Ask HN: Senior Positions Interview Prep Resources? • Hacker News Board

Re: Ask HN: Senior Positions Interview Prep Resources?

#51

Post by samfisher83 » Fri, Oct 04, 2019, 8:18 AM UTC

JMTQp8lwXL wrote: post #4

There are companies that will pay near FANG levels (maybe 10-15% haircut) without subjecting yourself to onerous completion of hundreds of LeetCode problems. There are other options, and we should be aware of them. You'll still need to prove you can code, but the questions we ask have practical application to our codebases: we use recursion and trees, for example, so we ask questions about those. Other companies will…

I don't know why amazon, apple, Microsoft, and netflix are put on the same level as Facebook and google. Facebook and Google just pay more.

Re: Ask HN: Senior Positions Interview Prep Resources?

#52

Post by blablabla123 » Fri, Oct 04, 2019, 8:31 AM UTC

peferron wrote: post #32

jgalentine007 wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's almost like it's easier to start your own company than to get hired at one of these places and actually be happy.

Starting your own company is easy for sure! Starting your own successful company is something else, and I found it much harder than getting into FANG, but it requires very different skills and I'm sure some people are better at the former.

True, even in countries with high burocracy like Germany starting a company isn't more difficult than doing a tax declaration.

One more option is to do freelance though, that's somehow a mix of both worlds.

Re: Ask HN: Senior Positions Interview Prep Resources?

#53

Post by 6ue7nNMEEbHcM » Fri, Oct 04, 2019, 8:59 AM UTC

If I can suggest something - don't neglect physical training. You will need a lot of endurance (both physical and mental) to go through some of those onsite interviews. Also take breaks if possible.

As to resources - as many have said earlier - leetcode.com this is basically the place to go for problems to practice and there is also really great community. When practicing problems and analyzing answers in the beginning you will find what kind of topics are important and from there you can find more details in the textbooks (it's worth doing that). There is some good content also on Youtube but not all of it is good (despite high number of views and positive comments).

Re: Ask HN: Senior Positions Interview Prep Resources?

#54

Post by chaboud » Fri, Oct 04, 2019, 9:12 AM UTC

wolco wrote: post #37

bradleyjg wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

levels.fyi is currently showing $466k median offer total comp for L6 (staff SWE) at google. Who is paying $395k-$420k to IC hires without FAANG style interviews? The only other companies paying that to IC hires that I know of are in the financial industry and that interview process is even worse.

You normally don't move into a L6 position from the outside either.

I know some at Staff SWE, Amazon PE, etc who came from outside. In specialist groups it feels pretty common.

Once you're at level at one of the heavies, it feels like people move at level, too.

Re: Ask HN: Senior Positions Interview Prep Resources?

#55

Post by chrisbentzel » Fri, Oct 04, 2019, 9:25 AM UTC

You'd likely be geared for L5 (Senior Engineer) with your described experience. At that level, there would be expectations that:

- You have built and can continue to build real software. You should know how to code fluidly in at least one language, as well as idioms and pitfalls. I don't think this is something you can cram for - you build up from experience.

- Able to describe performance or other tradeoffs. This can be in system architecture down to data structures and small optimizations. If you are rusty on algorithms, this can be studied for.

- Be able to do large-scale systems design from a fairly ambiguous problem statement. Sounds like you've had this experience.

- Potentially do a deep dive in a technical specialty of yours (ML, compilers, databases, etc.).

[Note: I haven't been at Google for over a year so this may be rusty, but did interview lots of candidates while there.]

Re: Ask HN: Senior Positions Interview Prep Resources?

#56

Post by Technophilis » Fri, Oct 04, 2019, 9:28 AM UTC

In addition to the resources others have suggested here I recommend going through this list of problems that I put together for the coding portion of FAANG interviews: https://theinterviewlist.com

Re: Ask HN: Senior Positions Interview Prep Resources?

#57

Post by agumonkey » Fri, Oct 04, 2019, 9:44 AM UTC

JMTQp8lwXL wrote: post #4

There are companies that will pay near FANG levels (maybe 10-15% haircut) without subjecting yourself to onerous completion of hundreds of LeetCode problems. There are other options, and we should be aware of them. You'll still need to prove you can code, but the questions we ask have practical application to our codebases: we use recursion and trees, for example, so we ask questions about those. Other companies will…

> gatekeepers

is this a theme that isn't uncommon in the industry ? I felt that way forever but I didn't want to make impatient conclusions.

Re: Ask HN: Senior Positions Interview Prep Resources?

#58

Post by agumonkey » Fri, Oct 04, 2019, 9:49 AM UTC

xfitm3 wrote: post #18

JMTQp8lwXL wrote: post #4

There are companies that will pay near FANG levels (maybe 10-15% haircut) without subjecting yourself to onerous completion of hundreds of LeetCode problems. There are other options, and we should be aware of them. You'll still need to prove you can code, but the questions we ask have practical application to our codebases: we use recursion and trees, for example, so we ask questions about those. Other companies will…

Can confirm. I get FAANG pay as a remote worker in a low COL state. It's a cool place.

low cost of living I suppose ?

Re: Ask HN: Senior Positions Interview Prep Resources?

#59

Post by agumonkey » Fri, Oct 04, 2019, 9:51 AM UTC

peferron wrote: post #26

CaveTech wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can’t be serious. It’s not that hard.

Not sure why you're being downvoted. It's definitely not that hard, and contributing to LLVM/Rust/V8 is not a requirement either (I would still recommend it, but mostly because it sounds interesting and you would likely learn a lot). Source: interviewed with 3 FANGs a few months ago without any significant open-source contributions, got L6 or equivalent offers from all 3. I also don't have a CS degree, for anyone who…

is there an agreed upon level ladder ?

where can one (I) test to find his position on it ?

Re: Ask HN: Senior Positions Interview Prep Resources?

#60

Post by lrem » Fri, Oct 04, 2019, 10:18 AM UTC

scalar-moose wrote: post #10

rvz wrote: post #3

You are on the right track in terms of preparing for a FAANMG-level interview. But it pains me to say that this just only meets the bare-minimum that they are looking for as in to prove that you can 'program' as the other thousands more candidates will be applying too. What you need to differentiate yourself is to learn the undocumented dark arts for whiteboard interviews that the FAANMG are really looking for in a t…

Thank you for such a detailed response. Looking at the content it seems like I will have to basically jump through all the hoops that are required for a new grad interview.

Not necessarily. When I'm interviewing new grads, I'll hold their hand firmly when walking through requirement extraction, but hit their rating like a ton of bricks for any failure in algorithm design and code mixups. When I'm interviewing seniors, I'll tell them "implement me a Shopify", but won't care that much if they get the unordered_multimap signature wrong.