Software Engineers - Please Be Mindful of the Delicate Balance Between Self-Confidence and Arrogance
Quite a few people have been writing about how the quality of Socializing and Networking has decreased significantly over the past few years and while I am primarily an Introvert, I can say that when people spend less time around each other, it can impact how we present ourselves to others, not to mention, how we are perceived by them. This story has to do with a 25 year old talented full stack developer who made it to a final round with a startup in Austin only to be declined because of his personality. Technically, he passed in very good form but it was his personal demeanor that ruled him out. Let's call him Richard.
As we continue to see in the labor markets, Richard was part of a layoff at his employer and with only one month's severance, his job search was active. He has an excellent educational background and you could tell from his resume that his software engineering skills, for his age, were very strong. I had a startup in downtown Austin that was looking for a midlevel developer with 3-5 years experience and upon presenting the opportunity to Richard, he gave me permission to submit his resume.
My client jumped on him immediately and their process was the following,
- Introductory virtual meeting with the company's Head of Engineering.
- Virtual whiteboard session with the company's Principal Engineer.
- Final on-site to meet everyone in person.
Richard crushed the first two rounds and we were able to schedule the final onsite immediately. The final interview was going to include some more technical white boarding but most importantly, my client's Head of Engineering scheduled a one hour conversation with Richard to discuss what his role would be at the company as well as his title and rank at the firm. He would be coming in as a midlevel developer. You have my word that I am not applying the fault on Richard but going back to the beginning of this post, while I truly believe it was not intentional on Richard's part, the impression that the Head of Engineering came away with was disappointing. I was actually stunned to see this feedback and let me paste it for you here,
Hey Mark,
I wanted to touch base after the team’s interview with Richard. He’s a bright, confident candidate, and overall the interview was fine. The discussion picked up during the technical portion, and while he demonstrated enough to suggest he’s technically competent, I have to say that he came across as pretty arrogant. While it is not a complete dealbreaker, it is something that very much stood out to me in the interview setting.
Being transparent, I do have the budget to match his salary requirement but I’m not convinced his overall candidacy warrants the level he wants to come in at. It feels more like we’d be paying for an overly confident, borderline arrogant software engineer. That said, if he’s able to secure that level of compensation and seniority elsewhere at this stage in his career, I think he should probably take it. For now, we are going to pause on his candidacy and if we decide to revisit him, I'll let you know immediately.
I thanked the Head of Engineering for this feedback and I called Richard to close things out. I politely let him know that my client was going to pass for now and simply because I believe he was misunderstood, I did not tell him that my client felt that he presented himself in an arrogant light. I have a great deal of empathy for our young people today because I do believe their words and expressions can be misunderstood by others. For instance, I continue to hear Boomers and Gen X'ers complaining about Millennials because they lack the work ethic and drive that they possessed in their mid 20's. But let's admit that times were a lot easier for us to realize the American dream. Here in Austin, back in 1970, a married couple could make 25k per year annual income and easily buy a house in Brentwood or Northwest Hills area for 35-40k. And this home purchase would happen well before they were 30 years old. Today, two young people need to make 230-250k per year to modestly qualify for a starter home out in Leander for 400-450k. I'm a Gen X'er and check out the income I made in Austin, Texas and what I was able to do with this money. Here you go:
1996 - I earned 40k
1997 - I earned 60k
1998 - I earned 80k
From here, in 1999, I was able to walk right into an upper-middle Class subdivision called Steiner Ranch and pick up a 4BR/3BA 2250 square foot home for a whopping 180k! Feel free to call me a spoiled Gen X'er for sure. My apologies for telling this story about myself but I do greatly feel for our younger people and I am concerned that a lot of times, they are misunderstood by other parties, specifically older generations. And in their continued defense, perhaps some Millennials have not been properly educated on how to express, in the most effective manner, their self-confidence and independence? Rather than learning those qualities from their parents or their teachers, are they primarily being influenced by social media celebrities flaunting themselves on Instagram and TikTok?
Getting back to Richard, we get to the final round of interviews with my client and you can make a very strong argument that at this moment, his primary motivation was to present himself as a self-confident, hard working and independent software engineer. So he tries his best to project himself in this light and as a result, he was defined as being arrogant. As a result, his candidacy was put on hold and the pending offer was taken off the table.
Another emotional quality not being expressed these days at all is Humility and to close this post out, that could have been an effective way for Richard to project himself to my client's Head of Engineering. The vast majority of the time, when we project ourselves in a humble "Sense of Service" to another human being, it's received in very good fashion. And I have to say that I am kicking myself for not having a prep call with Richard to discuss this approach for the final onsite. But again, I can't fault Richard because I'm sure he has been told several times that he needs to express himself in a very positive and self-confident light. And I'm sure that was his intention for this final interview. It just wasn't received properly by the other party.
In closing, if you are 2-3 years out of school and late stages with a company, play things safe and present yourself to the company's Head of Engineering as a talented yet humble software engineer who is ready to do anything asked of you. Upon joining their company, you plan to get up and running as quickly as possible and your #1 agenda is to function in a "Sense of Service" to the engineering manager and all the other senior developers. And should the moment present itself, you are welcome to project some very nice self-confidence and independence. But please do everything possible to make sure that the other party doesn't perceive you as being arrogant. Whether it be a job interview or any other interpersonal engagement, whenever such an observation is applied to another person, the vast majority of the time, things are put on hold.
And that very experience is what Richard realized with my client.
Thanks,
Mark Cunningham
Technical Recruiter
512-699-5719
Interviewers can be too passive.. you’re gonna spend long hours working with them and their personality- and yours too. If you thought the candidate was worthwhile, call them out “hey, you’re coming off a little strong here…”. and see where that goes. If they “humble-up”, you may have a winner here.
Unfortunately I think some interviewers perceive humility and humble friendliness as incompetence. It’s hard to know what to project to dial in on such a short time frame. I once had someone tell me I didn’t have enough confidence in the code I was writing in a 30 minute interview. What!? I was trying to get you to clarify your weird card game rules that you were making up on the fly. It’s hard to know really. Be yourself and let the cards land where they may. Remember, it’s an interview in both directions.
Like Matt Shostak said, it's a head scratcher and without being there it is hard to really assign any fault and striking a balance between humility and playing yourself up. My only bit of advice would be to talk about what you did in the project but always ensure that you include information about what your team did as well or provide the details about what you did and how it fit into the overall project and made a successful delivery. It's not as much fun as talking up your accomplishments but it does show you acting as part of a larger team in context which is really what you want to know about the candidate when it comes down to it.
The trouble is, a candidate never knows what might turn off any given interviewer (and I've heard some head-scratchers in my time from the interviewer side of the table). Try to project humility and you might be perceived as not confident enough. Try to show confidence, and you might be perceived as arrogant. It's the same for almost every aspect of the interview, and all it takes is one of the many people you interview with to kibosh your chances. I've seen candidates seemingly hesitant to express an opinion, probably out of fear that it contradicts mine. Without being in the room at the time, there's no way to be sure if the interviewer was correct in his assessment or misreading the candidate.