Thanks for posting this it is very helpful. It's clear you need to prep and leverage.
Farewell, App Academy. Hello, Airbnb – Part 2
51–60 of 69 posts
Re: Farewell, App Academy. Hello, Airbnb – Part 2
#52Having failed multiple interviews with Google and other companies mentioned in this post, it really drives home the huge difference between Haseeb's work ethic and mine. If I had put forth 10% of the effort he has expended this year to preparing then I'd have aced the interviews. But I didn't. Instead I spend most of my free time doing frivolous things that aren't satisfying. What percentage of HN posters have applie…
Yeah the takeaway is that you have to prep. As bad as that is, it is a solvable well contained problem.
Re: Farewell, App Academy. Hello, Airbnb – Part 2
#53Earlier quoted context omitted.
Typically they also tell you the Fair Market Value of the shares and you just multiply by the number of shares offered. They aren't options and you just get them whenever the company goes public. But they are completely illiquid before then. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fair_market_value Quoting them in dollars is probably not too wrong if you believe the company's valuation won't change much (which is probably true…
>They aren't options and you just get them whenever the company goes public. But they are completely illiquid before then. Many companies now have a buyback mechanism where the employer will buy back your RSUs at a pre-determined price (often the price per share in the last priced round). Although the vesting schedule is the same as if it were options, the contracts often have a clause where technically the RSUs have…
Yeah, he will pay taxes on the vested illiquid RSUs on top of his 130k.
Re: Farewell, App Academy. Hello, Airbnb – Part 2
#54Were I in the same situation as OP with multiple offers, I definitely would've botched the negotiation part. I wish there was a version of hackerrank for negotiations.
Stall, redirect, wait. At some point the recruiter becomes your advocate.
Or if just one offer ask for more than you want and would settle for. They won't rescind the offer and be willing to walk away.
It's also easier to get more options and RSUs because it's funny money not yet vested and not yet liquid.
Re: Farewell, App Academy. Hello, Airbnb – Part 2
#55Does anyone know what computer science problems hes referring to for interviews? Does anyone have a resource i can look at?
I would also be interested in some more detail, especially: "On the phone interview, I received a pretty challenging problem—I remember thinking when I got it that I was going to mess it up. But somehow I solved it with ease, and all of my outputs were correct."
It's kind of hard to get a handle on what this means; on one hand the poster is quite obviously remarkably intelligent (ref: bio etc), on the other hand he has very little CS experience. The reader is left to imagine a problem that is just within their own reach to solve, while it might have been a very basic algorithm question...
Re: Farewell, App Academy. Hello, Airbnb – Part 2
#56Wow, that dude has a pretty crazy life story - his about page was a fun read! Became a millionaire playing poker, got caught up in a huge scandal, sounds like a movie.
Thankfully do to Trump I'm far more skeptical of stories like these. So I would not so readily believe what he is saying.
He's the real deal. I remember watching the scandal on 2+2 unfold a few years ago.
Re: Farewell, App Academy. Hello, Airbnb – Part 2
#57Re: Farewell, App Academy. Hello, Airbnb – Part 2
#58Having failed multiple interviews with Google and other companies mentioned in this post, it really drives home the huge difference between Haseeb's work ethic and mine. If I had put forth 10% of the effort he has expended this year to preparing then I'd have aced the interviews. But I didn't. Instead I spend most of my free time doing frivolous things that aren't satisfying. What percentage of HN posters have applie…
Context and disclaimer: I run an intense and successful bootcamp focused on preparing for Tech interviews. A 100+ people from all over the world have prepped with us since we started a year and a half ago. http://interviewkickstart.com.
We've since learnt a lot about what makes successful engineers. While nearly everyone who goes thru us (and is actively looking) gets placed somewhere nice, the people who crack some of the hardest interviews generally fall into ONE or MORE of the following categories:
1. They are just bright from the get go. A high IQ.
Haseeb, from the little I've read about him, seems to fall into this category. They can get by with normal amount of practice viz. brush-up.
2. They are extremely prepped.
A crude measure of prep, is how many algorithmic problems you've practiced. Some of these people have crossed 300+ problems. Written code for each. And repeated it. It takes several months to a year to do this with diligence and focus.
3. They have been coding for a long time. Almost precocious-ly.
They have written so much code, that a lot of constructs are now muscle memory. All they need to do in an interview, is to intuit the solution. After that, they impress the heck with their coding fluency.
4. They are competitive programmers for some time
They don't have to be toppers or winning competitions. e.g. Yellow on Topcoder is sufficient.
5. They went to a particularly strong and competitive CS program
Some programs in the country prepare you for such interviews. Rare, and difficult to get into, but they do.
6. They got a soft interview-panel.
Interviews are heavily dependent on who interviews you. Especially at large companies, there is a wide variance in grading standard, experience in interviewing and beliefs, and hence there is a wide variation in talent, despite centralized hiring committees.
You need a bit of luck anyway, but sometimes you get an entire panel that you happen to gel with. A little bit of preparation and getting such a panel puts you over the magic line.
Re: Farewell, App Academy. Hello, Airbnb – Part 2
#59Earlier quoted context omitted.
Are salaries trade secrets on US? Here usually we talk openly about them.
America is full of fools on this point. We don't talk about salary because, in the back of our minds, it's a determiniate of our value. This is not true in most philosophical systems, but it's true in our post-modern materialism. The end result of our self-censor is a weak labor market. We don't know what we're worth. Americans, aside from our verbrato, tend to underestimate our worth. There are people working for 80…
I'm constantly amazed at how Americans are so afraid to offend their employer by demanding things. They are not your family! I actually want these relationships to be more adversarial.
Re: Farewell, App Academy. Hello, Airbnb – Part 2
#60I was surprised by the notion that airbnb is considered a top tier engineering company. Excuse my ignorance as an outsider, but what interesting engineering problems are they solving? From the outside, I see a listing service that processes transactions and plots things on a third part mapping service. There isn't a complex dynamic market based auction system or anything like that. Can someone with more knowledge she…
Their comp is obviously top. I was impressed at how large AirBnB's offer is in every aspect--its base was already higher than the total comp of many of his other (initial) offers.
Avg one bedroom apartment in SF is 50% of the take home pay on 120k.