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What is the engineering hiring bar?

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Re: What is the engineering hiring bar?

#21

Post by xenihn »

The spread is insane. I have interviewed at one FAANG three times within the same year (this one does not have cooldowns). On-site DS&A question difficulty capped at two-sum with no twist for the most recent one (extremely easy if you have seen it before, still doable for most people if they haven't), binary tree LCA (impossible within 30 minutes if you haven't studied binary trees, moderate if you have but have never attempted/seen LCA, easy if you have) for the first one, and a keypad DP problem (hard for anyone who hasn't practiced DP imo) for the middle one.

There are people who are extremely good at DS&A interviews and can reliably pass almost any loop at any FAANG company that sticks to conventions. But I think most people don't fall into that group, and it generally comes down to luck and not getting a single question that stumps you.

Re: What is the engineering hiring bar?

#22

Post by mav3rick »

twomoretime wrote: post #11
gregdoesit wrote: post #2

The article could be a_lot_ more concise. Here’s what I got out of it as the takeaway: > And that helps us understand why Recursive Cactus spends so much time practicing. He’s training himself partially because his current company isn’t developing his skills. Exactly. Recursive Calculus wants a better job, (a lot) higher pay, a better environment. So he spends time prepping for this. And companies who can offer all o…

>And that helps us understand why Recursive Cactus spends so much time practicing. He’s training himself partially because his current company isn’t developing his skills. I develop software full time and have some 10 years of experience depending on how you count it, and I'm absolutely terrible at leetcode style problems and find whiteboard questions difficult for non programming reasons. I know it wasn't the point…

How is your test proven to be better than the others ? Can't the FAANGs be more selective ?

Re: What is the engineering hiring bar?

#23

Post by christiansakai »

ng12 wrote: post #16

I can usually spot the candidates who are leetcode junkies. This is why I direct our interviews to be as pragmatic as possible. Most of our question bank comes from actual code one of our devs had to implement. I'm fairly confident that if you've studied hard enough to solve these problems easier the studying just paid off by making you a better developer.

Ironically, I think I develop this ability as well through solving hundreds of Leetcode questions myself. At some point I actually have to step back and think, act not to solve it too quickly otherwise the interviewer will spot me as Leetcode junkies.

Re: What is the engineering hiring bar?

#24

Post by dominotw »

stuxnet79 wrote: post #12
gregdoesit wrote: post #2

The article could be a_lot_ more concise. Here’s what I got out of it as the takeaway: > And that helps us understand why Recursive Cactus spends so much time practicing. He’s training himself partially because his current company isn’t developing his skills. Exactly. Recursive Calculus wants a better job, (a lot) higher pay, a better environment. So he spends time prepping for this. And companies who can offer all o…

Perhaps there wasn't any actionable advice, but it's a sad indictment of the current state of tech hiring. Based on the article you can assume that Recursive Cactus is already in Big-Tech ("well known tech company") so "(a lot) higher pay" is a moot point and quite frankly it's unlikely that the daily tasks involved in the next job will bear a strong resemblance to the kind of synthetic tasks or problems you are aske…

>so "(a lot) higher pay" is a moot point

no its not. I know ppl who quit MS and reapply later to get placed into a higher tier after they interviewed there again. Jumping jobs into a higher tier is easier way to get a raise than grinding at the same job.

Re: What is the engineering hiring bar?

#25

Post by karatestomp »

gregdoesit wrote: post #2

The article could be a_lot_ more concise. Here’s what I got out of it as the takeaway: > And that helps us understand why Recursive Cactus spends so much time practicing. He’s training himself partially because his current company isn’t developing his skills. Exactly. Recursive Calculus wants a better job, (a lot) higher pay, a better environment. So he spends time prepping for this. And companies who can offer all o…

None of my jobs have done much to exercise the skills I’d need to get exactly the same job in every way at a place that does whiteboard quizzes, language trivia questions, and/or leetcode stuff. It’s not even about moving “up”, necessarily.

Re: What is the engineering hiring bar?

#26

Post by mav3rick »

jasondclinton wrote: post #20
christiansakai wrote: post #6

Holy cow, is Recursive Cactus me? Lol I can totally relate. And I believe a lot of people on cscareerquestions subreddit and people at Leetcode forum can relate. 100%? Accurate. Also, just to give a context of the hiring bar these days. The FAANG companies coding question is no longer on Easy even on phone interview. Expect at minimum 2 Medium difficulty questions in a phone interview that need to be able to be solve…

I was agreeing with you until you used the phrase "diversity hire" in your comment. I think that you could have made the same point without inferring that the hiring bar has been lowered for employees in underrepresented groups. That's a pretty terrible thing to say to anyone who is in one of those groups.

Totally agree.

Re: What is the engineering hiring bar?

#27

Post by [deleted] »

jasondclinton wrote: post #14
nimbius wrote: post #4

this is fine, so long as you're looking to get hired by a megacorp (fine,faang.) but for most people theres a point of diminishing returns. Do you want to spend six months to a year out of your life drilling for a $10k raise working for a company that works you like a rented mule anyhow, or do you settle with your present quality of life and conclude 70k is enough to do whatever you wanted to reasonably do anyway. Th…

I agree with a few things you said but you're also wrong about a few things. FAANG compensation is much higher than you think. $200k/year (including stock) in the Bay Area for new grads is common. Yes, the prep for these interviews is insane but what has effectively happened (and this is supported by the article) is that companies have offloaded the selection work to the interviewee: they will only be able to pass if…

[deleted]

Re: What is the engineering hiring bar?

#28

Post by christiansakai »

Ididntdothis wrote: post #15

I had a conversation with a fellow engineer and we pretty much concluded that our current company would not hire us with our current resumes if we had to go through the interviewing process. And we are generally viewed as some of the higher performers. I bet the same is true for a lot of other companies.

I suck at writing resumes, to the point that recruiters and even hiring managers at companies that I applied to give me a pity and even talk on how to improve my resume DURING INITIAL PHONE CALL lmao.

Re: What is the engineering hiring bar?

#29

Post by chrisseaton »

xenihn wrote: post #21

The spread is insane. I have interviewed at one FAANG three times within the same year (this one does not have cooldowns). On-site DS&A question difficulty capped at two-sum with no twist for the most recent one (extremely easy if you have seen it before, still doable for most people if they haven't), binary tree LCA (impossible within 30 minutes if you haven't studied binary trees, moderate if you have but have neve…

I think most people should dis-regard what FAANG do. The hiring bar there is so astronomically high that they're only hiring people at the very top of their field. I wouldn't try to take any lessons from FAANG and apply them to the rest of the industry.

Re: What is the engineering hiring bar?

#30

Post by christiansakai »

jasondclinton wrote: post #20
christiansakai wrote: post #6

Holy cow, is Recursive Cactus me? Lol I can totally relate. And I believe a lot of people on cscareerquestions subreddit and people at Leetcode forum can relate. 100%? Accurate. Also, just to give a context of the hiring bar these days. The FAANG companies coding question is no longer on Easy even on phone interview. Expect at minimum 2 Medium difficulty questions in a phone interview that need to be able to be solve…

I was agreeing with you until you used the phrase "diversity hire" in your comment. I think that you could have made the same point without inferring that the hiring bar has been lowered for employees in underrepresented groups. That's a pretty terrible thing to say to anyone who is in one of those groups.

It is my anecdata, and take it as what it is. I've seen it myself a few times.

Take it as what it is, downvote it all you want. A freedom of speech for everyone.

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