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What I've learned from 100s of interviews with candidates at top tech companies

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Re: What I've learned from 100s of interviews with candidates at top tech companies

#201

Post by TulliusCicero »

deong wrote: post #117
ThePawnBreak wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I would rather make more money in a stupid corporate job than working on more aggressive ways of making people to click on ads. Could you name a few "stupid corporate jobs" that pay better than Google or Facebook (200k - 300k for a senior engineer) ?

I make roughly 85% of that 200k figure (give-or-take, depending on stock option values), and my house cost $90 per square foot. If you're a good senior level engineer, you can make good money in far more than five or six companies in the world.

200k is mid-level at Google. Senior engineers make significantly more, and staff engineers make a LOT more.

Now if you want a big house, then most of the cities that Google is in are terrible for that. But there's more to life than having a big house, and the expensive metros have their own pros. It's pretty hard to beat Silicon Valley weather, and for what amounts to a giant suburb the restaurant scene is quite good (especially for Asian food).

Re: What I've learned from 100s of interviews with candidates at top tech companies

#202

Post by TulliusCicero »

deong wrote: post #117
ThePawnBreak wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I would rather make more money in a stupid corporate job than working on more aggressive ways of making people to click on ads. Could you name a few "stupid corporate jobs" that pay better than Google or Facebook (200k - 300k for a senior engineer) ?

I make roughly 85% of that 200k figure (give-or-take, depending on stock option values), and my house cost $90 per square foot. If you're a good senior level engineer, you can make good money in far more than five or six companies in the world.

200k is mid-level at Google. Senior engineers make significantly more, and staff engineers make a LOT more.

Now if you want a big house, then most of the cities that Google is in are terrible for that. But there's more to life than having a big house, and the expensive metros have their own pros. It's pretty hard to beat Silicon Valley weather, and for what amounts to a giant suburb the restaurant scene is quite good (especially for Asian food).

Re: What I've learned from 100s of interviews with candidates at top tech companies

#203

Post by TulliusCicero »

holydude wrote: post #20
ThePawnBreak wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I would rather make more money in a stupid corporate job than working on more aggressive ways of making people to click on ads. Could you name a few "stupid corporate jobs" that pay better than Google or Facebook (200k - 300k for a senior engineer) ?

Are you sure the majority of senior engineers earns 200 - 300k ?

I'd ballpark the average range for senior engineers at Google at being around 250-300k in the US. Staff engineers (one step above senior) will make significantly more than that, although not everyone reaches that level.

Re: What I've learned from 100s of interviews with candidates at top tech companies

#204

Post by TulliusCicero »

yanilkr wrote: post #98
mahyarm wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Startups aren't that special, and I lost a lot of income by doing small startups first as an employee for 4/5 years. Startups even in successful cases are just break even working at AFGAM. Usually you'll quickly be throwing away $100k/yr in income instead. And that $60k/yr your not putting in your stock brokerage account you could of used for whatever bootstrapped digital business or financial independence base you c…

Ships are safe at harbor but thats not what they are made for. I guess the world needs people who want to work for big companies and people who want to startup. The grass is always greener on the other side, so its not the worst advice to get exposed to wide range of problems and people who are solving them in the industry.

There's room for both. In the bay area, it's not uncommon for people to kind of cycle through, sometimes being at big companies, then they go off to be adventuresome at a startup, then either it gets acquired by a big company or it dies (and they go back to the stability of a big company) or it's successful enough to where it's not a startup anymore.

Re: What I've learned from 100s of interviews with candidates at top tech companies

#205

Post by TulliusCicero »

11thEarlOfMar wrote: post #72

We've adopted a new process for interviewing software engineers. It has three interview sessions held on subsequent dates: 1. Candidate learns about the company and the tech during a set of 2-4 interviews with our engineers. We don't tell them to learn as much as they can because we want to see how inquisitive they are. Interviewers are coached to be fairly open and talk about our products and tech. If there are no r…

Three days of interviewing sounds like a good way to pre-filter out strong candidates who are already gainfully employed enough to not put up with this crap.

