do anything wrong. You just dodged a bullet.
Usually the schmoozers don't take such an aggressive route right from the start, but I can see it working on a certain type of company.
In the rare chance that "Adam" was, in fact, as good as he said he was, you still dodged a bullet because nobody wants to work with a brilliant, arrogant jerk, no matter how good he is. Someone could have the demonstrated programming skills of Linus Torvalds and John Carmack put together, but if he acts and talks like "Adam" I'm not going to hire him.
They dodged a bullet alright, because "Adam" isn't a scammer. He is just incredibly and utterly toxic, and would be extremely damaging to everybody he would be working with and/or for.
Luckily I didn't work with him very much. He was a technical consultant for a customer of ours. He was brought in to hold us to account so he wasn't going to be fun to work with even without the ego...
Hiring is a hard problem of computer science, maybe even harder than naming things!
https://x.com/zachxbt/status/1824047425822310580
It might make me look more closely, and a little curious, but other than that it would feel like a likely red flag.
While reading the article, I was very curious to see where that claim was going to go, since it was being set up as an interesting story.
Sadly, the claim appears to be just what we probably would've guessed was the most likely explanation.
This reminds me of candidates who put "Expert in C++" on their resume. To me it's a good indicator that someone is on "Mount Stupid" of the Dunning Kruger curve[1].
[1] https://www.smbc-comics.com/comic/2011-12-28
Normal people don’t act like this. They need help. But until they get help it’s best to avoid feeding the monster.
It doesn’t have to be read as an assertion of power - paranoia and related states will get you similar responses. (“The corpo is out to get you.”)
That implies that on the way to success there will be a lot of communication, push-back, changing requirements, slipped deadlines, disagreements, compromise, shortcuts, refactoring, team meetings, celebration, interviews, promotions, and growth. The best companies have people who work well with other people. The best companies don't need prima donnas.
I expect that guy is playing a different game - looking for overemployment or obligated to apply for a certain number of jobs per week. He might also just be in a really bad mental place right now and unable to see not everyone is stupid and against him. Absolutely doesn't excuse the bullying and rudeness but might be part of an explanation.
If Adam reads HN maybe these comments will push him to reflect or get some help.
This is part of why we still need to do interviews!
OP handled it well, but two things I would do differently in responding.
1. "Sorry you feel that way". I never apologize for other people's feelings, only my own actions, when am am sincerely sorry. "Not-really-apologies" are, IMO, always in bad taste.
2. Not sign emails using "best". Best what? Obviously this is up for interpretation but a dangling best is (IMO) corny and exudes "I am writing unnaturally and I think this is how professional people write"
Not only did the personality thing derail other topics in this particular conversation, but the Adam character is tainting some valid points by association.
BTW, I recommend disclosing this and getting consent before the call.
By the time they've joined the call, whatever service you're using has already captured the person's identity, face, and voice.
And we all know how our field is currently respecting privacy, rights, and even existing regulations, especially in the current AI goldrush.
Generally you filter out toxic personalities as an absolute priority so this interview was a success.
I also think your process is appropriate for a smaller company. The key difference in my experience is that at the big high paying companies you filter on red flags and the green flags are just checkboxes that must all be passed. At the startups which simply can’t match on salary you have to instead hire on green flags instead and allow some red flags to pass. It’s harder to manage but it’s the only choice you have. So your interview which looks for green flags and is ok with some potential red flags was a sensible process.
Adam seems too naive to understand that different companies by necessity have different processes. Smaller companies are more informal and are looking for green flags not red flags. He couldn’t pass even at a smaller company willing to allow some red flags to pass.