How do you deal with rude interviewers?

Unacceptable behavior for an interviewer. Ironically, that person did you a solid by showing you this wasn't the company you want to work at without already starting there and investing even more time with them. Imagine finding this out after you quit a current job, and low and behold, this guy is your new boss.

You are the candidate and hold equal power. In the thought process you had "I think I should terminate this interview." If it ever gets to a point you are uncomfortable due to rudeness, leave. Sure, in a big faang world you may never have interaction with that person, but them being on the panel has a chance they would be your boss, peer, or in your org some way.

Toxic people can ruin what would otherwise be good careers. Alternatively, this can also be a huge indicator a company tolerates and promotes this behavior. To me, while it's possible, that this was a once and rare thing that only this person has done... Screw betting my career on the least likely possibility.

I have social anxiety disorder, which I deal with in the workplace by putting on a "Customer Service" persona. So in any interview, I consider the interviewer as my customer and I want to make them happy. In an interview for a previous job, the Lead Architect was very aggressively putting me through several technical questions and at one point he told me I was completely wrong in one of my answers. When I politely tried to explain why I believed my answer was correct and offered to demonstrate on my laptop, he got angry and stormed out of the interview, leaving his two embarrassed looking coworkers to continue.

It was a bad experience, but the other two interviewers were very nice and I really wanted to work for this non-profit, so I sent a follow-up email apologizing for upsetting the Lead Architect so much, saying that I thought it was just a misunderstanding, that there were multiple correct answers, and provided some documentation to further explain why I answered the way I did.

I got a job offer that afternoon, and two weeks after I started they fired the Lead Architect. That same week, I went out to lunch with the team, where one of the interviewers told everyone about how I made the Lead Architect look so stupid during the interview and that I was so incredibly nice about it that they knew they had to hire me. Turns out it was a workplace where everyone highly valued politeness and the Architect had been antagonizing and bullying everyone for years. Ended up being one of the friendliest places I've ever worked.

Bad and rude interviewers imply even worse colleagues, supervisors and managers. Its a measure of the overall company culture and not simply just their professionalism.

Its ok to continue the interview but its also ok to finish, leave and never return. They're as much under investigation for fit as you are. Hold them to your standards.

You got a glimpse of what working with them would be like in future. I'd say you found them lacking. Can you imagine a code review with that person?

My co-founder from a past startup and I were once pitching a well-known investor. He put his feet up on the table and pulled out his phone.

My co-founder paused, and very calmly said something like "X, if this isn't a good use of your time then tell us so we don't waste ours, either". He immediately put his feet down, his phone face down on the table, and politely paid attention the rest of the pitch. He obviously didn't invest but we walked out of there with our heads held high.

The first thing you need to understand is the interview process goes both ways. They're not just trying to figure out if you have the skills to do the job and figure out if you're a good fit for the team, you should also be figuring out if the company is a good fit. Usually you have to pick out context clues to figure out if the company culture is going to be a fit, and if you don't, you ask those questions and gauge their answers.

When they directly insult you during the interview, that should be the end. If you're willing to tolerate abuse during the interview process, you should expect the culture to persist and you advertise that you're okay with it.

Respect of my time and the time of those around me is important to me. I had a recruiter that didn't understand this concept. He was representing a major media company that seemed like it'd be interesting to work for. But since the recruiter advertised to me that he couldn't care less about my time, I took that as an ongoing issue at the company and I ended the process.

It's just not worth it, especially when you have other potential opportunities that may still be interesting. Respect is important and if they can't respect you at the interview, they will not respect you in the job.

In many difficult social situations, including this one, it helps to have a canned sentence ready to deploy.

"Gentlemen, it's clear to me that we're not a good fit here. Let's not waste anymore of our time"

Say it 10 times in front of a mirror or something and just push the mental button when you need to.

Having sat on many panels I'll suggest there might be reasons why someone might seem rude. After a great curry the night before I once had to interview holding back what we call "Gandhi's revenge" around here. The scowl on my face probably terrified the poor kid, and then I made a dash for the toilet.

Practice interacting and being in a professional conversant situation without reading too deeply into what you think is going on for the other person. Accept the situation on face value with the best and worst interpretations in mind, but not in effect. That's good for negotiating too. If you feel on the defensive because of an implied power relation, or misunderstanding, hold that thought, wait and see, it could get interesting.

Since you allocated the time anyway, make the best of a recon opportunity. If the interviewer is being rude, the fact that you are unruffled makes you the bigger person. Smile politely and you may unbalance them. Save any grand decision for the end.

That is extremely unprofessional behavior from that interviewer. But how did the other interviewers respond? I think that the "correct" response really depends on that:

  * Other interviewers don't say anything -> ask what's up, and whether this means the interview is over. Point out that you don't feel comfortable continuing like this.
  * Other interviewers show they are "on your side", i.e. as confused as you and don't endorse that behavior -> continue the interview, and maybe later try to figure out what happened. Consider it a yellow card (in Football speak). Make sure that you don't ever work with that specific person.

Of course, this is all easy to say from the comfort of my desk!

An interview is a two-way street. Presuming you're the candidate, the organisation is selling itself as much as you are you. The key difference is that there tend to be more candidates than positions --- the employer has a superior BATNA (best alternative to negotiated agreement).

That said, I've had several interviews I'd concluded I wasn't interested quite early in the process. In one case I wrapped relatively quickly, and immediately told the recruiter I was not in the least interested. In another, the situation wasn't hostile, but was so bizzare I continued the interview simply to try to understand what the heck was going on.

It would be extraordinarily rare for an interview to pose a direct threat, so continuing with a viewpoint that the experience is simply practice doesn't hurt. I've also had other staff who'd interviewed me and then left that position contact me with other offers, so from a networking perspective, the experience can still be useful.

There were other opportunities I should have passed on but did not. Having additional options is extraordinarily useful. Those are among my regrets.

I had a tech lead and manager interview me for an internal position. The tech lead was on her laptop the whole time. The manager asked her if she had any questions. So she asked me something. I started giving my response and she went straight back to her laptop. When I was done answering, she didn't say anything or even acknowledge my answer. There was a long pause and the manager picked back up. I finished the interview.

Before I could decline the position in the system, they called me and offered the job. I said something to the effect of "thanks but I'm don't think it was a good fit. Good luck in the search". Then he started pressing me for why I'm turning it down. I told him I didn't think I would get enough support/growth from the tech lead if they can't even take time for the interview (also it made me think the team might be overworked).

Then the manager called my current manager. Both managers couldn't understand why I turned it down. How? How can they not understand that even after I explained it?

So in summary, I finished the interview and declined the offer. I would have withdrawn my application but didn't get to it fast enough.

If at any point in time, you decide that the company is not a good fit for you, you can end the interview by saying: "Thank you for the opportunity, I don't think I'm a good fit for this position"

No need for any further explanation, no need for excuses, just simply pack your stuff calmly and leave.

Other unrelated career advice (after 15+ years of experience):

1. Don't participate in any abusive/toxic behavior (even if all employees are doing it)

2. Document abusive behavior (emails, texts, etc) with screenshots whenever possible (especially if it involves you)

3. Try to quit professionally whenever possible (provide no feedback or very little ad give a notice), in cases where you _know_ you absolutely can't mentally/physically take it anymore, then leave immediately (i.e NEVER put your health in danger, all the legalities, logistics, etc can be dealt with later; even in extreme situations)

4. Never overwork yourself, your compensation has nothing to do with your effort.

5. Don't constantly criticize the code base, especially if you are new, you don't know the history yet and many people have emotional attachment to their code.

6. If you want to play the office politics (for whatever reason, e.g raises, extra vacation time, etc), find out who are the _bigger_ decision makers and make sure they are aware of YOUR contributions. Don't burn the midnight oil, thinking they will care, that's not how it works; they need to constantly hear your name and ideas.

7. Office romance is NOT worth it _most_ of the time; however if you are going to take this route, make arrangements to be able to leave the company if necessary.

8. Don't talk behind other people's backs, don't partake in excessive drinking or become _too_ attached/close to your coworkers (especially with their family lives). Always maintain a healthy boundary, even if you genuinely think some of your coworkers could become your life-long friends.

9. Use spaces instead of tabs.

You aren't there to fix them or help them hide their faults to future candidates.

Mainly you want to leave a good impression on the other people in case you meet them elsewhere in the future and only show a lot of initiative fixing something like that if you are being hired in a role that actually focuses a bit on those soft skills.

