When I was starting out, interviews made me freeze.
I practiced every word. Rehearsed every question. Walked in stiff, robotic, and terrified of messing up.
I wasn’t trying to impress. I just didn’t want to screw it up.
Fast forward to today — I’m the one doing the interviews.
But I’ve never forgotten how dehumanizing that old system felt. So now?
I flipped it.
I Talk Like a Human. And It Works.
No scripts. No checklist of behavioral prompts.
I tell candidates how I started as a tester and worked my way up. I walk them through what I believe in, what I’m building, and where QA fits in the bigger picture.
Then we just… talk.
Sarcastic comments? Yeah, they show up.
Tangents? Happens all the time.
Do I treat them like we’re classmates from college catching up in the hallway?
Honestly? Yeah. And almost every applicant found it refreshing.
No one needs to pretend. No one needs to perform.
I Still Watch Closely — But Not for the Stuff You Think
I’m not here to quiz people on tool versions or textbook definitions.
What I care about is what they do during the call:
- Do they communicate clearly, or just ramble?
- Do they call out nuance in the stories I share — even push back when needed?
- Do they ask questions when something’s not clear?
That’s QA thinking. That’s what I actually test for.
If someone misses something, but they ask, confirm, and adapt? I’ll take that any day over someone reciting buzzwords.
I Don’t Ego Check. I Learn Too.
I’ve seen how easy it is for hiring leads to default into power trip mode — testing for confidence, dominance, or worse, trying to “break” candidates.
That’s not me.
I believe I can learn from every applicant.
Sometimes it’s in how they spot edge cases I didn’t consider.
Sometimes it’s how they frame a bug report.
And sometimes it’s just how they respond to uncertainty.
Because that’s QA: you never have the full picture. You investigate anyway.
Skills Can Be Taught. Awareness Can’t.
You can learn Postman. You can write better test cases over time.
But I can’t teach you how to care.
I can’t force curiosity.
And I sure as hell can’t inject the instinct to notice what others overlook.
That’s on you.
If you show up real, we’ll get along.
If you show up rehearsed, I’ll see it immediately.
And Yes, I Broke LinkedIn
I posted a QA job that reached too many people too fast — LinkedIn literally paused it after 2 hours.
The reason?
Not clickbait. Not algorithm hacks.
Just a job post that respected the reader, spoke in a human tone, and said exactly what we were hiring for.
“Want in? Send your resume and a short note on how you found your worst bug to [email protected].”
That was the instruction.
Most people missed it.
Those who didn’t?
They made it through. And they’re some of the most solid QA applicants I’ve ever interviewed.
Want the Full Story Behind That Job Post?
This post is the human side of what happened.
But if you want to see the QA breakdown, hiring process, and how that one-liner filtered out the noise — it’s all here:
👉 Why Our QA Job Post Blew Up — And What That Says About the Industry
(That one’s over at QA Journey — where I put my QA hat back on.)
The Interview Is the Culture
Remote teams can’t afford fake chemistry.
If you can’t hold a real conversation or admit when you don’t know something, async collaboration is going to eat you alive.
That’s why our interviews feel like conversations — because that’s what the actual job is.
Context-switching, clarity, directness. Not theater.
So yeah, I broke LinkedIn.
But what I really broke was the expectation that interviews have to suck.
And I’m not going back.
—
Remote Work Haven
We don’t do culture fit. We do context, clarity, and calling BS where it lives.
