“Someone that avoids talking about what they did, and focuses too much on "we"”

This is very interesting. I naturally use “we” when discussing past products and achievements. I do this in recognition of the fact that things are very rarely designed and built in true isolation. Even principal engineers socialize their designs and thinking with colleagues, making small tweaks here and there or gaining additional confidence to move forward.

“We” is absolutely not a red flag for me.

I agree. Maybe it's a cultural thing, but if someone talked about a big multiyear project only in terms of I, I would see that as a red flag. Either they actually did all the work themselves in isolation, but that must be because they are hard to work with, or they are taking all the credit for work done by a quite a few people in a team.

If you get asked, multiple times, how exactly you yourself contributed to the project and you continue only talking about what "we" did, it is absolutely a red flag.

> "Even principal engineers socialize their designs and thinking with colleagues, making small tweaks here and there or gaining additional confidence to move forward."

Principal engineers know that there are appropriate times to say "we did..." and appropriate times to lean heavily into saying "I specifically did..." (while crediting others for their part, of course, but as briefly as possible) and they also know which one an interview is.

"We" may not be a red flag (I appreciate a measure of humility and recognition of teamwork as well) but it must always followed up by a question about the details of what the interviewee did.

It depends on the context - but each time I've interviewed someone, the "we" is important, but the "I" is important-er. It's almost implicit that everyone works in a team to achieve big goals, but the reason I'm talking to that candidate is to hear what they did as part of that team as that's what makes a difference to the hiring.

This is one of those things that's getting lost in the intention. I've been in an interview where I used we and the interviewer was fairly blunt in asksing which things I directly did, which I collaborated on, which I reviewed, etc. It becomes clear very quickly they aren't trying to figure out if you are sociable, but to understand what you do and do not know how to do. Shifting into that mindset it becomes easy to say things like "three person team. We collaborated on x,y,z. A and B were my primary responsibilties and I think my most important contributions were blah blah".

Yeah for me as well, it's just a way of recognising teamwork. If anything I would say it's the opposite, excessive "I..me..myself" can become a red flag in some cases.

Speaking as someone who hires, "I" is a huge red flag for me — it's a dead ringer for what is (in a very soft sense), a confidence man. Someone who's aggressively and artificially trying to project an external appearance of competence. I've had multiple bad hires like this, and it's now something I really watch out for.

The worst thing with guys like this isn't that they're going to deliver less than promised, but it's that the aggressive "willingness to lie for their own benefit" bleeds into a lot of other behavior at work.

I prefer using “we” but early on in my career was rejected at an interview because they thought I hadn’t done anything myself - now I mix in we and “I specifically implemented/designed/etc.”

Same. As a long time team lead/manager I always take the blame when things go wrong and give credit to individuals other than myself when things go right.

Someone constantly using "I" like they worked in a vacuum, and didn't play nice with their team is a bigger red flag for me.

The important piece in the interview is can they answer in detail the rest of the questions.

I should have been clear - I start my interview by asking the candidate to focus on their experience and every time they talk about what "we" did on a project I follow up with what specifically they did.

The imposters/charlatans (and weeding them out was the context for this whole thread) find a way to avoid the question.

>"Tell me about the most complicated projects you contributed a significant part of the design, implementation to, or ideally both."

Start with the problem they aimed to solve.

Probe for how they chose the solution, and what alternatives they considered.

Get into the details of specifically what artifacts they produced, and if part of a team what role they played.

Get them to describe the solution in technical detail.

Probe into trade-offs they had to make or compromises.

Ask what aspects they found novel or innovative.

Once they finish describing the system, ask if it was successful, and how they measured it.

If they were around after launch, how did they operate it, monitor it, what unexpected challenges they encountered that they didn't foresee.

By the way, all along it doesn't matter if the domain or technology they are describing to you is totally different from your own experience. A senior+ engineer should be able to explain their domain to someone equally technical in a different domain with some competency.

This verbatim can very well apply to many different industrial engineering efforts, regardless of whether there is software involved.

>This cannot be upvoted enough.

I agree, and I mean far beyond the message board.

> I naturally use “we” when discussing past products and achievements

Then you will not get recognition about what you did in the eyes of others. It is hard to trust someone who hides behind a group, because it looks like you have no confidence in yourself or what you did.

Recognition and trust have never been a problem for me. Have you hired at this level before, or merely assuming? As always there is nuance, as other commenters have touched on.

I have hired and been hired at this level and I have tried both approaches, one is IME far superior to the other. Any role which requires self-confidence is one where I would screen for candidates that are comfortable with claiming achievement.

What would you say to someone who's starting their career and feels they would tick most if not all of those yellow flags?

I have to say this is an awesome thing to be reading as within a couple of months I'll be taking on my first major project at my new employer. Valuable insight to consider as I proceed.

> "What would you say to someone who's starting their career and feels they would tick most if not all of those yellow flags?"

Nothing, that's expected for a junior developer. The items on the list only become a problem when a "senior" developer does them. One of the parts of transitioning from junior to senior and beyond is learning to understand the business (or other) context you perform your craft in and shaping what you do to help the business succeed.

[EDIT] When I say "help the business succeed", that may sound like management claptrap (even if it happens to be true) so I'll also point out that even if you don't give a flying hoot about the business or its goals, you still do care about understanding whether it's succeeding and profitable/effective at its goals, lest you get blindsided by a layoff or cancellation of your project.

Thank you for your advice. I've taken it seriously.

Cheers.

None of those are yellow flags if you are starting out in your career, in fact it would be totally expected!

It's only a yellow flag for a senior engineer - which in the framing of the original posting was being discussed. Someone with 7-10 years of experience, I'm imagining.

As someone who just went through a dozen interviews, this line of questioning is by far my most favorite one to receive.

* Someone who left before the project finished, or immediately after.

In my experience, people leave just after the big project ships. They've been focused on a task, working hard and are usually left with "now what?". It's interesting psychology.

In science these types of questions are part of the interview (either implicit or explicit), with maybe more added emphasis on future work and vision depending on the rank of the scientist.

This cannot be upvoted enough.