Personally, I once got far too involved in discussions with HR at a place where it clearly wasn't going to work out and they are high enough volume that it never mattered.. but I would prefer to have practiced the skills of never showing my hand and continuing along to learn more about their part of industry.

As a younger guy, I used to really try hard to impress at interviews, regardless of the poor behaviour of the interviewers. Once I got a bit more senior, my tolerance for squirm-inducing tactics reduced drastically. By this time, I had conducted a few interviews myself, and knew what was appropriate and what wasn't.

The minute I suspected any kind of inappropriate questioning, I used to just get up, thank them for their time and walk out. If you're getting stupid questions thrown at you, the interview is pretty much a lost cause anyway, so why waste time?!

A little later, I discovered an even more enjoyable way to end a "lost cause" interview, that can repay to the interviewer some of the discomfort they caused you.

Once you sense the interview is going south, and the interviewer is unnecessarily enjoying putting you under pressure, as a final resort, request that someone from HR be called to observe the interview. Even better if you have the HR reps number, so you can call them directly! Say that you feel that the methods being used in the interview are inappropriate and unnecessarily pressurising. It's no good sending an email after - you need to strike before the interview is over, while the iron's hot.

It really changes the mood in a beautiful way, and lets you get your own back on power-tripping trash bags. You obviously won't get the job, but that's probably for the better, given the trashy people you'd be working with!

Note: I worked in finance, where horrible interviews are sadly quite common.

I'm in semiconductor design not software but we write a lot of scripts.

One of my good friends is an analog custom layout expert in Cadence Virtuoso and its built in scripting language SKILL is a version Scheme / Lisp. If you told him that your favorite language was Scheme he would probably try to hire you just for that.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cadence_SKILL

I really only faced rudeness when I was a junior engineer and didn't know better. I was brought in for a round of interviews and there was rudeness in two of the early interviews. I quickly lost interest in the company. (One interviewer was very rude about my working solution, and another interviewer was rude to a junior member of the staff.) When the recruiter followed up with me, I didn't have the maturity to give a frank report about the staff.

~20 years later, I should have politely left after one of the sessions. I should have found the hiring manager, told him that "I don't see myself working out well here," and then given much more candid feedback to the recruitment agency.

But also, from that experience, I've learned to guide candidates more if they don't give me the answer I'm looking for. Specifically, if a candidate writes what I think is a sub-optimal solution, I'll say something like "can you make it faster?" or "can you make it more robust?" I never expect a candidate to read my mind the first time, especially if the candidate is feeling overwhelmed.

If I was in your situation, I probably wouldn't have walked out right away. If I was turned off the company, I'd have stayed until a break between sessions. If I was still interested or curious, I'd have discussed this particular employee with the hiring manager or HR rep.

I've only "walked out" of an interview once; it was a phone screen and it very quickly was obvious that I wouldn't be happy there. I told the interviewer that I really liked their product, (I really did,) and I wished them luck. (I really did wish them good luck too.)

Not sure how it is now, but in investment banking interviews, interviewers definitely used to be rude or obnoxious sometimes. To an extent, this was a deliberate move to test a candidate's reaction. If the pressure rises when the market goes south on the trading floor or when preparing an important presentation for a merger, temper might rise as well, and there is little time for niceties. Dealing with it reasonably graciously is an important qualification for working in that kind of environment.

Now, I'm not advocating being an asshole. But when working with top people in high pressure environments it certainly helps if you can deal with assholes. It is a bit reminiscent of Postel's law: Be strict in what you send, but tolerant in what you accept.

In this case, it could be that there was some other important meeting the person had to attend, and didn't want to interrupt the interview process with an explanation or goodbye.

If you conclude that this is not the environment you want to work in, fair enough, and concluding the interview politely at that point would certainly have been an option - it seems that the organisation and you were not a good fit anyway.

>I think I should have politely terminated the interview myself

Yes, do this. Walk. The behavior is unacceptable and tells a terrible story about the company culture.

Perhaps if the remaining interviewers apologized immediately, you could reconsider, but probably not.

I interviewed for a position on HN's "Who's Hiring" thread a few years ago. They asked me to do four different tech screens...but the kicker was, that they were all the same question.

During the second one, I mentioned that this seemed a lot like the first one, but, did it anyway, a different way. During the third one, I literally just used the same code/approach I did on the first one.

During the fourth one, I refused and said, "Hey, this...isn't for me." and then had two weeks of HR emailing me almost every day asking if I'd reconsider.

At my first job, I was young, maybe 21 we had a guy come in for an interview. I was not even on the interview panel but the guy had a funny mustache and the person running the interview started bringing random people in to ask him questions but also to low key laugh at his mustache. The company itself was a clown show and management treated employees like garbage so I guess it was the sort of culture that was encouraged. I did not really think about it at the time as I was young and oblivious but now that I am older I occasionally think back to that and feel bad for the interviewee and really regret allowing myself to be involved in that.

As someone on the other side of the table, if someone doesn't feel an interview is going well (either because they can see they aren't going to get hired or because they don't think they would accept even if they were offered), I want you to politely tell us something along the lines of "I'm sorry, but I don't believe this is the best fit for either of us. I appreciate the chance, but I think we should end it here." Each side shakes hands with a smile, and we go on our own ways. In the end, it's a waste of your time and our time if either side has already made up their mind. We, the interviewers, end interviews early semi-frequently (for example, if one is going poorly we will just skip a coding test). There's no reason the interviewee can't do the same.

Just be polite about it. Don't burn any bridges. You never know when the other interviewers (the ones who stayed in your case) will be interviewing you at another company and remember you for leaving a bad taste in their mouth.

I can imagine it would have been upsetting but in time I'm sure you'll grow jaded. Since we're sharing stories, my last interviewer seemed eager to think I was an idiot (rightly or wrongly) and I couldn't summon the motivation to talk him out it. He asked if I know what reading and writing to a database means, and I asked if that was what he was asking me, and rather than answering he just moved on. When it got to the point of him saying that a person who knows absolutely nothing about databases might not be a good fit for the job, I told him I won't get my hopes up, thanked him for the interview, and wished all the best to him and the company.

I’m interviewing as well lately. I haven’t run into anything remotely like this, but I’ve ended several interviews early.

It’s totally okay to call it if you know you aren’t interested. In fact it’s more polite to save everyone’s time. I’d recommend opening up to the idea that the interview is yours as much as theirs, and you can leave any time you’d like. Just be very respectful about it.

What happened to you is bizarre. Many many years ago I had a slightly drunk guy interview me and tell me I wasn’t the right caliber for his team, haha. That was so weird. Maybe I should have gone in there totally hammered and I would have gotten the job.

Sometimes you just know it isn’t meant to be though and you’ve got to just call it.

I had an interview for a job as a Perl programmer in the late 1990s.

At the time I had about three years programming Perl, and I was keen to work in the (at the time) hot area of programming for web sites. I was working in C++ on Windows, fun enough but not as fun as Perl (it was the 1990s)

I prepared carefully for the interview. Making sure I was clear about what I was expert at, what I was good at, and the parts of Perl that I was not so good at. At the interview I started out by carefully detailing all that I was expert and good at, took about five minutes, I thought it would help because if what I was good at was not what they wanted I could get back to work and no harm done....

After my careful exposition the first question the interviewer asked me was: "Can you do object orientated Perl?" Clearly they had not understood a word I said, they were asking questions from a list after waiting for me to finish and I did not want to work for this firm. What a waste of time.

So I decided to see just how much of their time I could waste. I carefully answered all the questions from their list, in as much excruciating and technical detail as I could. I watched them squirm. At the end of the list, there was the pro forma "any questions?". You bet! I had a lot!!

In the end the interviewer was standing behind my chair, not quite physically pushing me out, but clearly very pissed.

I was correct about not wanting the job. Three years later, after the company went broke, I had a contract trying to fix a site they worked on. Where their idea of OO Perl had been An Object for a SQL table, AN Object for Every Row, an Object for Every Value..... A huge mess.

That was my first experience of "HR interview first" using outsourced HR firm. What a waste of money, and a red flag

It sounds like you fare well not working there.

I have terminated politely some interviews that didn't sit right to me in the past.

Something along the line of saving everyone's time and that I don't see myself a good fit at the present time.

