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

Re: Ask HN: Senior Positions Interview Prep Resources?

#101

Post by CaveTech » Fri, Oct 04, 2019, 9:06 PM UTC

rvz wrote: post #68

CaveTech wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sorry to hear that but you really don’t need to be contributing to the projects mentioned to get in. Theres tens to hundreds? of thousands of FAANG employees and I assure the majority are not at that caliber. It’s nice to glamourize it a bit but you guys make it sound downright mythical.

The problem is that for a FAANMG company to throw a Leetcode question in 2019, it's equivalent to a entrance exam, especially towards thousands of applicants. Eventually, they will use something else to assess your skills that will eliminate many applicants. I wouldn't risk getting eliminated for not differentiating myself. Leetcode questions are not enough for 'seniors', even as a interviewer, it brings the same goo…

You’re still glamorizing a select body of work and overlooking the fact that the vast majority of employees are not working on those projects.

For sure there is interesting work to be had, but don’t pretend that everyone is toiling away on what you see on GH and HN.

Re: Ask HN: Senior Positions Interview Prep Resources?

#102

Post by ScottFree » Fri, Oct 04, 2019, 9:08 PM UTC

selfipaprazzi wrote: post #100

ScottFree wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Haha, "privilege"? There are immigrants fresh off the boat who don't speak english that own their own companies. What's your excuse?

Yeah, 20 years ago. Now the landscape has changed massively. The only minorities today who can start a new company, that makes them more money than a job at a FAANG company, are women.

Do you have numbers to back that up?

Re: Ask HN: Senior Positions Interview Prep Resources?

#103

Post by mindentropy » Sat, Oct 05, 2019, 7:15 AM UTC

bradlys wrote: post #23

CaveTech wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

TBH, it's not far off... I've done 200+ problems on leetcode, all of ctci, and lots more. Hundreds of hours of prep over the last 5 years. Never received an offer from FAANG after 10+ on-sites with them. Know others with similar experience. People I know who get offers are even more aggressive with prep but also get lucky. (As they sometimes get rejected even when they've received an offer from the company before...)

How did you find the motivation to spend 100's of hours for prepping for 5 years? This is really great!

In my case I find prepping really dry and like to work on personal projects and veer off to different technical things that I am curious in.

When I try to solve problems I hate to look at answers and I spend a lot of time sometimes days trying to solve it. What is your approach to solve problems?

Could you please elaborate on how you prepared to a person like me who is aspiring to take a FAANG interview?

Re: Ask HN: Senior Positions Interview Prep Resources?

#104

Post by mindentropy » Sat, Oct 05, 2019, 7:26 AM UTC

rvz wrote: post #68

CaveTech wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sorry to hear that but you really don’t need to be contributing to the projects mentioned to get in. Theres tens to hundreds? of thousands of FAANG employees and I assure the majority are not at that caliber. It’s nice to glamourize it a bit but you guys make it sound downright mythical.

The problem is that for a FAANMG company to throw a Leetcode question in 2019, it's equivalent to a entrance exam, especially towards thousands of applicants. Eventually, they will use something else to assess your skills that will eliminate many applicants. I wouldn't risk getting eliminated for not differentiating myself. Leetcode questions are not enough for 'seniors', even as a interviewer, it brings the same goo…

Firecracker is a Virtual Machine monitor. It uses KVM underneath.

Re: Ask HN: Senior Positions Interview Prep Resources?

#105

Post by mindentropy » Sat, Oct 05, 2019, 7:33 AM UTC

6ue7nNMEEbHcM wrote: post #53

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 beginni…

> You will need a lot of endurance (both physical and mental) to go through some of those onsite interviews.

I have gone through some interviews where it is really grueling and mentally taxing. What do you suggest to improve endurance especially mental. It becomes very hard to concentrate on coding after almost 4 hours of interviews.

Re: Ask HN: Senior Positions Interview Prep Resources?

#106

Post by scarface74 » Sat, Oct 05, 2019, 1:50 PM 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…

Care to name those companies?

Re: Ask HN: Senior Positions Interview Prep Resources?

#107

Post by scarface74 » Sat, Oct 05, 2019, 1:55 PM UTC

sanderjd wrote: post #87

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…

Google employee, totally speaking for myself. You have a couple things mixed in here, some of which ring true to me and others very false. The true ones are the stuff about the interview process. I think a day of whiteboard programming is a poor way to assess experienced candidates. It does make you feel like a cog. (I also don't really know how to design an alternative process that doesn't increase the level of bias…

When you work for a company as large as Google unless you are very senior, you are a cog. I am not making a value judgement.

I work at a small B2B SAAS company. We bill an implementation fee, an ongoing licensing cost, and costs per feature. If I create a new feature for a customer whether it’s a one off integration or something that will be in the product, everyone from the CEO to the customer knows how much value I personally bring to the company. That doesn’t scale and can’t work in a larger company.

Re: Ask HN: Senior Positions Interview Prep Resources?

#108

Post by dominotw » Sat, Oct 05, 2019, 4:40 PM 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…

> There are companies that will pay near FANG levels (maybe 10-15% haircut)

I don't agree with this statement that companies outside of FANGs don't do Leetcode interviews.

Leetcode disease has spread to almost all corners of the industry. everyone everywhere is doing leetcode interviews.

> without subjecting yourself to onerous completion of hundreds of LeetCode problems.

Sorry but this is bad advice.

>we use recursion and trees

ok but doesn't everyone though?

Re: Ask HN: Senior Positions Interview Prep Resources?

#109

Post by dominotw » Sat, Oct 05, 2019, 4:41 PM UTC

bradleyjg wrote: post #17

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…

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.

> Who is paying $395k-$420k to IC hires without FAANG style interviews?

No one. I hate ppl here asserting that they landed FAANG like comps without leetcoding.

Re: Ask HN: Senior Positions Interview Prep Resources?

#110

Post by dominotw » Sat, Oct 05, 2019, 4:47 PM UTC

ScottFree wrote: post #102

selfipaprazzi wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, 20 years ago. Now the landscape has changed massively. The only minorities today who can start a new company, that makes them more money than a job at a FAANG company, are women.

Do you have numbers to back that up?

> There are immigrants fresh off the boat who don't speak english that own their own companies.

> Do you have numbers to back that up?