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Things I Learned from a Job Hunt for a Senior Engineering Role

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Re: Things I Learned from a Job Hunt for a Senior Engineering Role

#171

Post by mixmastamyk »

geebee wrote: post #31

Thank you for writing this post. It was informative. A few comments from a fellow software developer who is approaching 50... I don't think the coding test isn't there because people think you're lying, it's there because we have no industry wide, respected entrance exam. Actuarial interviews don't (to my knowledge) contain a whiteboard vector calculus exam, but this isn't because people just sort of believe actuarie…

Last paragraph is a hidden gem, should be pinned at the top of the page. Perhaps a blog post? :D

Re: Things I Learned from a Job Hunt for a Senior Engineering Role

#172

Post by mixmastamyk »

octorian wrote: post #58
geebee wrote: post #31

Thank you for writing this post. It was informative. A few comments from a fellow software developer who is approaching 50... I don't think the coding test isn't there because people think you're lying, it's there because we have no industry wide, respected entrance exam. Actuarial interviews don't (to my knowledge) contain a whiteboard vector calculus exam, but this isn't because people just sort of believe actuarie…

> ...who nodded gravely as the CEO talked about the desperate shortage of software developers. This comment is exactly why reading about "interview gymnastics" like this really pisses me off. Its also why I wonder how many big tech companies are somehow able to hire so many people... With processes like these, you'd think that they either have a "secret backdoor" or never managed to actually hire more than a dozen or…

Definitely a back door, friends on the inside to bypass the BS.

Re: Things I Learned from a Job Hunt for a Senior Engineering Role

#173

Post by hitekker »

One thing I’d add: don’t ever check the box that says "Yes, I'm disabled" when applying to a company. Ever.

Unlike declaring race or veteran status, admitting past or present disability can only hurt your chances at getting an offer. Some employers may appreciate the honesty, most of them will automatically and quietly hold it against you at every step of the hiring process.

And they'll get away with it. Easily. The laws "protecting" disabled candidates are essentially toothless, since "illegal" reasons for rejection are often not written down or, at least, hidden from you and the goverment's.

[1] https://www.monster.com/career-advice/article/disclose-disab... [2] https://medium.com/@mshannabrooks/this-is-the-lie-i-tell-on-...

Re: Things I Learned from a Job Hunt for a Senior Engineering Role

#174

Post by hfdgiutdryg »

pm90 wrote: post #143
rambossa wrote: post #77

Side note/rant: I hate the Cracking the Coding Interview style... studying for these type of interviews is annoying. Trying to find a good video on youtube, where they aren't just naively coding up the bruteForce->optimal possible solutions, especially is irritating. It is literally a landscape of college kids with thousands of viewers who treat these interviews like the SAT. Even the author of the book produces vide…

They are not just testing your analytical skills but also, I believe, your ability to self-study for something, even as "annoying" as algorithmic coding problems. I kinda agree with you that it doesn't make sense much of the time if you have to specifically prepare for the coding interview; stuff you may never use in your job. But its not a lot of stuff: I bit the bullet and spent some time solving those questions an…

How is proving self study ability relevant to a job? Doesn't my resume of wildly varying projects and my ability to competently talk about them prove that?

It sounds to me like a way to weed out pesky applicants who have families or who are simply older.

Re: Things I Learned from a Job Hunt for a Senior Engineering Role

#175

Post by spamizbad »

notyourloops wrote: post #145
spamizbad wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We set our in-house recruiter up with a coderpad question that screens candidates with a simple question: "Write a function that counts the number of vowels in a string" Candidates are allowed to run it multiple times and just have to produce a correct result within 10 minutes. It's not a trick question -- the test case in place makes sure you pay attention to case. Success rate for mid to senior devs? Only 60%.

What's your process like after that screening measure? Because to me, that's honestly trivial, and a lot nicer than dealing with an extended (8+ hours) homework problem as an introduction to a company's hiring process.