It's like a date gone wrong, you're not paid to be there neither to fake for approval. If it's not a good match, let the seat for someone else and find your own elsewhere; respectfully of course as the industry is small enough that another interviewer in that room might be a future colleague.

My worst experience was when an interviewer told me to stop doing the exercise because time was up, and proceed to say that they could "solve this exercise in 30 seconds by copy-pasting an answer from StackOverflow". They mentioned in the beginning of the interview that I could Google whatever I wanted and then said I "should've taken the hint if I wanted to complete the exercise".

The complete interview was a joke. The person didn't know which position I was applying to; another guy joined the interview halfway through and asked if he should take over; and the worst: the main interviewer was boasting about working 12 hours a day as a contractor and getting double the salary from the actual employees.

They didn't make an offer.

I've been in the IT job market since 1995-ish, and have worked for a lot of companies, both big and large. In all my experience with interviews, I've only had one that was a rude disaster.

It was for a DBA position with a small team at a major insurance company. It was a team of 2 that wanted a 3rd experienced Oracle DBA to help them expand. Sounded good. Interview starts with those 2 guys, and immediately it was readily apparent that one of them had no real intention to hire someone, at least not me. Within 5 minutes, the shithead one had laughed out loud when I said I didn't have much experience with a certain part of Oracle. Any Oracle DBA out there knows that the product is f'ing PACKED with stuff, lots of it you won't use because you are in a certain segment (i.e. - in a data warehouse environment, you use certain tools but not others, etc).

I just sat there, staring at him. The other guy at least had the courtesy to turn red-faced. I know a lot of posts here say to just thank them and walk out, but I was so shocked I just sat there. The rude asshole never asked another question, and finally the nice guy escorted me out. He left me at the door with a "We'll be in touch." and I just chuckled and thanked him.

I do what I use to do on dates that weren't working out. I politely explain, "hey I'm not feeling this, nothing personal - I just don't think it's going to work out. I don't want to waste anyone's time so I am going to go home." Say this confidently and without a hint of anger to avoid conflict.

People will get bit flustered but just kill 'em with kindness repeating the three main things in the quotes:

* Not feeling it

* Nothing personal

* It would be rude to waste your time

They'll eventually get it as you pick your stuff up and leave. If it's an interview I will thank the person for their time/the opportunity with a handshake on my way out the door.

Pretend to be friendly until the interview's over.

Never burn your bridges. Even rude asshole bridges. You don't know if maybe that guy just got a call that his kid has cancer after working an 80 hour week. You don't know if maybe that guy will be hired at your next job. You don't know if he might bad-mouth you to other employers for fun. And you don't know if maybe they're waiting for one more reason to fire his ass. There is no benefit to walking out early, so just wait it out, and then politely inform them you don't think the position is a good fit for you.

If anyone remembers Miss Manners (whose kids are now helping write her columns):

I actually wrote to her about one of those situations (interviewer staring down at my resume, interrupting my answers to ask about something else on the resume, etc.) and she printed it.

Her response was, basically: if you expect to stay in the profession, just be polite and don't tell them they have the manners of a baboon.

Politely end the interview immediately. Really.

I had an in person interview with multiple people at a company and the CTO came in for his part and immediately started telling me how he wasn't supposed to be there he was supposed to be on vacation and he had a flight to catch so let's get this over with. I immediately said "Thanks for your time, please let everyone else know I appreciate talking with them and enjoyed our conversations. I'm not comfortable working at a place that treats candidates this way." and I stood up and left.

There was a recent article that bubbled up HN that I can't find with life lessons from a wise old programmer that posted a new list every year.

One of the things that stood out to me from hist list went something like "discover the thrill of being extremely polite to people who are rude to you." Being no saint myself this really resonated with me.

I wouldn't walk out, and I certainly wouldn't take an offer, but I'd stay for the interview for the trill of behaving excellently.

As a candidate you should always approach from a position of strength. Assuming that is the case, you can always call them out, politely, and explain that behaviour makes you feel like they are not a good fit for you and see their reaction. You are interviewing them too after all.

As a fairly experienced interviewer, having administered well over 200 both as an employee and an independent... these guys dropped the ball - hard.

If you are interviewing somebody, you are not there as 'yourself', you are representing the company and their engineering org, and by my understanding, it is exceedingly poor form to present the company as inconsiderate and to burn bridges. Even if you're having a bad day and the candidate is a poor fit, you suck it up and remain professional and collegial.

The one who walked out should be removed from the interviewing pool. Maybe they're a good engineer, maybe not, but if they act that way consistently then their attitude and self control are not cut out for interviewing.

I have never had interviews this bad, but I have had interviews which required travel to get to the interview. Travel which was paid for by the company I was interviewing with. In one case I had an interview with paid travel, and I added an interview with another company on the same trip. I actually accepted the offer from the second company. I think in a situation like the one I described, you should go through the process as far as the interviewers want to, while at the same time politely making it clear that you don't think it's a good fit, and that they could save everyone time by concluding the process.

I had a couple interviews when I was young and callow and really needed the job that still stick with me. One was with a large company that's still around. The HR manager accused me of lying on my resume after I interpreted something like "where are the stretchers, c'mon, everybody exaggerates on their resume?" as "discuss the limits of what you claim on your resume". I learned later this line of questioning is promoted in some books as a "trick" for getting people to admit they lied on their resume. I was pretty rough around the edges back then, so I was rude back, which I regret.

I am now a hiring manager and have conducted countless interviews at this point.

You did the right thing continuing the interview professionally. Assume the most charitable interpretation. You don't know the whole situation with the jerk. Maybe he just started and this is the start of a chain of problems that will get him fired. Maybe he just needs training on how to interview. Maybe he's OK otherwise but they'll never let him interview anyone else again. Maybe he's only sort of a jerk normally but he was leaving for a funeral or something.

There's just no good reason to get yourself a "not now, not ever" note in the company's files and your interviewers' memories just to indulge a bit of social revenge. That said, use your best judgment and certainly remove yourself from an interview for illegal, dangerous, unethical, or threatening behavior. The crazies are out there.

Instead of reflecting on what the interviewer did, reflect on that culture for a second. Is that somewhere you WANT to work? Would they respect your opinions? Sounds like that’s a no.

I’ve ended interviews within the first 5 minutes. I have a knack for seeing through this kind of stuff. I also have no shame on calling someone out on it.

Toxic people usually don’t know they are toxic because they have been enabled to do so. It’s also well within your right to confront someone like this and say “Excuse me, sir (or ma’am), I was under the impression this was a top place to work. Your display just convinced me that it is not. I respect your decision to leave as I hope you respect mine.” and walk out. Not saying that’s what you should say verbatim but your time is just as valuable and your opinions should be just as weighted. Whether you work there yet or not.

Companies with a great culture would have asked you to dive deeper. To understand your point of view. Maybe a healthy debate. Teach us something that we don’t know, kind of thing.

I think when you’re early in your career you just want to get the job and will do whatever it takes. After 5 years you should be given the same respect as that person gives their colleagues. After all, you are interviewing to be their colleague. They are interviewing to be yours.

Never, ever, let an interview be single sided. You will have no negotiating power.

I recently interviewed at a startup where I faced a very bully interviewer. First a bit of background about me ..I have few years of gaps in my career due to family responsibilities. But whenever I have rejoined work, i have always enjoyed the work and loved working in development role with active coding.

The start of interview felt like he had made up his mind, being lady, with so many years of gap in between, may be she is no good for coding role. I was asked a question for which some particular answer was expected, which is commonly used for that domain, but since I had never worked in that domain, the answer didn't click instantaneously..

And the very next question he asked me in next 2 mins time was "you don't know the answer because you haven't been coding ? "

I politely conveyed that just because i dont know the answer to this question, doesnt mean i do not code. Its simply means that i have not worked on this particular problem and probably next time they should screen people with those particular skillsets. And i didnt continue the interview.

It felt good. I didn't want them to bully me just because I am a candidate (and not employer) and tht too the one with not extremely impressive profile. Even if I had cleared the interview, I don't think I would have accepted to work with that company.

> I told them my favorite language was Scheme

Well done for being honest and not tailoring your knowledge set to the requirements of the position, like many people do. Often people learn something just because it's advertised fiercely in a company's 'requirements'. This is why I refuse to learn React, Vue, Angular etc because although they're required often, a baseline of HTML, CSS & JS will outlast the new 'soup of the day' framework.

hmmm. Sounds like it was a group interview in real life?

