Entry level engineer requested to participate in interview of senior engineer.
 

So the company I work for is interviewing for a senior engineer, DevOps position. I was requested to participate in the last interview and I felt out of place. I work for a rather small company so it didn't greatly surprise me to see that I was invited to the interview. I realize, among many things, personality and group cohesiveness are a contributing factor when considering a new employee. With this in mind I only asked non-technical questions. Now however, I found myself trapped between a rock and a hard place because based on my own experience I do not believe the last candidate was sufficiently interviewed.

In my own interview almost twice as many people were present. This included the senior engineer who left the company and who's position is now being interviewed for and a handful of other experienced software developers. My questions ranged from technical questions about how to deal with "bouncing" sensor data to non-technical questions such as: "Why do you feel you are the correct candidate for this position?" It was a literal round-robin format where everyone participating had at least 5 minuets of time to ask me questions.

Considering the position we are currently hiring for will have FAR more responsibilities and will require a much more integral understanding DevOps and engineering than myself I would have expected the interview to be a bit more on the technical side. Then again, maybe the candidates credentials have FAR more weight and when interviewing for such a position it is more common to ask non-technical questions.

Well, I have been invited to another interview tomorrow of another candidate and I just thought it might be helpful for me to get a few other opinions. Perhaps some of you who have been working in the DevOps and engineering field for awhile now might have some advice for me? Would it be presumptuous or arrogant for me to ask someone so much more my senior technical questions? At this point, based on the lack of feedback I received, I am going to stick with my previous mentality and ask non-technical questions.

I would take some time ensuring you don't hire somebody

1. whose way of training you is to yell and curse at you
2. who "never makes a mistake" or never admits to it
3. never apologises
4. never encourages or praises, except once when you totally save his ass
5. never listens
6. shines everything up to look like his achievement when all he does is sit on his ass bullying people

I realise I may be describing most managers :( Companies are for profit. Still, you don't want a complete <expletive not inserted>. Also, listen to what others ask. If you're not consulted on the final hiring that's what you're there for.