FWIW, that's how I structure my interviews typically, so they still exist in some places.
For anyone reading along I highly encourage that; there's way more signal to noise hearing about some project they worked on and why they were proud enough to put it on their resume than 'did they remember the algorithmic call/response'. You can't beat an almost post mortem discussion where you let the interviewee lead on what they think went well and what they'd have done differently with hindsight.
Shockingly low percentage of people have built
something they are proud to talk about. All them were good hires tho, as long as the explanations are detailed enough that it was work they actually did or adopted well enough.
If you put a little work in, you can talk about nearly every project. Even stuff like classified satellites have been discussed; you just act respectful to the interviewee's boundaries (which you should be doing anyway).
Yes. If people talk enough they can’t help but share all the relevant details if you know enough about creating medium or large sized systems. Also I ask questions for stories about troubleshooting bugs, and when to log, some story when logs And I would rather hire someone that iterates well over the weeks or months time frame than can solve something quickly.
100% this. All you really have to do is get people talking. Have them tell you a story and ask for details. If they have trouble when you get into details then they are making it up. If not you should have a fun conversation.
As a recent interviewee I can say that I'd be asked about code I was proud of. The last place I worked for was well-known enough or could be looked up easily and was small, so I explained what our main solution did, a particular issue we faced and how I planned and implemented a fix. Led to some good conversations with pseudocode, and didn't break any NDAs.
For anyone reading along I highly encourage that; there's way more signal to noise hearing about some project they worked on and why they were proud enough to put it on their resume than 'did they remember the algorithmic call/response'. You can't beat an almost post mortem discussion where you let the interviewee lead on what they think went well and what they'd have done differently with hindsight.