Re: What I've learned from 100s of interviews with candidates at top tech companies

#206

Post by TulliusCicero »

no_wave wrote: post #195
strictnein wrote: post #71

> "One Google candidate asked his lunch interviewers where all the “hot chicks” were" It's shocking that people are this dumb, but sometimes brains just misfire in stressful interviews. Happens with the interviewer sometimes too. I was once asked, when an interviewer noticed my wedding ring, if I planned to have any kids soon and what my wife's career was, which is a definite no-no. I assumed he was joking, but he wa…

When I had a Google interview I was told (or it was at least heavily implied) that I wouldn't be evaluated by the people I was having lunch with. I didn't really believe that, and looks like I was right not to.

I work at Google.

The thing about lunch interviews is mostly true. By default, the lunch interviewer does not actually evaluate you, they do not normally submit any feedback. But, if you say something that's considered way out of line/offensive, then yeah I'd expect the lunch interviewer to likely email the recruiter.

Re: What I've learned from 100s of interviews with candidates at top tech companies

#207

Post by TulliusCicero »

NTDF9 wrote: post #66
6stringmerc wrote: post #57

How similar are the Odds for a BS of CS graduate in 2017 in the United States to work in Silicon Valley versus the NCAA Division I Basketball Player to make it in the NBA? Point being, this is extremely helpful batch of advice for a surprisingly narrow field. Take out the SV / Top 1% Tech Culture nuances and there's really not a lot to work with other than "Put your best foot forward, be flexible to learn new things…

>> >Either way, it’s very common for a candidate to get rejected and then get an offer a year or two later. What OP implies is that the interview process is out of candidate's control and there are many variables in play. What the OP doesn't realize is that this is the definition of a shitty process. What would you call a piece of software that cannot reliably produce the same output most of the time? vs What would y…

What an absurd chain of logic. Interviews are conducted by human beings, of course their reproducibility sucks. It's not like non-whiteboarding interviews are going to be great at that either.

You could replace them by software, ala "here's a coding problem with a set of unit and integration tests to validate against, go nuts" but that would have its own set of issues.

Re: What I've learned from 100s of interviews with candidates at top tech companies

#208

Post by samuraijack »

sanjoy_das wrote: post #79
drenvuk wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have a question about the dynamic programming bit. These questions do not seem intuitive unless its one of the simple ones like, add or multiply the two previous values in the memo (fibonacci) or just check the min or max of the value and modify regarding that. Those patterns can sometimes be easy to spot. The more difficult ones feel like you absolutely have to have seen the problem before because there is complex…

> Recursion and memoization is easy but dynamic programming doesn't really feel as natural. Ways to get better? Just do more? Once you have the recursive solution, the DP solution should be fairly easy. Draw out the recursion tree for an example (or do it more generally), convert it to a DAG by combining redundant nodes, and then do a topological sort. That topological sort is the order in which you need to solve the…

Thanks! That is quite intuitive.

Re: What I've learned from 100s of interviews with candidates at top tech companies

#209

Post by slumpt_ »

WalterSear wrote: post #54
gerbilly wrote: post #42

>Nine-to-5 isn’t enough. At top tech companies, extracurricular work isn’t a differentiating factor— it’s the expectation. I stopped reading at this point. How arrogant to expect you to gift your unpaid free time for the privilege of working there.

Gaylemcd is just bringing the news. It's not her fault that it's bad.

It's frankly not true, though. I don't bother with side projects beyond having a simple personal website. I've worked at startups that have been acquired as well as the largest/most reputable employers in the valley.

Personal projects are there to help compensate for an otherwise lacking resume. If your resume is on point, you don't need them.

Nine-to-five is absolutely enough if you are a diligent and thoughtful engineer.

Re: What I've learned from 100s of interviews with candidates at top tech companies

#210

Post by tutufan »

TulliusCicero wrote: post #199
tutufan wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For the most successful jobs I've had, they just looked at my resume and asked some general questions about prior work. I've also had several positions where I passed whiteboard hazings. Those didn't go as well. My theory is that selecting strongly for code jam types may correlate with not selecting carefully for people who work well together.

> For the most successful jobs I've had, they just looked at my resume and asked some general questions about prior work. That's great for people who are good at talking. And certainly communication skills are important, but a strong bullshitter with mediocre programming abilities can probably pass such a test with flying colors.

I'm terrible at talking, and certainly at bullshitting. It happened that I was an excellent candidate for the role, but perhaps they might have hired a bullshit artist instead.

But I don't think so. I think I can often smell bullshit just by its sound, and I think a good manager could do even better.

Beyond that, you can be great at the whiteboard and still full of shit.

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