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Show HN: Onsites.fyi - Curated Big Tech Interview Experiences

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Re: Show HN: Onsites.fyi - Curated Big Tech Interview Experiences

#91

Post by robbyt »

Denzel wrote: post #68
ldjkfkdsjnv wrote: post #36

To reiterate: Ignore all study materials. Go to leetcode.com and literally memorize the most common questions for the company you are interviewing at. This is what your competition is doing. DO NOT LEARN THE MATERIAL. Just memorize it Do the same thing for system design. Memorize the answers word for word. DO NOT LEARN THE MATERIAL. The highest paid tech jobs go to candidates that regurgitate perfect answers to inter…

While this advice may work for some FAANG companies, I can assure you this won’t work for Google, especially at higher levels. You won’t find their questions in any public test bank online (trust me, I searched after my interviews). Also, a good system design interview isn’t about designing a “perfect” system (hint: there isn’t one), it’s about defending a reasonably considered design. Google’s system design intervie…

At most of the companies I’ve interviewed at (except Google as you note), the hiring manager and principal engineer didn’t understand system design themselves. They only understood how to pattern match against a regurgitated answer.

Case in point, when asked how I’d build Slack, I spent most of the time on data persistence because slack stores all data forever even on the free plan. I got rejected because, “we don’t care how they store data.”

Ok, but that’s still a key part of the system design…

Re: Show HN: Onsites.fyi - Curated Big Tech Interview Experiences

#92

Post by itronitron »

frozenport wrote: post #89
tkiolp4 wrote: post #26

Horrible. I’ve been doing software engineering for 12+ years and I’ve never had to pass leetcode questions. I have worked for 5 companies in total, and I think I have been in around 15-20 tech interviews in total as well. The interviews I passed didn’t ask me leetcode questions (I had to do take home assignments and system design). In my last interview they finally stop asking coding questions (staff position). No Fa…

You're probably making 3x less

and yet their quality of life is likely 5X higher

Re: Show HN: Onsites.fyi - Curated Big Tech Interview Experiences

#93

Post by bee_rider »

krooj wrote: post #56
ldjkfkdsjnv wrote: post #36

To reiterate: Ignore all study materials. Go to leetcode.com and literally memorize the most common questions for the company you are interviewing at. This is what your competition is doing. DO NOT LEARN THE MATERIAL. Just memorize it Do the same thing for system design. Memorize the answers word for word. DO NOT LEARN THE MATERIAL. The highest paid tech jobs go to candidates that regurgitate perfect answers to inter…

If you do this and I am the one interviewing you, I will fail you. I will figure out what you actually do/don't know and if you are incapable of performing at the applied level, I will fail you.

I think the strategy they are describing is to just memorize a bunch of stuff, and then interview until an interviewer happens to not catch on. Either they’ll get someone less prudent than you, or, I mean, you can’t possibly test everything, right?

I have no idea if this really works though, it seems insanely tedious and also there aren’t that many companies to roll the dice at.

Re: Show HN: Onsites.fyi - Curated Big Tech Interview Experiences

#94

Post by ldjkfkdsjnv »

VirusNewbie wrote: post #84
ldjkfkdsjnv wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People are going on leetcode.com, they find the company they are interviewing for, they remove all questions more than a year or two old, then they sort by frequency. They start memorizing the most frequent questions first. Then they pass the interview. There are other forums with question banks (airbnb's whole question bank is leaked), but I wont get into that

But i passed both of those interviews without having seen a single question before.

Congratulations, doesnt change the approach for people that are struggling to pass

Re: Show HN: Onsites.fyi - Curated Big Tech Interview Experiences

#95

Post by neilv »

VirusNewbie wrote: post #83
neilv wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Leetcode interviews are for people who studied and practiced for Leetcode interviews specifically. It doesn't have much to do with programming, and has almost zero to do with software engineering.

Lists, sets, graph traversals, parsing, knowing when to use hashmaps, using recursion, knowing when to use a priority queue don’t have much to do with programming or software engineering?