I think after that person had left the room I would probably interrupt the interview to ask who that person was and what their role is. Then I'd ask about the general culture of the company.

I think I'd be curious to know if that was someone who would be a peer or someone higher up the chain. In either case I might pull out of the process though. I have met enough "brilliant assholes" in. my life I have little interest in working with anymore of them.

I'd also be curious to know why he is involved in the interview process.

might depend on how bad I need/want the job. If the company is big enough I'm unlikely to see that person then I might just let it slide. I don't know the specifics of where you are in your career and job search, but this is a great time to be looking for work in tech.

I don't think I'd terminate the process there. You're already there, you might as well get some interview practice in. If you get an offer and you'd like to decline because of that interview experience. Tell them!! CC as many people as you know there too.

Good luck with your search, and sorry you went through that. It's unacceptable.

If something like this happens and I realise there is 0% I want this job - I just mentally check out & stop answering questions as well as I can etc. Although I think it is better to be honest about how you feel, end the interview and avoid wasting anyones time.

It feels bad being disrespected and it is sometimes hard to shake off, but at least you probably dodged a bullet and weeks/months of wasted time.

As a teacher (former sysadmin) I find that ignorance and aggression often work closely together. I would have seen out the interview and moved on.

I have not faced that level of rudeness, and I do think for something so egregious it is totally valid to terminate the interview (while explaining why), but I'd be curious how the other interviewers handled it.

If that happened I would actually directly ask the other interviewers "Did I do something wrong or say something to offend him/her". Put the ball in their court and hear what they have to say.

I also love swat535's suggestion to end the interview with "Thank you for the opportunity, I don't think I'm a good fit for this position"

Also, you are right, I'd treat that as a data point into whether this is a company you want to work for.

I once had a company ask me to interview (one of their recruiters reached out to me) and I was so so on it, but curious, so I took time off and scheduled a technical phone interview. 5 minutes after the interview should have started (I was waiting for the phone call and wondering whether I had messed up the scheduling), I received a brusque email from the engineer meant to interview me "I don't have time to interview you, reach out to our recruiter". You can bet my interest in the company tanked and when the recruiter tried to re-schedule me (without so much as an apology) I declined and ask they not contact me in the future. Because I figured either.

1: They hired jerks 2: Their engineers were so stressed that they viewed an interview as yet one more burden.

I have been on the other side where a candidate we were interviewing (at the time I was a junior engineer and my interview partner was a Senior engineer). The candidate was so rude/condescending to her (but not to me, I wonder why) that after we finished our interview session we told HR and they cancelled the rest of his interviews and thanked him for his time.

I once had a phone screen for a full stack SWE position where the interviewer was laser focused on the fact that I had previously held the title "web developer". The entire interview was spent defending myself from accusations that web developers "don't write code", or that "they're more about design" etc, while my resume described past job duties that were a 1:1 match with the JD. The canned "we'll be in touch shortly" was said with a chuckle and I never heard back from them.

At the time, I was in desperate need of a new job or else have to leave the country, so it hurt to be dismissed so readily.

These days I'd be more inclined to excuse myself early, but on the other hand, who's to say that this one person is representative of the company and their culture? Maybe they're a recent hire. Maybe I would have enjoyed the subsequent interviews. My only regret is that I didn't share my experience with someone else at that company.

Just say "Sir, I have given you an argument, I am not obliged to give you an understanding" and then hop out the window.

There was a good thread on red flags during an interview last year https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26426602

Repeating what I wrote then:

>I once got stood up for a round of interviews — I showed up, waited, emailed them multiple times to let them know I was there, and then 30 minutes later they wrote to me to ask if I could come in another day (rather than meeting me at the front desk where I was sitting). At the time I was just annoyed that they had wasted my time, but in retrospect, the real red flag there was that no one took responsibility — “there was a scheduling conflict” was as much as I got.

As to how you handled this particular situation, OP -- I think you handled it fine and I wouldn't worry too much. I think most of us would have been flummoxed by this person's extremely unusual behavior.

Why is Scheme your favorite language?

At one point, I called out an interviewer during the interview on his bad behavior. However, this is not a good solution. I think he learned his lesson, but it certainly cost me a good relationship with anyone else at the company. Thankfully, it was a startup and I didn't need the job.

The best solution in my opinion is to complete the interview, then politely inform the HR person that you are no longer interested in the job. If you are doing an onsite interview, you can feel free to leave during the middle of the day. When they ask why, politely say that you don't believe that this will be a good fit, and thank them for their time.

Rude interviewers imply rude colleagues - if they are rude to you when they are on "interview behavior" you don't want to know what they are like otherwise.

See it for what it is: a red flag. Recently I had one where I had a feeling but threw it to the side because I thought I would give the person the benefit of the doubt. But then in email correspondence with who would have been my team lead or project manager/owner it became crystal clear that this person's personality and mine would not work. It also illuminated a lack of professionalism as well.

I have been in this industry 10 years now. I am not a million dollar a year 10x engineer but I have taken jobs that paid well but that were horrible environmentally and know now that if I feel ominous things in just the interview then that's all I need to know to avoid a potentially toxic workplace.

> At the time I didn't say anything, and just continued the interview as if nothing happened, but in retrospect, I think I should have politely terminated the interview myself, as I don't want to work with rude, unprofessional snobs, but I'm wondering what people here would have done, and how you've faced rudeness during interviews yourself?

Finish the interview politely. You don't want to leave the other interviewers in the lurch.

Then immediately after the interview, contact your rep and say "with respect, due to the extremely inappropriate behavior of person X, I will not be moving forwards. Here was my experience:"

I once had a 3rd round interview where I was lead into a room to await a senior exec who wanted to personally vet me.

So I waited...

An hour went by and a PA came in to apologies and say the big man was on his way but still on a call.

Another 30 minutes went by and I just walked out without further discussion.

I did get the job in the end and it was a decent gig but I still wished I'd left then interview sooner.

Luckily we work in an industry where kissing arses generally isn't required. That doesn't mean you can or should be rude but it goes both ways.

Don't be a doormat.

If someone laughs when you say Scheme is your favourite language, it's perfectly fine to smile back at them and ask them why they're laughing.

A lot of us software engineers aren't exactly known for being social butterflies. Arrogance and crass behavior are more common than they should be, sadly.

"Before we wrap up, can I ask a few questions?"

(No interviewer, rude or otherwise, has turned this down on me)

"I just want to say this is as much as an interview for you to evaluate me, as it is for me to evaluate you. What do you think could have been improved in our interview for the future?" - if you feel they were especially rude/arrogant: "Do you feel you have conducted this interview professionally?"

I used to be a recruiter. Have conducted thousands of interviews. Before I had my first big-boy developer job, I was interviewed by this rude manager and his boss (who was not rude) who thought he could get a 2 for 1 by hiring me to develop his websites while also working the phones as a recruiter.

Now, anyone with any sort of sense will tell you that it's stupid to enter into a negotiation (which is what interviews are, even if you're probably not discussing acceptance and pay right away) without knowing about who you're talking to. And while I didn't have any specific knowledge of the inner-workings of his company, I was definitely familiar with his industry.

I've always made it a point to carry a notepad with me when interviewing with people. I have a section of points I specifically want to highlight, and also a section on specific things about the company that I'd like to know more about. Turns out that rude-ass over there on the other side of the desk couldn't answer some pretty basic things about his own workplace, down to the commission structure for new hires. Things that a self-assured future captain of industry (as he presented himself) should have definitely known.

At the end of the interview, I thanked them for their time and also told them that I did not think I would be a good fit due to my perception of their corporate culture. I don't know what happened after that, but I do know that as gracious as the owner was, he was staring daggers at his employee about halfway through my grilling.

Interviewing is a skill you need to exercise and such interviews are where you are challenged to stay positive and continue the interview for further experience. Even when an interview has gone absolutely terrible and there's literally nothing they could do to convince you to work there. You work doubly hard to convince them to want to hire you. Ask them what they need you to do for them, explain how you can do it. Ask about their mission, what the business is ultimately trying to achieve. etc.

>I've had an interviewer laugh in my face when I told them my favorite language was Scheme.

Snirk, I mean, I have started to grow grey hairs. What do you think is the best solution for grey hairs?

>Then they just walked in the middle of the interview without saying a word when it wasn't going well, leaving the other interviewers to continue without them.

You may have not noticed they got told to gtfo.

