by Jono
The relationship between technical interviews and real-world performance remains one of the most debated topics in software engineering recruitment. While you may be reading this because of a recent interview experience we shared, this post aims to explore a broader and more important question: how can companies better identify talented developers? Although many organizations have established interview processes they consider sufficient, the challenge of false negatives – rejecting qualified candidates – continues to impact both companies and developers [^googlehomebrew]. As Joel Spolsky notes, "A lot of good programmers end up getting rejected — while, even worse, companies end up hiring people who are good at passing tests, but under-perform in the real world" [^joelrecruiting]. Drawing from industry anecdotes [^seniorinterviews], professional discussions [^hackernews], and academic research [^devstalk], this pos