Why your interview loop rejects good engineers
Unstructured interviews explain about 4% of on-the-job performance. Structured technical ones explain 26%. This talk shows where the signal leaks out of a typical loop, and what to change first.
Speaker kit
Talks on hiring, interviews and engineering leadership
Lead Software Engineer at Zalando, previously Shopify. I speak in English, in Berlin or remotely, and I travel for the right event.
Watch me speak
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Topics I speak on
Each one comes out of work I did rather than a subject I read about. Tell me the audience and the slot, and I will cut the talk to fit.
Building an engineering team from zero, in public
What actually happened founding the Digital Media AdTech team at Zalando: the first 5 hires, the processes that stuck, and the ones that were quietly abandoned.
Using AI in interviews without pretending you can ban it
Candidates use AI. Trying to catch them wastes everyone's time. Give them a task that requires it and watch how they think with it. That is a stronger signal than any anti-cheating measure.
System design for people who have never designed a system
The framework I use in real interviews, taught as a repeatable procedure rather than a list of components to memorise.
What a 1.1 MB JavaScript bundle costs you
A live teardown of a real site going from 56 to 100 on mobile Lighthouse. Every decision, with the measurement that justified it.
Interviewer calibration workshop
Hands-on session for a hiring team. Everyone scores the same candidate, then we find out why the scores disagree and fix the rubric.
Happy to adapt any of these to your audience, or to build something new if the theme fits what I actually do.
Bio
Short, 40 words
Elman Huseynov is a Lead Software Engineer at Zalando, previously at Shopify. He has run over 100 technical interviews, hired more than 10 engineers, and writes about hiring at helloelman.com. He is based in Berlin.
Long, 90 words
Elman Huseynov is a Lead Software Engineer at Zalando, where he builds the Digital Media AdTech automation that ships to 27 markets. Before that he was at Shopify, shipping Balance and Editions.
He has run more than 100 technical interviews and hired over 10 engineers. He writes about interviews and hiring at helloelman.com, trains hiring teams through SmartHiring, and builds AlgoPath and ArchitectPath. He has lived in Berlin since 2020.
Both versions are ready to paste into a programme. Please use them as written.
Formats and requirements
- Keynote, conference talk, panel, workshop or podcast.
- English. Remote anywhere, in person from Berlin.
- Slides delivered at least a week ahead if the event needs them.
- Happy to record, stream and publish. No embargo on my material.
Travel and accommodation covered by the event for anything outside Berlin. Speaker fee depends on the event, so ask.
Invite me to speak
Send the event, the date, the city, the format and the audience. That is enough for me to answer yes or no in 1 reply.
Before you write
Questions organisers ask first
How much does a guest speaker cost?
My fee depends on the event, so ask. Travel and accommodation are covered by the event for anything outside Berlin. A remote talk needs no travel budget.
Send the event, the date, the city, the format and the audience. You get a number in 1 reply.
How do you invite a guest speaker?
Send 5 things: the event, the date, the city, the format and the audience. That is enough for a yes or a no in 1 reply.
The bio, the photos and the talk descriptions on this page are ready to forward. A programme committee can read them as they are.
What do you speak about?
Technical hiring and interviews, building an engineering team from zero, using AI in interviews, system design, and web performance.
Six talks are written up on this page with their lengths. They run from a 20-minute conference slot to a half-day workshop.
Do you speak remotely?
Yes, anywhere, in English. In person I travel from Berlin. Two recorded appearances are embedded at the top of this page.
Recording and streaming are fine and I put no embargo on my material. Slides arrive at least a week ahead when the event needs them.