>In retrospect, I think I should have politely terminated the interview myself, as I don't want to work with rude, unprofessional snobs, but I'm wondering what people here would have done, and how you've faced rudeness during interviews yourself?

Nah, waste their time. Work doubly hard to convince them to hire you. Then if they do offer you the job, you can be polite again and explain that the business sounds awesome with X mission. Lather on how awesome they all are and then say unfortunately you decline have to decline. You felt the interview didn't go well and plan to work extra hard to do better next time.

It's been several years since I interviewed, but I do recall one Zoom interview where the panel was in a physical room and one of the people on the panel was just on his phone texting or something for around half of the interview.

I basically just ignored the behavior and continued as normal, professionally, with the other interviewer. Eventually, whatever I was coding up finally drew the rude interviewer's attention.

I made it to the next round, which I passed, and was ready to do a final round but ended up going with another offer before proceeding with them. After reading a bit more about the work culture at the place and seeing the interviewer's behavior, I definitely don't regret it, even though their RSUs would likely be worth quite a lot today. Work life balance and culture are important so that you're not miserable in your job.

My advice is: continue the interview professionally, but take the rudeness into consideration before you take an offer if it comes. Worst case, you're out a few hours of time and learned a bit about a different company. Also don't assume the worst. With the interviewer who was texting, I chose to believe that maybe he had some personal issue going on rather than thinking that my behavior triggered the rudeness, which helped me finish up the interview.

I had a four stage interview process with a startup where I also built a pretty solid plan for how to build their project once I started and when it got to negotiations I asked for $140k, they countered $90k, I said no way I’d do less than $120k, and they ghosted me ever since. Thankfully found something else and sent a final follow up saying I was withdrawing my application but the absolute worst interview process I’ve experienced that late in the process.

> At the time I didn't say anything, and just continued the interview as if nothing happened, but in retrospect, I think I should have politely terminated the interview myself...

This is an awful experience and I think it is better to not second guess yourself after a traumatic experience. We are not machines, we are human beings, and getting shot down (in a cruel fashion) when the stakes are high is not something we should be expected to handle well.

A couple of years ago I had an interview with a startup in Japan.

The CTO just wouldn't stop speaking (very fast) and barely let me speak or even heard me. This was first red flag to me.

At some point he asked me very distinctly "If you join, you will work with engineers that are way smarter than you, is that OK with you?". I was startled by this question and felt quite insulted by it. The conversation basically went south when I answered something like "Well, I'd sincerely love to get such experience because as far as I remember it has always been the other way around when it comes to engineering.".

Now don't get me wrong, I am usually doing my best to stay humble and open minded, and comparing people or bragging around is not something I normally do or consider appropriate.

But I am also a proud and very good engineer gifted by the ability to learn, understand and visualize things very quickly. I have been passionately honing my skills and learning everyday for more than 15 years. And as a human being, I would absolutely defend my pride it if someone attacks it.

I think it's only natural to feel bad about such situation, but the interview not working is not always your own fault.

a recruiter for a space startup which shall remain unnamed but which anyone can guess who i am talking about, called me one day because of my experience with realtime embedded stuff in c/c++. i told her politely i was happy to consider applying but that the compensation was going to have to be significantly increased for me to consider joining, and she could not understand why i expected to be paid for my experience and education, background etc. after all, who doesn’t dream about working for a SPACE company????? i then also mentioned i will not do any coding interviews, under any circumstances, but that i was happy to share samples of my work and talk about decisions i made designing hardware and writing firmware, middleware and user space applications. she then balked BUT WE ARE SENDING PEOPLE TO SPACE! and insinuated i must be a fraud or liar since i refused to deal with their standard bullshit procedure. the conversation then quickly ended with her turning it back on me and making me feel like i was completely stupid / unexperienced / incompetent etc. needless to say i will never work for these entitled people.

Two interviews can to mind when I read this.

1. An in-person phone round interview at one of the social media Companies in the Bay Area. The interviewer came 10 min late, gave me a problem and was then busy as hell with his phone. At least he had the courtesy to tell me that there was a prod issue he was engaged in, but still, not cool.

The problem was tough as hell, and I didn’t solve it. There was no help/prompts either. I was curious about the source of the problem - and the person told me that it was his own personal twist on a problem from competitive programming competitions.

So, basically, unless you are a seasoned competitive programmer, you are screwed. Again, not cool.

2. An interview at one of the Big Banks in SF for a Engg role. One of the interviewers asked me about my current job and was visibly upset when I said it was cool and nice. Then they followed that up by being disinterested and openly hostile in the rest of the interview.

Didn’t get the job and dodged a bullet. But I still don’t understand what his problem was. Since when is it necessary to hate and abuse your current job when you look for the next one?

*I don't want to work with rude, unprofessional snobs*

Then, whether planned or not, the rudeness was an effective and important part of the interview process...there was no cultural fit.

I mean maybe the rudeness was performative. Particularly given how utterly useless the question is and how there's no answer where someone couldn't plausibly respond rudely...PHP is obvious, but "Rust? Oh you're one of those people?"

How people respond to rudeness can be an effective gauge of personality.

Some people will laugh it off. Some assume the source was having a bad day. Some will actually say the "what the fuck?" they're thinking.

And some people will go ballistic.

Not reacting as part of your professional self-image says a something about your personality. Terminating the interview on the spot wouldn't be part of that...because it would be unprofessional.

Which is particularly true for people who work directly with clients where the way to deal with rudeness is rates that make experiencing rudeness worthwhile.

By which I mean not accepting rudeness is a privilege. The McDonald's cashier and the hotel maid don't get that option.

Good luck.

I really don't like these "favorite x" questions. Aren't interviewers just asking something like "tell me about a language you use and why it's relevant to this interview"? Why not ask questions more directly?

I saw on reddit recently (some database related subreddit) someone say "tell me your favorite type of join" as their favorite interview question.

I’ve had a couple phone interviewers get much too aggressive at which point I told them it looks like they’ll need to find another candidate. Strangely, they both called and emailed back apologizing at which point I went elsewhere on my merry way. I think it’s necessary to have a certain amount of patience with interviewers but that certain boundaries have to be respected.

I think the interviewing process is an extremely informative view into what it's like to work at that company. The exact steps to take depend on how bad it is / how much you want the job / other context, but I think it's a safe assumption that they are treating you like they treat their coworkers, and that this is not unusual behavior for the company.

I've ended a few interview processes at companies due to things I observed during onsite interviews (not necessarily rudeness), and with the benefit of hindsight I think those were absolutely the right call.

I did have one particularly rude interviewer once, but since it was in finance I thought it was a "stress interview". I took the job, and it turns out that this person was just toxic and the company had a culture of tolerating toxic people if they were high enough performers. I'm still glad I took the job, but the experience definitely was strong evidence of the link between what you see in an interview and what you get if you work there.

I don't understand why someone would laugh at Scheme, but it's a minor thing. I would ask what's funny about it and ask him what's his favourite language.

Seeing an interviewer leave during interview would leave me pretty unfazed as well.

Overall, I wouldn't personally register this interviewer as rude. If it went over my threshold I would have just left.

I'm curious about the "you're interviewing the company" comments here. I think that's true in a lot of places, but some will run algorithms interviews by entirely different teams. Is getting rudeness from a random person out of 10k enough to have you reconsider in those cases?

I'm sorry you had such a terrible experience! As others are saying, an interview is as much about them deciding if you are a good fit for them, as you deciding if they are a good fit for you. Interviews (even bad ones) are an opportunity to hone your skills, but if it's soul crushing sitting there, it's not like it's your job to stay!

As for the rudeness of the interviewer, I will add that sometimes great developers have terrible people skills, and sometimes those people get put on interview committees. One obnoxious person doesn't necessarily dictate the culture of an entire company. Go with your gut. If the position seems otherwise exceptional and it's just one rude person, consider giving them another shot, and if not, walk--either figuratively, or literally out of the interview.

I had an encounter with a rude interviewer when I was slightly younger. (Nothing egregious, your run-of-the-mill overconfident person who wrote their own algorithms interview question and scoffed at any answer that wasn't their handcrafted one, even if it had the same time and space complexity.)

Directly after that interview, I had an informal lunch with another engineer at the company, with more interviews scheduled afterward. I mulled it over during lunch, and instead of continuing the on-site interview, I thanked my lunch companion and told them that after my experience with the previous interviewer, I was no longer interested in entertaining the prospect of employment at the company.

