Interviews Where Thinking Matters More Than Memory

Why interviews shouldn’t feel like exams. What really shows a person’s ability to think and how to tell apart an engineer who understands from one who just remembers.

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Introduction

I’ve been on both sides of the monitor — being interviewed and interviewing others. And the weirdest part always starts when an interview turns into an exam.

— What does unshift() do in JavaScript?
— Umm… adds an element to the beginning of an array?
— Great! Now name all types of non-functional tests!

And you just sit there thinking:

Wait… I thought I came for an interview, not an exam.
Can I please get another question, professor?

🎯 When I’m on the interviewer’s side

I have just one main criterion — smart thinking. Not memorized definitions. Not textbook answers.
But the ability to:

• analyze,
• connect dots,
• and solve problems logically, not just search for ready answers.

Technical stuff is teachable. I can explain it, show it, help you learn. But critical thinking — that’s something you can’t teach in a day.

🧠 The Brain Isn’t a Flash Drive

I don’t store every function or method in my head. If I’ve never used unshift(), my brain just clears it like browser cache and that’s fine.

An engineer isn’t someone who remembers everything.

It’s someone who can figure things out, find information fast, and apply it correctly.

💡 What I Actually Check in Interviews

During interviews, I usually give logic and reasoning problems, like:

• How would you check if a system not only survives load but recovers after it?
• How would you find a bottleneck without metrics?
• When would you choose a soak test, and what would you expect to see?

The answer doesn’t have to be perfect. It just needs to show how the person thinks.

Because someone who can reason will adapt to any new tool. And someone who just memorized answers will panic the moment something breaks.

💻 About Live Coding

Live coding for a performance engineer? Really? 😅

Write a Python script. But no AI and no Google.

Or even better:

Write a script, build a Docker Compose, run the test, analyze results, make a report.

Come on.
You could’ve just given me a few Grafana dashboards to analyze instead of wasting three hours.

And by the way — no engineer works in a vacuum without AI, Google, or docs.

📎 In the End

If you need someone who memorizes definitions — hire a student. 🎓

If you need someone who understands how things actually work — hire the one who asks questions.