The Last Technical Interview
31st May 2026
Today we will pour one out for the vaunted technical interview process, which is on its last leg. And we’ll talk a little about what’s replacing it.
This post has been almost 35 years in the making; that’s how long I have been conducting technical interviews. And for a few of those decades, I also worked to try to improve the process itself. I’ve had to care a lot about it, because it’s so broken.
It turns out interviewing was broken long before I learned the trade, and despite the many attempts to band-aid it, it’s still broken today. It has managed to survive in spite of that. But it is finally dying on its own. People are a bit unclear on what’s next, so we’ll talk about some of our options.
But it’s not an easy path I bring you, no silver bullet. Remember that, grasshopper, when you get to the end and come back to yell at me.