A ~4 hour on-site (or google hangout) technical interview and discussion. The first 30-45 minutes is usually us selling you on the company, followed by 2-3 hours of technical stuff. We do throw a few more coding questions at you (ones that are technically trivial, but made more difficult with interview jitters etc), but go beyond that and ask how would you design an API, how would you think about the technical requirements about business problem etc. After that, Q&A, and more selling you on the company.

Re: Things I Learned from a Job Hunt for a Senior Engineering Role

#176

Post by hermitdev »

crdoconnor wrote: post #55
lostcolony wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seriously. I've sat on the hiring side. I've seen impressive resumes. I've had reasonable discussions with people. And then I give them a very, very trivial coding exercise (a take home, they're free to Google, do it on their own computer, in their own IDE, in their professed preferred language), in a time frame that while constrained is still plenty...and the result is -terrible-. I can try and come up with reasons…

It's weird, I've heard plenty of stories about this kind of thing but when I sat on the hiring side and interviewed for intermediate roles (couldn't even afford senior) I didn't come across anybody who was stumped and simply couldn't code. There were people who were bad at (possibly some because they were under pressure), it but nobody who couldn't do it at all. I wasn't giving out a trivial question either.

I remember interviewing a candidate that didnt even know what a binary tree was (context was big-O complexity of algorithms). That interview was really bad. Left the candidate in tears (which was not intended, but I think of their realization they werent going to get the job), and me annoyed at the waste of my time (should have been caught in phone screen instead of on site).

Re: Things I Learned from a Job Hunt for a Senior Engineering Role

#177

Post by yodsanklai »

vthallam wrote: post #122
phaedrus wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I once got knocked out of the running by a whiteboard-coding interview question that went something like "How would you find all triples from a list of a million integers, where the first two numbers add up to the third?" I said, "Hmmm that sounds like an O(N^3) problem." Interviewer: "Can you think of any way to do it in smaller big-O?" Me: "Not off the top of my head, no." For some reason that company insisted on o…

Or you could do top 100 questions on leetcode or hackerrank and you would have solved the question in a minute. It's kinda sad that you could remember the top 100 solutions and clear interviews in almost all big tech companies.

I recently interviewed at a big tech company (phone interview). I spent quite some time practicing on leetcode (completed at least 150 problems). During the interview, it took me a few minutes of thinking before completing the assignments with what I think was the expected solution. We discussed the complexity and a few possible variations. The interview sounded satisfied and I really had the feeling that I had nailed these assignments.

I wasn't rejected but I've been asked to retake a phone interview. Apparently, the interviewer had very good feelings about me, but found that I was "out of practice" as far as coding goes.

I wonder if my age is an issue (40+) or if they have a really high level of expectation. Are most other candidates super fast at solving these kinds of problems. I'm a bit disappointed because I'm not sure that I've got much room for improvement at that stage.

Re: Things I Learned from a Job Hunt for a Senior Engineering Role

#178

Post by modbait »

notacoward wrote: post #80

Maybe the difference in people's experience with candidates who can't code is that some types of programming are full of BSers and others aren't. In nearly 30 years I've never encountered a candidate who flat-out couldn't code. If you see a lot of that in your specialty, maybe you should ask yourself what it is about that specialty that leads to a different experience.

That's been my experience as well. In addition, people are generally pretty honest about where they're at, skill-wise.

That said, I have seen several people who were open about lacking the basic requirements for a position get hired anyway. So, I wouldn't assume that seeing someone incompetent in a position means they lied to get there.

Re: Things I Learned from a Job Hunt for a Senior Engineering Role

#179

Post by spamizbad »

hfdgiutdryg wrote: post #164
spamizbad wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We set our in-house recruiter up with a coderpad question that screens candidates with a simple question: "Write a function that counts the number of vowels in a string" Candidates are allowed to run it multiple times and just have to produce a correct result within 10 minutes. It's not a trick question -- the test case in place makes sure you pay attention to case. Success rate for mid to senior devs? Only 60%.

Is Y (Greek I) a vowel?

For this problem, we explicitly say no in the description.
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