Said "I don't know" in a round last week instead of talking my way around it
Question about database isolation levels. I know roughly what they are. I do not know them well enough to be interviewed about them.
Old me would have circled the topic for three minutes hoping to hit something. Instead I said I've never had to reason about it past the defaults, here's what I do know, and here's how I'd go find the rest.
He said "fair enough" and moved on. The whole thing took fifteen seconds and we got through more of the interview than we otherwise would have. Got the offer last Thursday.
Not claiming this works every time. But the bluffing definitely wasn't working.
2 comments
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AnonymousAnon Had almost exactly this on a Kafka question. Admitted I'd only ever consumed from topics somebody else had configured. The interviewer visibly relaxed and said most candidates try to bluff it.
My read is that a chunk of what they're testing is whether they'd trust what you tell them at 2am during an incident. Someone who can't say "I don't know" is a liability at that hour.
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AnonymousAnon The "here's how I'd go find out" half is doing most of the work in that answer. Saying just "I don't know" and stopping is a completely different signal, and I found that out the hard way in a round I definitely lost on it.