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“I've had to relearn coding to get through the new interviews”

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Re: “I've had to relearn coding to get through the new interviews”

#141

Post by voodootrucker »

Ericson2314 wrote: post #104
decafninja wrote: post #12

Unless you've made it to your "endgame" company that you're happy to stay at for a while, I feel investing anything more than the bare minimum to get your assigned work done is worth less than just grinding leetcode and otherwise studying for interviews. Doing an actual good job, above and beyond, is not going to be worth much when you're looking for your next job. Thus we're now seeing the rise of Professional Inter…

And so productivity falls until we live in squalor amidst the old ruins but every person is busy.

Exactly this. The parent takes no systemic affects into account, only individual actor greed. In the academic sense of those terms.

Re: “I've had to relearn coding to get through the new interviews”

#142

Post by [deleted] »

dnautics wrote: post #50
decafninja wrote: post #12

Unless you've made it to your "endgame" company that you're happy to stay at for a while, I feel investing anything more than the bare minimum to get your assigned work done is worth less than just grinding leetcode and otherwise studying for interviews. Doing an actual good job, above and beyond, is not going to be worth much when you're looking for your next job. Thus we're now seeing the rise of Professional Inter…

When I was a hiring manager at the previous company I was at, I gave an interview where I gave an exact description of what I wanted coded. No algorithm tricks (you could solve it faster with a paradigm, but it wasn't necessary) actually this is a problem I remember having to solve for homework in intro HS CS class 25 years ago. I was checking to see if the candidate could 1. read documents. 2. ask questions. 3 ident…

[deleted]

Re: “I've had to relearn coding to get through the new interviews”

#143

Post by kmonsen »

AmericanChopper wrote: post #117
kmonsen wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think so at all. I have worked hard, and had a lot of fun at now two of the FAANG's. Sure the reward has not been like winning the startup lottery, but if you told myself 20 years ago I would have this impact and earn this much money I would not have believed it. I totally suck at politics, and have seen others rise quicker, but doing good work does get rewarded in my experience.

I guess this observation doesn’t really apply to the FAANGs quite as much. They have such an insatiable demand for labor that it’s much easier to work your way up to more money consistently over time. I guess you just find the level you want to coast at. I haven’t won the start up lottery either. But I have been able to be fully employed as a contractor with a very good hourly rate for quite a long time. Which probab…

Seems like you are doing pretty well. Coasting means different things to different people, do what’s right for you. Just make sure there are no regrets later, life is too short for that.

Sometimes that means coasting and spending more time on your hobbies or with your family. Can’t see anything wrong with that.

Re: “I've had to relearn coding to get through the new interviews”

#144

Post by beagle3 »

tomcat27 wrote: post #7

> It's also an opportunity to excuse ageism. Yep!

When I hire, I would be happier to hire older (>40) engineers; they have more experience, they are usually done with job hopping, and are also mostly done with resumė stuffing and buzzword bingos that includes the latest framework.

However, it seems that those older people that I want are not actually looking for a job - they either found their endgame in tech or realized that they have to go to management/consulting for better salary and control.

Many of the 20-years of experience that do apply are better described as “having 20 times the same 1-year experience”. They are not any better than a recent grad despite those 20 years, but they lack the energy and expect much higher pay and automatic respect for their opinions.

The rare older engineer who wants to keep doing technical work, has learned from their experience, and can actually deliver is very valuable. Many people describe themselves in this population and complain of ageism but very few actually are.

Re: “I've had to relearn coding to get through the new interviews”

#145

Post by landtuna »

solipsism wrote: post #133
landtuna wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's nonsense. I've got 20 YoE, an elite college degree, tons of experience in Python and C++, have single-handedly put together mission critical software systems, and I can't get my foot in the door outside my small area of expertise. The teams I've worked on are tiny, so I have no career network to draw from. I'm missing machine learning and cloud experience, and my resume gets no hits because of it. Age 44, and…

There's some other problem. None of us can say what it is unless you share your resume, what companies you've applied to, etc. But if you get "no hits" with 20 years of experience in Python and C++, the problem is 100% not "missing machine learning and cloud experience".

Is that an offer? :) https://www.linkedin.com/in/jimhunziker/

One hit was for making machine guns target humans better. (I rejected the in-person interview.)

Another dropped me because they wanted cloud experience.

A YC company changed the job from remote to SF only before we talked.

Re: “I've had to relearn coding to get through the new interviews”

#146

Post by [deleted] »

zug_zug wrote: post #8

A rather tired conversation in my opinion. Everybody likes to complain about interviews, but every single alternative I've heard is even worse: Take-homes are biased toward those willing to work hours for free, a "track record" is biased toward those who inflate their resume, a casual conversation is biased toward the likable and native english speakers, high-level whiteboarding is biased towards people who are good…

[deleted]

Re: “I've had to relearn coding to get through the new interviews”

#147

Post by alltakendamned »

tinkertamper wrote: post #76
zug_zug wrote: post #8

A rather tired conversation in my opinion. Everybody likes to complain about interviews, but every single alternative I've heard is even worse: Take-homes are biased toward those willing to work hours for free, a "track record" is biased toward those who inflate their resume, a casual conversation is biased toward the likable and native english speakers, high-level whiteboarding is biased towards people who are good…

Recently I started trying something new for our interviews. I start with a phone interview that is more about discussing their background, expertise, what they need to feel productive, and explain the role. If I think they’d be a good culture and expertise fit, I send them something like this (I’ve made a few): https://gist.github.com/tywalch/cf60e4c942ab6a80e481f4ba6754... . It’s a small “api service” that represent…

Damn that SQL injection will get you owned in 3 seconds or less :D

Re: “I've had to relearn coding to get through the new interviews”

#149

Post by decafninja »

kmonsen wrote: post #89
decafninja wrote: post #12

Unless you've made it to your "endgame" company that you're happy to stay at for a while, I feel investing anything more than the bare minimum to get your assigned work done is worth less than just grinding leetcode and otherwise studying for interviews. Doing an actual good job, above and beyond, is not going to be worth much when you're looking for your next job. Thus we're now seeing the rise of Professional Inter…

I mean why not both? I worked hard and do my best in my job, but I also do leetcode and others a few times a month just to make sure I can still get another job if I need to. I am not professional leetcoder, but good enough if I need to in addition to my experience that has been good enough so far.

Because time is a finite resource.

Re: “I've had to relearn coding to get through the new interviews”

#150

Post by twblalock »

MattGaiser wrote: post #92
kmonsen wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean why not both? I worked hard and do my best in my job, but I also do leetcode and others a few times a month just to make sure I can still get another job if I need to. I am not professional leetcoder, but good enough if I need to in addition to my experience that has been good enough so far.

His point is why bother do the former when the latter is how you get the next job?

Because it's not the latter that gets you the next job in many cases.

After you've been in the industry for a while, you are likely to be referred for jobs by former colleagues, or even invited by those former colleagues to come and interview at their new companies. If you excel at your job, your former colleagues will be more likely to do this. They very likely have no idea how good you are at Leetcode-style problems.

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