Ask HN: How do you get hired without a programming interview?

I'm not convinced of this. It's not a perfect system but a well-orchestrated coding test is a great indicator of performance. In fact I think that's a huge pain point when hiring for a soft-skill oriented role -- it's very difficult to judge candidates until they've spent ~6 months on the job.

So what do established companies do? They rely very heavily on pedigree and experience. Coding interviews suck but I think they're necessary for meritocratic hiring. Plus, most of the complaints I see here are the result of poorly conducting programming interviews, not necessarily programming interviews as a concept.

Other alternatives:

1. Take-home programming exercise. More realistic, if it's a good task. Biased against people with less free time, though.

2. Paid take-home real work. DuckDuckGo does this, as does SpiderOak I think. Doesn't work well for people who have current job, but if it ever becomes popular it'll be easier for people to quit during job hunt period.

3. Pair programming during interview. Somewhat more realistic than whiteboard puzzle, biased against people with interview nerves.

4. Debugging code during interview. Somewhat more realistic than whiteboard puzzle, biased against people with interview nerves.

Etc..

There's no magic bullet, sadly.

Actually, they are. That is the interview. As a manager, you need to have social skills. And a lot of the questions asked give a good insight into how you approach problems and social situations.

And that is why the better coder interviews are more about talking through a problem with a bit of whiteboard sketching/coding.

Then I used new (other vendor's) enterprise software developer's platform to build a solution at my spare time.

I published an online instructional on "how to" do "good things" with other enterprise software vendor's offering.

"Other enterprise vendor" found my online instructional and hired me for $164,500 for a management position.

No bullshit coding interviews, no crap. Today I have the best job in the best part of the city with the best manager I ever had. Seriously.

Just sharing my experience with some hints along the way.

This might not work for most company however.

Yes they are (kind of), they are asked questions/problems which are used to gauge their ability to manage and do the job expected of them; in the 'best' way achievable in a interview scenario. Just like coders are asked questions to try to gauge their ability.

I'm not saying either ways are perfect, but it's not like a managerial interview is easy/non-challenging.

[Edit: Ooops saw a similar reply below, done way earlier...will keep mine here for consistency on my part]