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What is the engineering hiring bar?

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Re: What is the engineering hiring bar?

#131

Post by manfredo »

omar_a1 wrote: post #115
manfredo wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Whether one thinks that discrimination in hiring is justified to offset suspected discrimination in other areas is besides the point. The point is, there exists discrimination in hiring that results in women and URM candidates getting offers that would not have been obtained were it not for diversity status. The opportunities of people categorized as diverse in tech company interviewing is substantially different fro…

No, it's not an SF Bay Area thing. I've moved to SF from the Midwest a year ago, and have been called racial slurs more times during my year here than in my entire adult life living in a medium-sized Midwestern town. Shall we assume that because you haven't had a similar experience or personally faced discrimination on the job that no one else has? Exaggerating the status of "diversity hires" just ignores the harsh r…

Who is getting the short or long end of the stick is not something I aim to answer, or even purport to be able to answer. This is a matter of perspective. I'm a Hispanic person that attended an elite university and have household names on my resume. I'd have a good chance of getting interviews regardless of my gender or ethnicity - and when you do take ethnicity into account it probably helps me even more. I'm largely indifferent towards this kind of discrimination in hiring. But is the perspective of a white or asian man pursuing a coding boot-camp to try and break into tech going to have the same opinion on policies that greatly reduce or eliminate his chances of getting an interview as compared to if he was a woman or URM? Many see getting called slurs as a small price to pay to get a chance to break into tech.

The only thing that bothers me is attempting to equate acknowledgement of these practices as offensive or taboo. The reality is that this is what many companies are doing. Thus, the only way one can avoid offense in that scenario is to deny reality.

Re: What is the engineering hiring bar?

#132

Post by pwinnski »

introvert0 wrote: post #86
ardit33 wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s not how software engineering works.... I am glad we don’t have to have “certifications” by some bureaucratic local agency to work.

You do realize you make a disservice to those who studied and worked hard to obtain a proper engineering degree, right?

Welcome to Hacker News. I think you might be lost. Friendly advice: Try spending some time reading posts and comments for a while to become familiar with the site before jumping in.

Again, welcome.

Re: What is the engineering hiring bar?

#133

Post by dang »

introvert0 wrote: post #43

Apologies in advance for being harsh, but are you a member in order of your state association of engineers, did you pass the FE exam?, was your school accredited to grant engineering diplomas? If the answer is not, please do not call yourself engineer

"Eschew flamebait. Don't introduce flamewar topics unless you have something genuinely new to say. Avoid unrelated controversies and generic tangents."

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Edit: please don't create accounts to break the site guidelines with.

Re: What is the engineering hiring bar?

#134

Post by majormajor »

TheOtherHobbes wrote: post #110
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…

The actionable thing is the graph about two thirds of the way down - passthrough rate vs performance. That's the whole point of the article. Two possible conclusions: One is that companies are cargo-culting hiring, and have absolutely no idea what they're doing. Clearly whatever the process is supposed to do, it's not hiring the "best people" by any realistic metric. The other is that the process is working as intend…

> If a company wants the "best people" it needs to follow up hiring with performance tracking, and identify and reward the people and hiring practices which increase performance. [2]

And that's glossing over a ton of massive difficulty, which is one of the biggest reasons things move slowly and are more based on opinion than data.

Re: What is the engineering hiring bar?

#135

Post by omar_a1 »

manfredo wrote: post #131
omar_a1 wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, it's not an SF Bay Area thing. I've moved to SF from the Midwest a year ago, and have been called racial slurs more times during my year here than in my entire adult life living in a medium-sized Midwestern town. Shall we assume that because you haven't had a similar experience or personally faced discrimination on the job that no one else has? Exaggerating the status of "diversity hires" just ignores the harsh r…

Who is getting the short or long end of the stick is not something I aim to answer, or even purport to be able to answer. This is a matter of perspective. I'm a Hispanic person that attended an elite university and have household names on my resume. I'd have a good chance of getting interviews regardless of my gender or ethnicity - and when you do take ethnicity into account it probably helps me even more. I'm largel…

> Many see getting called slurs as a small price to pay to get a chance to break into tech.

No, no they really dont!

What a horrifying thing to say. Normalizing racial and sexual harassment is a large part of the problem. Are you going to claim you don't understand how the tech industry is so homogenous while simultaneously claiming that racial slurs are just some inconsequential price of admission in tech?

Re: What is the engineering hiring bar?

#136

Post by dang »

christiansakai wrote: post #28
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.

(Your comment was probably downvoted because it broke this site guideline: Please don't use uppercase for emphasis. If you want to emphasize a word or phrase, put asterisks around it and it will get italicized.)

(It's a fine comment otherwise.)

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html.

Re: What is the engineering hiring bar?

#137

Post by juped »

carapace wrote: post #56

This is so silly. Here's teh secret: your programming ability is set genetically by how much Yeti blood you have in your ancestry. Yeti half-breeds recognize each other (often unconsciously) by smell. That's why some people can get programming jobs hella easily while others just can't even after strenuous training. Check your feet. If your second toe isn't longer than your big toe you're screwed. Give it up. You migh…

How do the Yetis get onsites to smell one another?

Re: What is the engineering hiring bar?

#138

Post by christiansakai »

dang wrote: post #136
christiansakai wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

(Your comment was probably downvoted because it broke this site guideline: Please don't use uppercase for emphasis. If you want to emphasize a word or phrase, put asterisks around it and it will get italicized. ) (It's a fine comment otherwise.) https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html .

Oh I see, makes sense. Thanks.

Re: What is the engineering hiring bar?

#139

Post by christiansakai »

omar_a1 wrote: post #129
christiansakai wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So if that candidate cannot even answer Easy/Medium Leetcode questions but got offer, then yes. Is that not clear enough?

No, it's actually contradicting your above answers.

Care to elaborate?

Re: What is the engineering hiring bar?

#140

Post by fourmyle »

faanginginthere wrote: post #117

After 9 years at the same company, I left my job at the beginning of January 2020 to dedicate myself to leetcoding and interview practicing in the hope of getting hired at a FAANG, more specifically Google. I really started dedicating all my time to interviewing January 1st. It is now March 31st and I am now abandoning the idea of getting hired at a FAANG, or any larger-sized startup and will target early startups wi…

You are a fine engineer and there are many people that are working at FANG that are worse than you. Just keep grinding and don't give up. You have built a solid foundation the past few months. All of these companies let you interview again. Just keep practicing, albeit at a slower pace, and try again next year. You will eventually break through. I succumbed to depression after getting rejected after a lot of work my last cycle. I wish I wouldn't have and just kept grinding. There is a lot of luck involved in this game between getting questions you know or are good at or getting a good interviewer.
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