It's a lot easier to accept rejection when you give up on the idea that you're a rock star. I think I do good work and so do my coworkers. Knowing that is enough for me. It's OK if I get rejected by the big boys.
All the jobs I failed to get
121–130 of 180 posts
Re: All the jobs I failed to get
#122I can't even remember the 80-85 jobs I've applied for in the last 7 months.
When I got out of college, I applied to about 250 jobs and only got 3 calls. Luckily one of those did pan out. I keep hearing how there's a war for technical talent. I guess I don't have any.
There isn't. If there were, they wouldn't put experienced candidates through all day interviews and fail them if they don't solve every leetcode question thrown at them.
Re: All the jobs I failed to get
#123Earlier quoted context omitted.
Recursion is a fundemntal part of programming, beyond the self-taught junior yes I would absolutely expect every programmer to be able to do it. You learn it in highschool level programming classes & first semester intro to CS college courses. Even if they won't specifically need to use recursion in their next job it marks them as someone not serious or about programming.
Honestly I think recursion is overrated. Does anyone here really write recursive functions in production? I mean it takes up stack space (which on some systems is a systemparameter), creates functioncall overhead and has rarely advantages. Trees have more natural recursive structures, but then you basically always have cache misses making your program orders of magnitude slower than if you can fit the data in a linea…
[deleted]
Re: All the jobs I failed to get
#124Earlier quoted context omitted.
Sorry since when is over double the median wage 'decent'. Some people on this forum have their head in their arses when it comes to money.
If you're in a certain industry, you're typically looking at the median in that industry and not the national median. USD $100k is ~4 year experience software engineer salary.
Is it? Most of the new-grads I know, many with no prior full-time experience, make around $120k, and of the 9 I regularly keep up with only 1 works at a FAANG (and makes a decent amount more than $120k). The others range from startups to BigCo fintech to backhouse software role in legacy Fortune 500s. Granted, most of these jobs are on the coasts, though (but not SF)
Re: All the jobs I failed to get
#125Earlier quoted context omitted.
If you can take a problem where I'm thinking of a recursive solution as the interviewer, but you can come up with an iterative solution and explain why you think it's better, I would give you full marks.
Thats not the point. I think it is possibly harmful to focus on recursion in teaching and interviews. (Of course if the understanding is, that you do not use it in real life, then its ok, but still why not test people on skills they need for the job; its like making people jump through hoops for a swimmers position). Of course I will be embarressed soon, when it is only me who doesnt use recursion in production. :-)
I don't know what goes on in the minds of interviewers, but if I had to guess, they use recursion to test the interviewee's ability to reason inductively --- which, of course, is necessary for writing even simple loops. Maybe a question about loop invariants might be a good replacement.
Regardless, yes, I doubt many people write a lot of recursive functions, since the data structures people use tend to either be flat, based on arrays, or neatly hidden away in libraries.
Re: All the jobs I failed to get
#126GoDaddy rejected me a year after I applied and only realized it when a recruiter was trying to input me into their system. I took great pride in informing her that a) I made more than their proposed offer and b) I’d never work for a company who couldn’t operate with basic human decency in their recruiting process. Because of that experience, I make it a point that every single candidate deserves a yes or no response…
> I took great pride in informing her that a) I made more than their proposed offer and b) I’d never work for a company who couldn’t operate with basic human decency in their recruiting process. I used to work in tech recruiting. I guarantee you 100%, no one cares. As a candidate your only option is to move on or write a bad glassdoor if you are so inclined and move on.
As a candidate your only option is to move on or write a bad glassdoor if you are so inclined and move on.
Not in the EU. You can file a GDPR SAR for any electronic records created during the process, which will probably include the interviewer’s notes.
Re: All the jobs I failed to get
#127I remember getting rejected by Google because I completely blanked on a binary search question. All my other rounds were great, but you can’t miss the search question at the search company.
I worked at Microsoft for a while a couple decades ago. I reapplied a few years ago and got through three developers reviewing me and the PM but didn't get the job. It can be disappointing if you really want to work somewhere badly. I still do but not sure if I will get a chance to interview there again.
Re: All the jobs I failed to get
#128Earlier quoted context omitted.
Recursion is a fundemntal part of programming, beyond the self-taught junior yes I would absolutely expect every programmer to be able to do it. You learn it in highschool level programming classes & first semester intro to CS college courses. Even if they won't specifically need to use recursion in their next job it marks them as someone not serious or about programming.
Honestly I think recursion is overrated. Does anyone here really write recursive functions in production? I mean it takes up stack space (which on some systems is a systemparameter), creates functioncall overhead and has rarely advantages. Trees have more natural recursive structures, but then you basically always have cache misses making your program orders of magnitude slower than if you can fit the data in a linea…
I think I've used it twice in production code over the last 20 years. The first was to traverse a directory tree. I wouldn't write it that way now since there is now a standard library to do what I was doing then. The second was to traverse an object's children logging certain pieces of data from the sub-objects. I didn't design that one, I just wrote it so I don't know if there was a library that would have done it for me. Fun to write though.
Generally, developer interviews are just stand-ins for IQ tests since it is illegal to give a candidate an IQ test. Seeing if someone can easily write a recursive function is a pretty good IQ test.
Re: All the jobs I failed to get
#129When I got a job at one of the FAANG companies I told a friend how many rejections I got. The friend said: “it’s easier to narrate your failures once you’ve emerged victorious”. She was right, I realized. Now I’m looking for job again, have been rejected by 4 companies, no offer in hand yet and I’m open about it.
I had 11 onsites (over the course of 6-8 months) at mostly normal tech companies before getting an offer at a FAANG.
Now I've been here 6 months.
Really crazy, and I have no idea how this ended up happening. Probably a combination of studying more and getting better with every interview, finding my weaknesses and fixing them. Along with a combination of bad luck with getting rejected so many times, and good luck with the final acceptance of where I am.
Interesting thing is that I think my offer was more towards the higher end of band for this company, so who knows.
Re: All the jobs I failed to get
#130Earlier quoted context omitted.
Honestly I think recursion is overrated. Does anyone here really write recursive functions in production? I mean it takes up stack space (which on some systems is a systemparameter), creates functioncall overhead and has rarely advantages. Trees have more natural recursive structures, but then you basically always have cache misses making your program orders of magnitude slower than if you can fit the data in a linea…
I think I've used it twice in production code over the last 20 years. The first was to traverse a directory tree. I wouldn't write it that way now since there is now a standard library to do what I was doing then. The second was to traverse an object's children logging certain pieces of data from the sub-objects. I didn't design that one, I just wrote it so I don't know if there was a library that would have done it…
Finally it all makes sense. I was wondering about it and it also explains how the 'brain teaser question' like how many google engineers do you need to change a lightbulb or were there different questions, anyway, came about.