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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”

#561

Post by eeZah7Ux »

okareaman wrote: post #544
rsynnott wrote: post #492

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This sort of "programming language designed for people we apparently have a very low opinion of" approach also greatly informed the design of Java, though Java has spent the last 20 years slowly retreating from it. It looks like Go might be following the same path; it's apparently getting generics at some point!

Can you imagine how many times Google was burned by junior devs writing C++ no matter how smart they were? Memory bugs at Google scale must be expensive. They had to come up with Go.

How about hiring better engineers instead?

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

#562

Post by golergka »

_benj wrote: post #555

I can't help but ask myself, why can't we just switch sides? Why can't a group of us "hackers" get together, create value, and thrive? Yeah, we need somebody to keep tabs on margins, and do marketing, and whatever else "business" but if those roles are UNDER engineering and answer to the hackers as opposed to the current system in which we are answering to business... why can't this work?? You guys very well know it…

Unless you live in a communist country that takes away a person's freedom to work for himself or create a company, you're free to try it.

Having tried it myself a few times without success, I've found that I have drastically underestimated value provided by managers, sales, marketing and other professionals from other fields. Having managed technical teams, I also found that I have overestimated amount of motivations that other engineers have, and my skill at interviewing them.

However, I might be wrong, and you can earn a lot of money proving so.

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

#563

Post by JMTQp8lwXL »

FlaSheridn wrote: post #527
snarf21 wrote: post #470

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This process is all theater. We really need some kind of certification process instead. I'm a while out of school and one interview I went on had a requirement for a live coding session. The ask was to implement red/black trees from scratch despite the fact that they have an Angular app with MySQL on the backend. I took this as a blessing. I don't want to work at a place where they think this is a good way to hire pe…

A certification exam wouldn’t survive a disparate impact challenge. Google stopped asking for SAT/ACT scores long before universities did. And long before that (according to my father, who actually used them), telegram companies had to stop giving spelling tests to telegraph operator applicants. Add to that difficulties with preventing cheating during a pandemic, and I see no alternative to rolling your own live exam…

As an employer and not an academic institution, Google wasn't exactly visionary in ending requests for SAT/ACT scores, since virtually no other employer asks for them. Also, I interviewed w/ Google in ~2018, they still asked for my college transcripts even though I had been working in industry. So they still haven't fully shed their desire to academically successful people.

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

#564

Post by neilv »

SavageBeast wrote: post #526
neilv wrote: post #500

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I really appreciate your candor here. I've long been opposed to the Leetcode battery interview processes, to the point that I started asking FAANG recruiters that several years ago, and saying that was a showstopper for me, like a signal for how they treated people. Though I otherwise wanted to work at a couple of them. After consulting levels.fyi, however, I've revised my opinion: if an employer is willing to pay a…

"That said, for people who've frittered away their discretionary time on things like open source, hobbies, family, etc., rather than drilling for FAANG interviews, the well-known "test prep" commitment for Leetcode-oriented companies is a barrier to even applying there." Salary aside - this is the truth right here. I interviewed at a few FAANGs and I didn't have what Id call a good experience. Neither resulted in an…

Agreed. I kinda wish the FAANGs paid less, and had to appeal to people solely on positive impact, kinds of work people can do, work environment and how people are treated, etc. Adding "oh yeah, and you make more money here" complicates.

The big G, for example, already seemed like the place to go, as soon as they launched the early site (the company was obviously smarter than most of what was going on), and there was also the "don't be evil" that resonated with a lot of the prevailing sentiment among the pre-Web Internet-savvy techies. Though I suppose there might've already been a money factor from the start (it seemed like most people were crunching hard at work, but also prone to job-hopping for the hottest IPO lottery ticket at the moment), but it wasn't as clear as today.

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

#565

Post by JMTQp8lwXL »

yodsanklai wrote: post #425
throw1234651234 wrote: post #404

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"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…

Once they decide to go through the process, you'll be treated equally, however, the process itself is biased against folks who have other life goals, like raising families, who otherwise don't have the time to do competitive leetcode in their free time, but would make great employees.