The lunch companion seemed mildly surprised, and apologized for the previous interviewer. I went home and had 3 hours back to myself that day I hadn't planned to have.

To this day, it is one of the most cathartic experiences I've had in my career. Realizing that I had the power to walk away and exercising it, after years of having deference toward interviewer and companies drilled into my head, felt empowering.

Sometimes I think everyone should do this once, even if they're pretty neutral about the company, just to feel more comfortable standing on equal terms with a potential employer.

Now (not that I'm particularly experienced) I advise people receiving offers to ask their potential employers if they can hang out with the team for lunch, or for a day or more. I think a lot of people can put on a smiling face for a 1-hour interview and might be a lot more irritable during a typical workday. The average workplace tenure (anecdotally) is ~2 years, it's worth doing an extra day of due diligence before signing up for an org. And of course, if they say you can't meet the team or get lunch, that's signal too (generally negative).

EDIT: I should mention, the company was small enough that I knew I'd have to work with the rude interviewer at least sporadically. Your mileage may very with large FAANG-type organizations where you'll never see your interviewer again.

I had a very similar experience (though not quite as extreme) with a Comcast interview. The interviewer would ask me about my experience and either cut me off before I could answer or practically insult me when I would give an answer to the effect of "I don't have experience with this specific technology but I do have plenty with this equivalent tech." It left a bad taste in my mouth afterwards but honestly, like many others are already saying here, that guy did me a favor by letting me know right up front that I would not like working there.

I was fortunate in that it was only a 30 minute phone interview so I could just grit my teeth and wait it out but it is entirely reasonable to terminate an interview if you are not being given respect.

Accept that the interview is over, end the interview, provide your feedback as emotionlessly as possible to your recruiter or HR, and then move on. Some might deride it as "tattling" but if someone is behaving in an unprofessional manner, then other people should know about it. Chances are, there is a recurring pattern with unprofessional people in this industry and your experiences aren't random.

I've had all sorts of bad interview experiences where interviewers have taken advantage of my naivete and kindness from all ends of the interview pipeline, especially early on in my career. Unfortunately, rude and unprofessional people are everywhere. Even if times might be tough, no job is ever worth sacrificing your self-respect.

I always ask what is your favorite language and why. And I've never laughed at the answer. I'm genuinely curious to know why they feel that way. I've learned a lot from the answers (about the candidate and about the language they like most).

If someone laughed and walked out. I would ignore it. I would be surprised at that type of reaction, but would remain professional and make a mental note to not work there. That's a very bad sign.

Diversity is what makes us strong. This applies to programming languages and differences of opinions as well. Sure, someone has to call the shots and make a decision (we will all use Go or Java) but having devs who know other languages, and have strong views as to why they like them, is a good thing.

This thread has mentioned that it was unacceptable for the interviewer to walk out without saying why they were leaving, or even saying goodbye and thanking you for your time.

While that was an enormous red flag, so is that they had laughed in your face about your choice for a favorite language. That person was extremely rude to you and that behavior was accepted by their co-workers.

While wanting to end that interview right on the spot is a natural reaction, I would have kept going. Depending on the size of the your market, you could get tagged as that person that bailed in the middle of the interview. Depending on how the rest of the interview went, you could be direct and ask about that interviewer and if that was indicative of the company culture.

Depends how you want to handle it. If its rude, address it in the moment as you would a rude colleague. If its someone you'd report to, ask the other interviewers if this is to be expected (hint; it will be, but asking cements in these peoples' minds that its effecting hiring). Be loud and honest and mostly don't work there. There's a million places to work right now, but make it known why you won't deal with people's bs, or better yet address it in the moment and let them know its not acceptable. If its just "perceived rude" but fine, then great, you both learned something. If its fine and you just thought wrong, great lesson, you learned you were mistaken.

It sounds like it was one person doing this? Unless this person is in a pivotal or supervising role, I would not worry a lot - they may be on their way out already. I personally would have continued the interview as you chose to do and then reported the experience to the relevant hr/recruiter person. Remember, the one jerk in the room hopefully does not reflect upon the other professionals that continued the interview and were probably thankful the rudy left. Edit: also remember that you will likely encounter the others left in the room in other places and they will likely remember your professionalism in the face of this uncalled-for imposition, which should hopefully serve you well.

I had a terrible interview at Citadel. The interviewer basically messed up all the things that we as an industry have learnt not to do over the last 10-20 years. Not just the format, but it was adversarial, trick questions, he interrupted all the time, belittled my ideas, and was generally an unpleasant person.

I dealt with it by declining the offer I received and making sure to give feedback about that interviewer directly to the HR team and that he was a contributing factor. While considering the offer I enquired about whether he would be in my reporting chain and made it clear that was a dealbreaker for me.

Apparently the guy gave me the best feedback of all my interviewers. Why then did he need to be like that?!

Wish i had had the presence of mind to pause and do the same in a recent interview (where despite 'pushing back' against a counter comment, the interviewer insisted that I didnt 'push back' enough). I retrospect, i had asked a couple of probing questions in an earlier interview about his funding for the initiatives he had proposed, and he might not have taken kindly to those questions (unjustifiably, i feel). Another git on the panel yawned in my face halfway thru a 45 minute interview. I've been in more than one interview situation where the interviewer seems tired out, hasnt had a good nights sleep etc. Comes across incredibly rude.

Being an introvert I'm not quite sure I'd terminate the interview loop myself, but I'd probably stop trying to sell myself for the rest of the loop and start trying to figure out if I could ask questions that would reinforce that I shouldn't work there. My brain would go to the place where I was trying to teach myself how to better interview companies for their behavior--you're in a situation where you know you don't like this company, so what other data can you gather about that, and what questions could you ask of future companies that you interview at?

I think your answer was appropriate. It's very hard to find the best response in this kind of unexpected situation. Probably best to continue the interview, and report the bad behaviour to the recruiter/HR.

Be honest with the next interviewer, tell them what happened and tell them you don't think you're a good cultural fit for the organization if they have that kind of person on staff.

The next interviewer can either try to explain away the behavior "Yes, that guy's a jerk, but don't let him taint your perception of the organization", or maybe they'll say "Yeah, this is the no-nonsense culture we like around here, if you can't take criticism, then you're probably not a good fit".

Either way you'll have more information about whether or not you want to work there.

Tierh

> I've had an interviewer laugh in my face when I told them my favorite language was Scheme.

Anyone who has contempt for the beauty of Scheme is a liability, not an asset, to your team and you can safely recommend no-hire.

If the interviewer is very talented, and has instead of delusions of grandeur, realisation of grandeur, he may well get away with it. I knew such a person in a company. The less experience and knowledge you had, the less he would respect you. He was actually pretty chill with other smart people, but of course this didn't make him a good human being.

I think you did well to stay in the interview. Hell I even would have taken the job if it was offered. I mean if you are desperate for work, you have to just deal with it. You can always stick up for yourself in the mean time.

Fully agree, there is no "you should" in my opinion, because you weren't ready or expecting such behavior. Call it a lesson for future interviews :)

Next time you see this behavior you can tell them very politely and calmly that you are not interested in joining a company that promotes this behavior, you are incredibly sorry for taking their time and that you would like to terminate the interview now.

Two outcomes: you wake someone up and they kindly ask you to give them a chance because this behavior will be dealt with, or you are saving yourself from a bad employer.

I'm always grateful when an interviewer shows me this side of them early in the process, it really saves everyone some time, and I dodge a bullet.

In your scenario, I'd have probably just smirked at the (I hope embarassed) remaining interviewers, and said "welp, anything else you guys wanna discuss before I go? Because I think I see where we're all headed here" or some other lighten-the-mood banter. Then we can exchange recipes or new restaurant hotspots, shake our heads at how ridiculous tech can be, and be on our merry ways.

This is a signal that you might not want to work for this company anyways. Interviewers should be aware that they are representing their company during the interview, and will be spreading an impression of their company beyond just the one candidate that they are currently interviewing.

(I have not been in this situation but have had the reverse happening to me where the candidate walked out on me after performing poorly in the first few minutes. I asked if they want to at least stay for lunch, but they seemed like they were in a hurry to run away.)

Yeah, I think you can politely point out that such behavior is out of line and terminate the interview. On the other hand, no need to get angry. People may insult you for no good reason, but it does mean you need to get back every time (I forgot the exact quote from Do Vito Corleone).

