Point of Failure

I came back last week from a job interview where the company I was applying at flew me down to their San Francisco office. I thought the interview went really well except for the last guy, the hiring manager. I could tell he was one of those "serious geeks", the college degreed Computer Science students that knew all the theory behind what he was doing. I was just a code monkey to him at best. That wouldn't have been a problem, except that I couldn't answer his Logic Problem. Apparently that was a pass or fail part of the interview because after that I had to leave and he seemed less then interested in me.

Another thing I did wrong was talk too much. He asked a simple question, "What would I add to their product if I could". My answer was simple and should have been left at that. But, I started talking about some security methods I would use to make this a safe feature to add to the product. That was a bad thing because he thought I was bullshitting him and called me on it. I tried to tell him that it was a good thing to remove executable code. He said it didn't matter. And, it doesn't; to a point. What I meant is Buffer Overflow techniques. Malformed files that, when parsed badly, can result in extra data being loaded in. This extra data "could" be executable, and if your code isn't written well, will allow for the program to start running that malformed, executable information. Apparently, even bringing this up made me look like an idiot in his eyes.

That was my point of failure. I didn't get the job. I got a corporate e-mail response to my personal e-mail in the form of, "Thank you. You're just great. Here is your handjob. By the way, get the fuck out!". I screwed up the interview, I know that. But, they really missed who I was. Even though the theory stuff gives me a run for my money, I can still write code and manage teams. My basic skills and limitations, I guess. I'm having a depressing July.

I hope Mr. Ultra-Geek is logically and scientifically constructing his own massive pair of lips to theoretically kiss his own pompous ass. I would write the program for that, but I don't work for him.