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

#566

Post by shaftway »

echelon wrote: post #55
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…

Our industry feels like it's in the decline of the Roman Empire right now. Our craft is becoming arcane: Microsoft is building VSCode for the cloud. Few people own desktop computers anymore. Apple is locking down MacOS to signed binaries. Soon we'll all have thin clients and will write software in the cloud for the cloud. Few will be able to learn how to engineer at home anymore - you'll have to go to a university or…

This doesn't feel new to me. I entered the industry in the mid-90's, so I have no reference from before that period. But I'll cherrypick a few items:

> Microsoft is building VSCode for the cloud. Few people own desktop computers anymore.

I heard the same thing in my early years about these newfangled HTML email clients. Email should be consumed using Pine or Eudora, just as God intended.

> People job hop for promos, raises, and resume fodder, not because there's an actual interest in the product.

Oh yeah. I did this for the first 15 years of my career. It was faster to get a promo by changing jobs. I didn't care where I worked, as long as the company name had prestige. I kind of still do, but I transfer internally. Same effect, but I get to keep my vacation accrual.

> Companies are trying to hire more outside of California

In my early years I worked for a company that used Russian developers for some non-critical parts because it was cheaper to fly someone out there once a quarter than it was to hire the staff in CA. This was before the massive rise of outsourcing in India. See the Dilbert cartoons about Elbonia for more.

> The web is turning into shit.

Heard the same argument about MySpace. And Geocities before that. And AOL before that.

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

#567

Post by pb7 »

rhombocombus wrote: post #542
vsareto wrote: post #441

Earlier quoted context omitted.

NGL, I'd jump through hoops for 250k + other compensation Part of why this has stuck around for so long is that so many people are willing to do that because it's a life-altering amount of money

Not my thing personally (at least not today). I could buy a lot more toys and BS and retire earlier if I took one of those jobs, but my already generous (not by FAANG standards) programmer salary is enough and it comes along with a sane schedule and reasonable work expectations. The value in this is I get more time outside of work to enjoy my life, which is worth more than an extra pile of lucre when I already get by…

I don't know where this misguided implication comes from that FAANG doesn't have a sane schedule or reasonable work expectations. The people that work a lot do so because they're some of the most passionate in the industry and enjoy working a lot as a result. On average, I would speculate FAANG is less stressful and more reasonable than other companies. The reason you may think that is not the case is that negative stories stick to the same "brand" (i.e. "FAANG") that employees hundreds of thousands of people whereas a story about a random mom'n'pop shop doesn't register on your radar because there are many of them.

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

#568

Post by golergka »

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 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.

Does it mean that CV credentials like "developed requirements for a complex system, built it from scratch and overcome significant technical challenges in doing so" don't mean anything, in your opinion? Because in my experience interviewing, things like this get a lot of attention, are discussed in depth and leave impression on the interviewer. I think that my results interviewing would be significantly worse if it was just "fixed bugs and did incremental improvements" instead.

But again, I have very little experience (or desire) interviewing at FAANGs of the world, may be they do things differently?

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

#569

Post by [deleted] »

PaulDavisThe1st wrote: post #137
echelon wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Our industry feels like it's in the decline of the Roman Empire right now. Our craft is becoming arcane: Microsoft is building VSCode for the cloud. Few people own desktop computers anymore. Apple is locking down MacOS to signed binaries. Soon we'll all have thin clients and will write software in the cloud for the cloud. Few will be able to learn how to engineer at home anymore - you'll have to go to a university or…

> Our industry feels like it's in the decline of the Roman Empire right now. .... And here I am, writing a desktop native app that targets a small niche of users, with no marketing, no advertising, and we've had our strongest year yet, and overall usage just grows slowly year over year. Maybe it's how you think things ought to be that is misaligned with reality, rather than "the decline of the Roman Empire".

[deleted]

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

#570

Post by jghn »

data_spy wrote: post #523
SQueeeeeL wrote: post #511

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, the ex-Googler's I've met have always been average; but I guess if no one will say the emperor has no clothes it doesn't matter

It used to mean something more than it does now. I noticed ex-Googlers were well above average in 2012, now they can be below avg. I have a colleague of mine at my current job that makes a point of being an ex-Googler but they only worked there for 6 months, so it is kind of meaningless.

It's always been a distribution. Some are amazing, some are normal, others are less than normal. They're all really good at the handful of things Google screens for, but otherwise it's just like any other distribution of developers.

As a hiring manager I view Google on someone's resume as a non-signal. If however they are the sort of person who draws attention to having worked at Google I view that as a negative signal.

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