"Refactoring is a controlled technique for improving the design of an existing code base. Its essence is applying a series of small behavior-preserving transformations, each of which is 'too small to be worth doing.' However the cumulative effect of each of these transformations is quite significant." –Martin Fowler I do this job because I view the engineering community, on the whole, as a bunch of very smart, optimistic, giving people building amazing things that benefit us all. I love what open source and FOSS stand for: the sum is greater than the parts, and inclusiveness and collaboration can change the web (and the world). Unfortunately, this cohort of good people doing good things is subject to a terrible process: stale, sales-driven tech recruiting. I'm going to try to give engineers an alternative. Recruiting isn't rocket science, but it takes moral intelligence to do it well. The "behavior-preserving transformations" Fowler mentions are key: I never get short-sighted and focus on "closing a deal"and I believe that injecting sales tactics into an already delicate process is always harmful. Whichever side of the hiring/interviewing equation you're on, you face risk. The task of an ethical, effective recruiter is to mitigate risk, keep all parties reasonable and communicative, provide accurate and useful information, and to leave the ultimate decision to the engineer and the engineering team.