CS101 algorithms and data structures of course are relevant to programming.

But Leetcode interviews in practice aren't about knowing those.

If they were, people would not prep for months specifically for Leetcode, and FAANG recruiters wouldn't advise spending months rehearsing for those (for everyone from undergrads with CS101 fresh in mind, to senior engineers who routinely use those in real-world situations).

Prep with titles like "Cracking the Coding Interview" aren't about understanding or practicing software engineering. They're about passing fratbro pledge hazing rituals.

Re: Show HN: Onsites.fyi - Curated Big Tech Interview Experiences

#96

Post by VirusNewbie »

neilv wrote: post #95
VirusNewbie wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lists, sets, graph traversals, parsing, knowing when to use hashmaps, using recursion, knowing when to use a priority queue don’t have much to do with programming or software engineering?

CS101 algorithms and data structures of course are relevant to programming. But Leetcode interviews in practice aren't about knowing those. If they were, people would not prep for months specifically for Leetcode, and FAANG recruiters wouldn't advise spending months rehearsing for those (for everyone from undergrads with CS101 fresh in mind, to senior engineers who routinely use those in real-world situations). Prep…

>But Leetcode interviews in practice aren't about knowing those.

I'm going to guess about 85% of leetcode questions that are asked by top copmanies fall into the CS101 algorithms and data structures bucket. Seriously you can go to leetcode right now and look at Meta's most common interview questions and almost all of them are basic data structure questions.

I'm not saying passing the interviews are easy. You definitely have to practice coding fast (at least, I did!).

Sure the questions may have a twist, but most of the time there's no esoteric weird algorithms.

Re: Show HN: Onsites.fyi - Curated Big Tech Interview Experiences

#97

Post by nostrebored »

robbyt wrote: post #91
Denzel wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While this advice may work for some FAANG companies, I can assure you this won’t work for Google, especially at higher levels. You won’t find their questions in any public test bank online (trust me, I searched after my interviews). Also, a good system design interview isn’t about designing a “perfect” system (hint: there isn’t one), it’s about defending a reasonably considered design. Google’s system design intervie…

At most of the companies I’ve interviewed at (except Google as you note), the hiring manager and principal engineer didn’t understand system design themselves. They only understood how to pattern match against a regurgitated answer. Case in point, when asked how I’d build Slack, I spent most of the time on data persistence because slack stores all data forever even on the free plan. I got rejected because, “we don’t…

Very open ended question that requires clarification. Interviewing is about asking questions too.

Re: Show HN: Onsites.fyi - Curated Big Tech Interview Experiences

#98

Post by satvikpendem »

otteromkram wrote: post #87
ldjkfkdsjnv wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People are going on leetcode.com, they find the company they are interviewing for, they remove all questions more than a year or two old, then they sort by frequency. They start memorizing the most frequent questions first. Then they pass the interview. There are other forums with question banks (airbnb's whole question bank is leaked), but I wont get into that

Can we not advertise that cesspool of a company? They are a pile of trash who are more than happy to place travelers in dangerous scenarios, while moving refund goalposts down the infinitely+long field. Any mention of the company is advertising, whether you want to believe it or not.

What's the context of this? Placing travelers in dangerous scenarios?

Re: Show HN: Onsites.fyi - Curated Big Tech Interview Experiences

#99

Post by satvikpendem »

itronitron wrote: post #92
frozenport wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're probably making 3x less

and yet their quality of life is likely 5X higher

That is unknown, as people at FAANG in the US have a comparable quality of life as those in Western Europe, because the things people tout as European advantages like free healthcare and long paid vacations, FAANG workers in the US essentially already have. They are getting paid much more for a similar standard of living, which in turn decreases their retirement age, if they so choose.

Re: Show HN: Onsites.fyi - Curated Big Tech Interview Experiences

#100

Post by brailsafe »

Why just the big tech companies? Quite a lot of smaller companies and startups have 4-6 step interview chains that burn just as much time. Although they're less commonly centered specifically around leetcode, they're often even more offensively stretched out and laborious.
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