BTW, it's actually great that you got a strong signal about the company. The interviewer apparently lacks of intellectual curiosity and the company culture is dubious. A much worse outcome would be that you find out the culture after you join the company.

Back when I was hiring people, I would have probably hired you on the spot, if you said Scheme was your favorite programming language. But that's just me.

More to your point, it would have been fine to collect your things, get up from the table, and say something like "Thank you for this opportunity to talk. I wish you well." or something like that.

Not nasty, not sarcastic, just relaxed and confident.

Cultivating an ability to be genuinely more or less indifferent to what arises in my life (to be non-reactive) has been working very well for me.

I wish you the best.

Personal anecdote regarding interviewing with AWS:

Pre covid, I had two in person interviews with different AWS teams. One in San Francisco and on in Seattle. Both technical interviews were tough and the interviewers were very polite, helpful, and gracious, even when I would struggle. They were also very interested in my answers to the sorts of questions about “what’s your favorite language?” Or “what sorts of hobbies do you have?”

Even though i did not go through with either position, my experience interviewing for AWS was a very pleasant one.

First, I would just be glad I dodged a bullet. Then probably just send an email to the recruiter and/or hiring manager about it and move on.

Your intuition to end the interview yourself is good as well.

Be mindful of fundamental attribution error.

For all you know their spouse died last week and they were having a terrible time.

They shouldn't have acted that way, but we should be wary about generalizing a person from a single mistake or a company from a single mistake.

You can always turn down a job offer if one is extended if the company rubbed you the wrong way, I can't see how you'd be better off terminating an interview rather than completing it. ... unless they started talking about something illegal or something like that.

I had a similar experience when being interviewed by a director at Uber. (I really wish I remembered his name. He worked for Microsoft for about 10 years before coming to Uber.)

I know how I wish I handled it, but I just sat there because I was honestly confused by him.

When asked if I had questions, I should have asked the shadower if he thought Uber encouraged a culture of mutual respect. Then as a follow up, if that culture was demonstrated here. When he’d inevitably say, “Yes?”, I would have simply said, “I don’t.”

Then they just walked out in the middle of the interview without saying a word when it wasn't going well, leaving the other interviewers to continue without them.

Then you should walk out as well. Explaining calmly but confidently why you are doing so, of course, to underscore the fact that you can still be a professional even when they are not. But either way -- the interview had clearly lost any purpose by that point, so the sooner everyone can cut their losses and move on, the better.

Did the other interviewers in the room continue on without saying anything either?

That's so strange. I'm not sure how I would have reacted to that but I don't think it would have been very kind. I like having a few good high-brow, back-handed slaps to throw around when I need to put rude people back in line. But walking out laughing? That's so surreal I feel like I would have simply done the same. I imagine it would've seemed a very chaotic scene to those remaining.

I don't think there's a need to terminate the interview at the moment of the incident, especially as they're a precious window into the culture of a company. You may learn a lot from watching the reaction of the remaining interviewers over the remainder of the interview.

Assuming that the interviewee chooses not to pursue employment at the company, it seems optional but appropriate to leave constructive feedback with the recruiter/hiring manager on the way out.

- End the interview early and call them out on being rude.

- Drag their company they work for on Blind and Glassdoor.

This is the best thing you can do not just for yourself, but for other engineers as well.

A rather disdainful experience I had with Refurbed.com a couple months back: interviewer immediately reaches out to schedule a meet then proceeds to ghost you with the pretext that they were busy/sick. Only for them to later brag about their 0.5% success recruit rate. On Glassdoor and other sites alike, more than 60% applicants rated them negatively. What a garbage recruit process and honestly incompetent interviewers.

Do not enable such. Walk out. End it.

Remembering that one time an interviewer asked to fill a spec and then asked why I didn't .

I think "what kind of an organization would let someone like that represent them?" and thank the gods for learning early to avoid that place.

If the interview was like this, what does it say about the culture of the company? Either way, I would have politely terminated and left

Interviewed at Samsung ( Noida India) around 2016, where exactly the same thing happened with me.

Was being interviewed by a panel of 4-5 people. The main guy, who I presume was the hiring manager stood up in the middle of the interview and left the room, seemingly unimpressed with my answers.

Thankfully I didn't get through and heard many horror stories regarding their culture in later years.

I'd see your appreciation of Scheme as quite positive!

I once had an interview (in Portuguese) where some HR person asked me if I spoke English and seemed to get very upset when I replied that I did. This person started berating me with an angry face: "how would you know??". That was very strange. I can't imagine what was going on in this person's head.

Kind of might depend on the context, e.g. if it's was an embedded dev position that required a mix of C and assembly, and Scheme was not just your favorite language, but also the only one. But then it's not clear why they'd invite you to the interview... unless your resume was misleading... and so on, and so forth. The context is important.

I've only faced this a time or two, and I ended the session. I did that with respect and candor, being frank about it potentially being a poor fit, wishing them luck and all those basic human things.

No regrets.

In my view, these things are self-correcting. If the interview is so poor that I feel it doesn't make sense, it's extremely likely more will be a rough scenario.

I experienced rude person on one interview about 7 years ago. It was turning point in my career and I'm glad this guy revealed what it would be like to work for this company.

I was interviewing for tech lead in one of startups in my niche. The very first meeting with the CEO ended on very positive note, and also he said that there is a potential growth path to CTO (I was young and had no idea what CTO really means so I believed him). Startup was fairly established with big customer base for the niche it operates. And my experience was a perfect fit, at least from technical point of view.

Prior to that role I was working in environment where people generally had respect to each other. I never had to deal with politics. It was enough to be respectful and just deliver what I was meant to deliver.

When I entered the interview there was a long table, on the other side of the table there were 4 persons - CEO, COO, accountant, and some older person in his early 50s. On the other side of that table there was a chair for me to sit on.

The interview immediately started from a bombardment of non-technical questions I would normally have time to reflect on. But still, I was expected to provide fast responses even though those questions was not really even close to what the role was about or what I disclosed on my CV. Particularly the older guy was very active and, well, the tone of his voice and the way how he was structuring his questions was not nice, to say the least. Anything I said was immediately denied by this guy, and while the time was passing the tone of his voice and general behavior was becoming more and more rude.

I remember what I was thinking about straight after I left the interview - this was the worst interview in my life, it felt like actor-played drama. I was on many interviews prior to this one, I think I can say I have seen enough to be able to tell the difference :) Later on, when I talked this through with my wife I was wondering if leaving would not be better way to end this theater, from perspective of years I think I could steer the interview away from areas I'm not competent by simply saying that it's not what I advertised on my CV.

When I left the room I was simply told I'm not a good fit, even though days earlier CEO was very excited and during the interview there was not a single technical question asked (like, not even what technologies I worked with, or what projects I delivered). I found it quite confusing, but such is life, I moved on :)

A little while ago I had an interview in which the owner of the company (Fintech-ish) started reading my palm and telling me things about me he would have extrapolated from what I'd already told him about myself.

That's not a euphemism: he genuinely believed he was reading the lines on my palm, and that that makes sense to do in an interview.

At the point you feel they are being rude, you know you don't want to be dependent on them for your income. There is nothing more to do here but waste everyone's time.

This is the core truth of the situation. Be gentle with how you tell them this; but not telling them, or letting them believe something else is fundamentally dishonest.

In that specific situation, you could mention it to the remaining interviewers.

Some version of "Is he always like that?" perhaps.

Remember that every candidate can be a future supplier or customer. That’s why rude behavior is so damaging.

I wouldn’t terminate the interview, or even give negative feedback. Just politely decline if they ask you to continue the process. That way you have the ability to go back if the situation changes. (If the jerk leaves)

I can handle rude interviewers all day. It’s the (outlier) ESL ones that present my greatest difficulties. I know they’re trying their best and so I sit through the interview because I want them to not know I’m miserable if I leave. Still, we both know nobody will be getting a callback afterwards.

>I think I should have politely terminated the interview myself

I probably wouldn’t have had the guys to do this myself either, but I think this would have been the right thing to do. Like others have said, they gave you important information about how the company (does not) deal with assholes.

One cant do much. I have had a couple of terrible experiences. Its amazing what power does to some technical managers and senior HR. Its their karma and they are going in the right direction of being assholes who will have a miserable old age once the power is gone.

