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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”

#421

Post by kokey »

bananaface wrote: post #375
abj wrote: post #370

What if we form a group/site that refuses to do leetcode interviews? This seems like a classic coordination problem. If enough people refuse, companies will have their talent pool limited. We could use this group to help match companies and developers who don't want to leetcode. If it's true that leetcode filters out great developers, than companies who 'can't find talent' should be able to use our group to find some…

Won't work because there's a giant incentive to defect and no way to effectively police it.

I'm with you on this. That said, something like this is happening anyway it will just take a while to play out. If companies keep interviewing like this, it will keep on selecting in a certain way and basically exclude people who aren't willing or able to play this game. This will impact on the company's products in the long run but the problem will be hard to notice if the company sits on a lot of money still, until it doesn't.

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

#422

Post by [deleted] »

koonsolo wrote: post #284
throwaway201103 wrote: post #282

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why would any company want me to write an array sort instead of calling the .sort() method on the standard array class? Is that really the sort of thing they want their devs to code and debug and maintain by hand?

If you can't do a sort, how will be be able to do more high level complex things?

[deleted]

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

#423

Post by davio »

programmertote wrote: post #408
yodsanklai wrote: post #359

I've just landed a job at a FAANG company. Some random subjective comments based on my experience: - it was hard work - there was no way I could have passed these interviews without all the work. - my past experience and education barely helped me for the interview - it's not enough to be able to solve the problems, you need to be able to solve them on the spot, without much thinking, in an interview context - I pass…

If you don't mind sharing, where do you learn/read-up about the system design questions? I am not a software architect although I designed and built small modules/libraries of my own, but I don't think it's sufficient to learn about system design questions found in interviews (not just FAANG's).

https://www.educative.io/courses/grokking-the-system-design-...

I think that's the standard recommendation

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

#424

Post by [deleted] »

dilyevsky wrote: post #105
tomcat27 wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A simple for-loop? that's ridiculous. If that's really the case I wonder the screening abilities of recruiters more than candidates.

Literally a scan of string with some basic logic and three cases inside. People would take 30 mins+ and create a giant mess. This was easily 50%+ cases during phone screen and resumes all looked good so not recruiters fault (most of the time).

[deleted]

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

#425

Post by yodsanklai »

throw1234651234 wrote: post #404
yodsanklai wrote: post #359

I've just landed a job at a FAANG company. Some random subjective comments based on my experience: - it was hard work - there was no way I could have passed these interviews without all the work. - my past experience and education barely helped me for the interview - it's not enough to be able to solve the problems, you need to be able to solve them on the spot, without much thinking, in an interview context - I pass…

"and I'm on the older side (mid forties)" Thank you very much for listing this. I wonder how life is for older candidates in these jobs.

This is also one of my concern.

Most of the interviewers were in their 20/30s and so is everybody on their "career" web pages and presentation documents. However, in the team I'll join, at least two people are about my age or older.

What I can tell is that never in the recruiting process did I feel discriminated against. Once you're in the loop, their main concern seems to be how well you perform in the interviews. I feel I was at a slight disadvantage compared to to my younger self in term of thinking speed for the algorithmic questions but this can be compensated by a better preparation.

EDIT: not sure why you're down-voted. Ageism is a thing and a legitimate source of concern.

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

#426

Post by astrea »

drchopchop wrote: post #414
yodsanklai wrote: post #359

I've just landed a job at a FAANG company. Some random subjective comments based on my experience: - it was hard work - there was no way I could have passed these interviews without all the work. - my past experience and education barely helped me for the interview - it's not enough to be able to solve the problems, you need to be able to solve them on the spot, without much thinking, in an interview context - I pass…

One big problem is that companies (especially FAANG) are wasting time having very senior devs do Leetcode-style shit, which is a false negative for people that don't balance binary trees and manually regex strings all day. This especially penalizes more experienced / older devs who don't have time to LC grind (of which I'm also one), and introduces unconscious selection bias. Certainly there are other ways to verify…

Your comment inspired me to ask a question I've had for a while. My background is not CS, it's computer engineering. So I didn't have any education in the fancy algorithms that you'll find in these interviews. Is that expected or did I miss something?

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

#427

Post by wolco2 »

ornornor wrote: post #227
wolco2 wrote: post #203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why are ads suddenly so evil? Ads are paided messages.

They’re designed to trick you into acting against your best interests. To push you to spend money you don’t have on shit you don’t need to impress people you don’t like, to quote a witty whoever wrote this.

At one end they exist to inform and offer you a service. I've clicked on ads and purchased and have been better off for it. No tricks involved but it did save me 1/2 off the original price I normally purchase from another store.

Who I am impressing with my canned milk buy?

Ads that show a lifestyle that tricks you into believing you can become something you are not is a small segment perhaps larger on social media. I don't see any of that or if I did it doesn't register. But I do see can of milk for sale.

I go through fliers and get coupons. I get email ads on products I purchased for discounts.

Even those store displays with toilet paper are a form of advertising. I don't mind them and often buy a pack if on sale.

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

#428

Post by IshKebab »

okareaman wrote: post #376
yodsanklai wrote: post #359

I've just landed a job at a FAANG company. Some random subjective comments based on my experience: - it was hard work - there was no way I could have passed these interviews without all the work. - my past experience and education barely helped me for the interview - it's not enough to be able to solve the problems, you need to be able to solve them on the spot, without much thinking, in an interview context - I pass…

> - it's not enough to be able to solve the problems, you need to be able to solve them on the spot, without much thinking, in an interview context Sounds like they're looking for assembly line programmers - crank out the code, pass it off, then on to the next piece of code without pause. This would be a nightmare for me. The high salaries and prestige of these companies definitely would not be worth it. I'm not neur…

That's not it - it's that interviewers set problems that they already know how to solve. They forget how hard it is to solve new problems on the spot in an interview setting.

In my experience technical interview questions are usually way harder than they need to be. I don't agree with getting rid of HackerRank style filters entirely because they save you a ton of time with candidates who just can't code at all (or candidates that think they aren't applying for a coding job). But the questions should definitely err on the easy side.

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

#429

Post by kazagistar »

bluedino wrote: post #403
throwitaway1235 wrote: post #289

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Few people own desktop computers anymore." I will own a desktop computer until the day I die. Excellent post too.

I was hired in at a company a couple years ago. My soon-to-be manager asked, "What should I order you for a computer?" I responded with, "Whatever you guys buy - Dell, Lenovo. A 14" laptop and an external monitor would be fine." He torted, "I've never seen anyone be productive on a laptop. Nobody here uses laptops. I'll get you a desktop with 2 monitors." After I started, I notice he did almost all of his work from a…

Side note: In an open office, people quickly learn to cheat and claim unused spaces like conference rooms for working undisturbed.

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

#430

Post by ldng »

yodsanklai wrote: post #359

I've just landed a job at a FAANG company. Some random subjective comments based on my experience: - it was hard work - there was no way I could have passed these interviews without all the work. - my past experience and education barely helped me for the interview - it's not enough to be able to solve the problems, you need to be able to solve them on the spot, without much thinking, in an interview context - I pass…

Well, now that you've started working. Have you actually applied any of it ?

To make an analogy, I'm always perplexed at how you're asked to build an EPR on the spot and then all you do is general electricity mundane work. I've seen a lot of EPR builder beeing incapable of simple wiring ...

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