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Ask HN: Should I quit the field of software development?

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Re: Ask HN: Should I quit the field of software development?

#121

Post by lefrenchy »

asdfasgasdgasdg wrote: post #48
codetrotter wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You can also say what you think would be the number of followers (millions+), what would be the time needed for a write you a database (~millisecond each) and why that won't match 3 seconds, so you know how much time you have per follower. While we are on the topic I am really curious to know how they solve it actually.

I don't work at twitter, but one thing you can know for sure is that the tweet needs to be distributed to multiple machines to meet this performance requirement. A single machine probably could probably send three million trivial messages in three seconds, but if you mix in any business logic it's not gonna happen. What I'd do is have a shared highfanout queue. Once you have more than say 10k followers your tweets go…

Follow up question for a little clarification. Would you write the tweet into the queue once or append a message to the queue for each follower containing the tweet id?

Seems to me you’d need to do the latter right? That way you ensure you process each follower at least once, but each worker doesn’t need to be aware of others it’s just pulling messages from the queue.

Re: Ask HN: Should I quit the field of software development?

#122

Post by alexbanks »

asdfasgasdgasdg wrote: post #117
alexbanks wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If someone's resume was only wordpress sites, and they somehow made it into a technical interview for a team that managed twitter-like systems, I'd consider that a critical failure of the selection process. As an interviewer, I would try and make that experience as painless as possible for the candidate, and if not totally shocked by their abilities, have very direct conversations about the shortcomings of the select…

> I'd consider that a critical failure of the selection process. Me too. Unfortunately, I have no control over recruiters or the questionable candidates they sometimes choose to send in. I just have to do my best to ascertain whether the person is a good potential teammate.

Yes, and my point is to not take that critical failure out on the candidate.

Re: Ask HN: Should I quit the field of software development?

#123

Post by oldertimer »

jart wrote: post #107
oldertimer wrote: post #91

The job market is exceptionally tight right now, so don't take it personally. I doubt anybody is giving good answers to stupid questions. The quizzes and puzzles style of interviewing is terrible. Don't stress about it. Just be yourself. A good answer to most questions is, "I'd look on stack overflow and some blog posts to see what other people are doing." If they don't like it then you probably wouldn't enjoy workin…

You must have been popular in school. I grew up playing with rubik's cube and tavern puzzles. Programming interviews are designed to find people like me.

I like puzzles and quizzes plenty but it has nothing to do being a good programmer.

Re: Ask HN: Should I quit the field of software development?

#124

Post by lowiqengineer »

maerF0x0 wrote: post #113
lowiqengineer wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You should compare yourself now with your past self six years ago: are you a better person now? Kinda? I had more potential then, I could have done Facebook after sophomore year and had my career set for life. Instead I failed that interview and my career has been treading water because I had to join Amazon out of undergrad. Its apparent that I"m not good at these things...the problem is my happiness and financial…

> I had to join Amazon out of undergrad. You're suffering for a lack of perspective or gratitude. If you're a millennial, realize that you were probably told that you could do anything (and thusly everything), and the effort it would take was trivialized... Both are incorrect. You most likely can do 1 thing super well and it's going to be a shit ton of work if you want to compete against those equally competent.

In what way? I grew up Asian and went to a state school, I got the message that I was incapable of accomplishing anything from an early age!

Re: Ask HN: Should I quit the field of software development?

#125

Post by nullsense »

wccrawford wrote: post #114
nullsense wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would much appreciate the info that that's what was happening. The context helps to calibrate correctly.

I'm sure it would make you less nervous (which is why I tell them), but would it actually help? Either the role is above your skill level, and it won't matter how you answer the questions, or it isn't and doing your best will be good enough. Either way, there's no need to be nervous. IMO, you should focus on just answering the questions as best you can.

Helps as is in is this person looking for a specific bit of trivia that they'll write me off for not knowing or is it just an exercise to see how I reason my way through unfamiliar territory.

The fact there are so many hidden requirements you're trying to tease out is where the nervousness comes from.

Re: Ask HN: Should I quit the field of software development?

#126

Post by mmphosis »

You are lucky software development is not your passion — see the post about BS jobs. I still code because I am passionate about coding. I am also passionate about sailing. I once asked a fellow sailor (who was really amazing at sailing) why they didn't sail for a living? They said working at it for money would totally ruin their passion for sailing.

"How do you make sure that a celebrity's tweet reaches all of her followers in less than 3 seconds?" I really don't care, and neither should you — that's a bad gig, but I really liked reading the stories about your interview experiences. Bring a humble piece of your CRUD code to the interview, and wow them. If you still like software development, keep doing it as long as it is a good gig.

Re: Ask HN: Should I quit the field of software development?

#127

Post by brundolf »

> System design rounds require me to solve problems that the top engineers in the world spend months on

Usually with these they just want to see how you think. Nobody's really expecting a complete answer, much less something you could go implement and have it solve the problem flawlessly from the get-go. They just want to watch the gears turn; don't be so hard on yourself.

Re: Ask HN: Should I quit the field of software development?

#128

Post by sage76 »

mmphosis wrote: post #126

You are lucky software development is not your passion — see the post about BS jobs. I still code because I am passionate about coding. I am also passionate about sailing. I once asked a fellow sailor (who was really amazing at sailing) why they didn't sail for a living? They said working at it for money would totally ruin their passion for sailing. "How do you make sure that a celebrity's tweet reaches all of her fo…

> Bring a humble piece of your CRUD code to the interview

Nobody ever looks at my github. I don't know why this myth is running around that you need to have an active github.

I put all my work that I did on my startup there. It was 99% me since I was the only engineer. I frequently invite interviewers to look it up esp if they are looking for someone who has worked in that tech stack.

Never has anyone looked at it, asked me anything about it.

The people I have actually seen get jobs were those who

1) Applied in a spray and pray fashion. Mass spamming. 100+ applications a day.

2) Ground leetcode like their life depended on it.

All those guys with amazing projects and great github profiles struggled more than those who simply did leetcode all day.

Re: Ask HN: Should I quit the field of software development?

#129

Post by sdevonoes »

throwawayc2020 wrote: post #80
worker767424 wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I've been interviewing non-stop for six months Is this just market conditions right now? I'm guessing landing a job any time from 2010-2019 was easier?

I think it's partly market conditions, but also I think the interview process changed a lot in the past five years and I didn't change with it. There are plenty of jobs out there, but a lot of competition. One place said they received over 1,000 applications for one role.

> There are plenty of jobs out there, but a lot of competition. One place said they received over 1,000 applications for one role.

I don't get it. (Tech) companies out there are paying a lot of money to hire developers right now. How is this possible if they receive over 1,000 applications? If that were true they were paying peanuts because at least 1 in those 1,000 applicants will say 'Yes'.

Re: Ask HN: Should I quit the field of software development?

#130

Post by etripe »

ing33k wrote: post #7

Sorry for going offtopic "How do you make sure that a celebrity's tweet reaches all of her followers in less than 3 seconds?" Looks like the interviewer has atleast read the first chapter of "Designing Data-Intensive Applications: The Big Ideas Behind Reliable, Scalable, and Maintainable Systems" If you read and understand the above book, I am reasonably sure that you can crack most of the system design interviews.

I feel ambivalent about this kind of question. You might argue that it's required general knowledge, but relying on having read any one particular book seems arbitrary and a "gotcha" question.

I could be missing something about US software culture - is this considered a must-read or "celebrity" book over there?

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