I decide not to work there and then tune out the rest of the interview. I'll continue the loop for practice.

If I don't like them after a few minutes of meeting them, I can't imagine how I'll feel when I have to spent a majority of my day dealing with them.

People that act like that are insecure and defensive about something. I'm constantly dealing with these types in my industry (education). It took me a long time to learn that this behaviour is almost never about you, so try not to take it personally.

I would have tried to bond with the other interviewers there. This is an opportunity for you to show them your character. They have to work with that guy. Show compassion for them. Even if you never work there, why make a fuss? Make it an opportunity.

I don't work for that company. A company that would allow that to happen is probably not a company with a culture I'd like to be a part of.

In your specific example, depending on how the rest of the team reacted, I might've also just stayed to the end.

You will deal with many rude individuals. I'd recommend approaching this as a simple lesson that you don't want to work with this company, and finish the interview. You can follow up with the recruiter and decline politely regardless.

When I had such experiences (very rare) I continued the interview, then I left and never came back. Life is too short for something else.

Oh, and I told all my friends to avoid those companies. It was a nice gesture for my friends, not a "cancel X" move.

If you have the wit to needle them back without coming off as deranged, then do that.

If not, then calmly state that you feel the company is not a good fit and that ending the interview early is in both of your interests, go outside and enjoy the rest of your day.

I'm in my 40s. I've had several really bad interviews, and a few good ones. My advice to you is to stand up and walk out when the interviewers become mocking, overly pedantic, or arrogant. Consider it a reflection of office culture.

The only thing I can think of is maybe this person thought you were lying. Picking a more obscure language to seem cool, or to make follow up questions more difficult. But I don't think they behaved appropriately in any case.

You are not alone. Here is some inspiration: https://thedailywtf.com/series/tales-from-the-interview

Sometimes people have bad days, sometimes those days overlap with being pulled into an interview.

I wouldn't get too hung up on it personally. It sounds like you behaved maturely and kept your cool, that's a desirable trait.

In the 2-3 times it has happened to me:

What I want to do: Walk out

What I did: Stay there in shock, wondering what to do, and seething in anger on the way home.

Its like anything else--unless you regularly meet rude people, you are at a shock when you do meet someone

I try to cut it early to stop wasting time, especially if its a small company and you will likely be working with that person. I had to do this twice out of 5 companies I interviewed at from YC a couple years back.

You did the right thing. Better to leave the interview on good terms and turn the job down than make a scene yourself and risk burning a future bridge (you never know when you might run into these people again).

Interview is a mutual process. The company checks if the candidate suits it, and candidate does the same about the company. I would sincerely thank that person, excuse myself and finished the interview.

The same way I deal with rude people anywhere in life: call them out on it.

Just roll with it. You really don't have much context on the laughter or the leaving. Both could have valid reasons. And maybe they don't and the person is an idiot - just roll with that too.

Maybe they were a Lisp-1 person?

I think asking to stop the interview could be a proper way to handle this in the situation. Maybe you can also try talking to the recruiter / hiring manager about your experience.

Pushy interviewers are my favorite, since that's my personal love language, and combative people usually respond well to appropriate pushback. Plain rude? I'll walk out first, watch me.

Consider yourself lucky. You got to find out the place wasn't for you before accepting an offer there and wasting more of your time. They did you a favor.

It didn't happen to you, it happened for you.

You might have pointed that out to the other interviewers to show that you are below no one, and you do not allow being laughed at. That may lead to a much more interesting interview.

While that's really weird, I think you handled it properly in-the-moment.

Sometimes there are difficult people, sometimes you're catching people at their very-worst due to hidden reasons.

Unless there's an imminent worry about someone's health or safety, one reasonably professional way to handle such situations is to continue with the planned, important tasks, then discuss/take-action on the exceptional behavior with a little distance, in another forum better-suited to that.

And, since there were other interviewers there who were the flouncers' coworkers, and you seem to have been in their premises, if they didn't make a big deal about the situation in the moment, you didn't really have any more obligation than perhaps a shocked-look, or brief "that was weird" comment at most, before following their cue to get-back-to-business.

That doesn't mean the concern ends there, though.

On a subsequent day, and certainly before scheduling any separate set-of-interviews or considering any offer, it'd have been appropriate to ask the other interviewers, or whatever manager/HR-person/recruiter who's your main point-of-contact, about the incident. It'd be appropriate to ask if the person who stormed-out is often like that, if you'd be working with them, and so forth.

You'd want to sound-out whether they're some burn-out/malcontent on-the-way-out, or a difficult-but-essential person who others tiptoe-around & try to keep productive-but-contained, or something else.

And even if you progressed no further with the potential employer, perhaps even because the tantrum-person nixed you, it'd be appropriate to offer some feedback that you found their behavior off-putting.

But also more generally: while both sides of an interview should work to hold-back snap judgements until all relevant info is available, given the value of skilled professionals' time, at any point where there's certainty that one side or the other doesn't want to proceed, it's OK to cut things short.

If you're the candidate & become sure these aren't people you'd want to work with, you can absolutely say you've decided you're not interested & go. And if the 1st or 2nd interviewer in a series of many interviews achieves certainty that a candidate falls irredeemably short of what you thought when you brought them in for, or the projects' needs, it is a gift to both the candidate & the later interviewers not to spend another 4-12 person-hours going-through-the-motions.

Tell the recruiter/HR contact, or your next interview, about it and see what they do. There is the possibility that this person is an outlier, or even a known problem.

With intense gratitude for the fact that I will only have to interact with this person once for an hour, and not five days a week, eight hours per day, forever.

Well, all I can is it's good to be old enough and financially secure enough to happily give them a "fuck you" and walk out myself.

I'd continue interview just for the practice of being interviewed, since I'm already there. Unless I have more important things to do.

Being in a market for decades I do not remember a single case of an interviewer being rude. Incompetent sure but never rude / impolite.

I would probably have laughed as well thinking you were joking (my experience with scheme was kind of like brainfuck but with parenthesis)

Oh wow. Sorry to hear your experience. However, I think they Failed your interview of them. Would you want to work with people like that?

That’s brutal. I can’t imagine laughing in someone’s face in any circumstance during an interview, and especially not in this job market.

Interviewer was probably still pissed about R6RS ;)

I'm really sorry. I have felt so terrible after bad interviews. It really, really sucks.

Remember that you are interviewing the company as well.

Identifying a toxic company through a rude interviewer saves you time and effort.

easy. you immediately flag the job in your mind as NO and move on mentally. try to be polite and diplomatic but still abort ASAP

what I do

life is too short, and good engineers in too high of demand, to put up with toxic people or groups in your life. trick is to spot them early, before you've said YES and began a serious mutual time investment

You post the company name online and make bad press.

The way he behaved isn't just disrespectful, it's completely fucked up.

You don’t deal with them. You just feel lucky that you dodged the bullet of working at that company and move on.

If this happened to me, I would drop the call. But I would say something first so it is abundantly clear why.

“It’s obvious the workplace culture here is not conducive to professional collaboration. I’ll be ending the call here, you can remove me from the candidate pool.”

That’s it. No need to grandstand. Don’t apologize. Don’t thank them for their time since they’ve blatantly wasted yours. Just say why you are dropping off, then do it.

Laughing at your favourite language? This may not have been intended to be rude, depending on the context.

The same way you deal with rude people everywhere else in life. An interview is just a conversation.

If they walked out, I would have ended the interview right there.

Respect yourself first and others will follow suit.

Report their behavior by name to the person who initially screened you.

Burn a bridge and have some fun. Start asking questions like "Is rudeness acceptable at your shitty company?", "Is that guy too stupid to understand Scheme?", "Do you think I'd lower my standards enough to work for you?" etc.

you can't do anything other than to just hang up and move on. You don't have to tolerate this kind of behavior.

this is likely a toxic work place.

as a candidate, you are interviewing the company as much as they're interviewing you.

Don’t work at that company

Wow, what company is this?

I think you learned an important lesson there.

Not a lot you can do about it now.

I leave

Laugh about it, treat it as an experience to be arrogant to them yourself , move on to the next.

I hate to break it to you, but saying your favorite language is Scheme would get A LOT of interviewers to laugh, especially in the enterprise world where Java and C# are dominant. These aren't usually Hacker News browsing people, and if they have any association with Lisp, it's through a college course, rarely independent interest.

Are you sure he didn't just walk out because he had other things to do and knew the others could take over?