Today I went to a job interview.
I went to a job interview today. Admittedly, I went in knowing little about the company beforehand. But with the intent of getting a feel for their workplace and to see if it is somewhere I might actually enjoy working. I didn’t expect much, but I gave it a go anyway.
As I sat by the entrance, waiting for the HR person to prepare for the interview, I was passed by a total of 22 people. Only one of them took the extra breath to simply say “hello” as they briskly walked past. Now that’s certainly not a point of enormous consequence, but it does give one a bleak view of their passion for what they do. Happy people are social people.
The Interview
Eventually the interview began. They bandied about Microsoft Certifications and Partner Programs, as if those actually meant something. And there was the usual questions about “Why do you want to work here?” and “What are your career goals?”, but for the first question I had no answer yet. I didn’t really know yet what they did, so they explained it to me. Or rather, they tried to.
After a ten minute long pitch of their product/service/whatever-the-heck-it-is, I still had little idea what they as an entity actually did. I knew what the end result was, but was it their product? Was it partial work contracted by some external entity? What were they doing that they could actually put their name on?
I couldn’t figure out what exactly it was they did. But I got the distinct feeling that they were basically a glorified contract-based development shop. I hope they can dispute that.
The Conflict
They also asked me what my criteria was for an ideal workplace. I talked to them about my history of open source contributions and my development style. They seemed visibly at-odds with my views, which I was expecting, but not to such an extent.
They openly condemned the idea of open source simply on the grounds that “Enterprise clients don’t like that.” First; that sort of submissive attitude is what encourages stagnation of technologies. Second; No, enterprise does not inherently hate open source. Were that the case, Linux and the various Apache Foundation projects would not be so prolific. What they don’t like is half-assed use of open source technologies simply to save money. If you use open source code, you better understand what code it’s replacing.
On the note of development style. They, like many, have hopped aboard the lean bandwagon, following the Scrum variety in particular. I’ll leave my opinions on the “Lean Religion” for another post, but to put it bluntly; I’m more a follower of the “programming, motherfucker” methodology. I don’t think they liked that.
The Epic Conclusion
It was becoming obvious to me that this was not a place I wanted to work. I respect that they have built this company and kept it running for so long. That’s not yet something I can say I’ve outdone, so it’s only fair that I recognize their accomplishment.
But our views on what is the “right” way to run a tech business are so radically different. Some people just aren’t meant to work together, and this was one of those cases. I have politely chosen not to name the company. Though they will probably read this and know who I am referring to. I hope they have a compelling counter-argument to my views on their methods.