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On Leaving Facebook

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Re: On Leaving Facebook

#131

Post by IThoughtYouGNU »

voakbasda wrote: post #95
elb0w wrote: post #79

It always blows my mind how most interview in our field. When I first started in tech I was afraid to talk about not knowing leetcode to my peers. 15 years in and I now can confidently say I’ve yet to meet someone who thinks these are a valid metric. Why do we make this the gate keeper to our industry when we know (except for the very specific roles) we will rarely need leet code type problems. When we do we just goo…

Somebody here on HN recently shared the notion that leetcode tests are a legal way to discriminate by age or lifestyle, as older and well-rounded developers do not have the time or inclination to grind on such things.

I believe this hypothesis.

Re: On Leaving Facebook

#132

Post by vmception »

sockgrant wrote: post #122
elb0w wrote: post #79

It always blows my mind how most interview in our field. When I first started in tech I was afraid to talk about not knowing leetcode to my peers. 15 years in and I now can confidently say I’ve yet to meet someone who thinks these are a valid metric. Why do we make this the gate keeper to our industry when we know (except for the very specific roles) we will rarely need leet code type problems. When we do we just goo…

I’ve heard plenty of horror stories about someone being hired that couldn’t write simple code. It’s easy to study leet code, and it’s relevant because it shows the interviewer you can write code. I’ve had non-leet code interviews, like write some feature in 60minutes. It was fine. It tests code and knowledge as opposed to just algorithms and tricks. I dunno I’ve always felt that the people who can’t leet code are the…

> I dunno I’ve always felt that the people who can’t leet code are the ones that complain about it.

You mean the ones that randomly receive a random problem that they hadn't memorized before.

Re: On Leaving Facebook

#133

Post by zionic »

oh_sigh wrote: post #59
mercutio2 wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well of course we won’t say that to your face! But it’s certainly a factor when I’m reviewing resumes.

So if an employee determines that they have a moral problem with Facebook, you will not let them escape?

How old are they?

Anyone sub 40 was old enough to see the problems with Facebook and steer clear.

Working for them and “seeing the light” after years of collecting the blood money doesn’t give you any points with me.

Re: On Leaving Facebook

#134

Post by granshaw »

Aperocky wrote: post #112
fallmonkey wrote: post #94

"A common question I get is about work/life balance. And I view it a little different too now. At Facebook I could get by barely working a few hours a day. But the job was so unsatisfying that it spilled the frustration in the “life” part" This is the golden piece for me. I too recently left a big corp to a smaller place, expecting to sacrifice WLB and my free time - yet I ended up feeling happier and spending less t…

> At Facebook I could get by barely working a few hours a day. But the job was so unsatisfying This is a little too first world. if the work were too sparse and wants more work, why not join interview loops or take classes/training, attend talks? Does Meta not have those options? The frustration feels almost artificial, if one does not want to get more work, then maybe just go boating or mountain biking. Watch some s…

It’s probably that he has to “be available” and so can’t make good use of the working hours where he’s not doing active work

It’s a common obstacle to making good use of your time even when underworked and working remotely. Ideally one could find non-team settings where this wouldn’t be an issue

Re: On Leaving Facebook

#135

Post by sergiotapia »

elb0w wrote: post #79

It always blows my mind how most interview in our field. When I first started in tech I was afraid to talk about not knowing leetcode to my peers. 15 years in and I now can confidently say I’ve yet to meet someone who thinks these are a valid metric. Why do we make this the gate keeper to our industry when we know (except for the very specific roles) we will rarely need leet code type problems. When we do we just goo…

When companies like Facebook get thousands of applicants per job there has to be _some_ way to unceremoniously cull the herd. Leetcode is it.

I've interviewed at a lot of other places and it's mostly take-home assignments or just talking about past projects or my open source projects. I've never had to do leetcode for an interview in 14 years of working as a software engineer.

Re: On Leaving Facebook

#136

Post by seemaze »

Aperocky wrote: post #112
fallmonkey wrote: post #94

"A common question I get is about work/life balance. And I view it a little different too now. At Facebook I could get by barely working a few hours a day. But the job was so unsatisfying that it spilled the frustration in the “life” part" This is the golden piece for me. I too recently left a big corp to a smaller place, expecting to sacrifice WLB and my free time - yet I ended up feeling happier and spending less t…

> At Facebook I could get by barely working a few hours a day. But the job was so unsatisfying This is a little too first world. if the work were too sparse and wants more work, why not join interview loops or take classes/training, attend talks? Does Meta not have those options? The frustration feels almost artificial, if one does not want to get more work, then maybe just go boating or mountain biking. Watch some s…

Or contribute to your favorite flavor of open source!

Re: On Leaving Facebook

#137

Post by encryptluks2 »

SMAAART wrote: post #117

> Most recruiters are terrible. They send generic job descriptions if there’s a matching word in your resume. I’m very surprised the market didn’t push the recruiter game up. There’s so much room for improvement! Yeah, why is that? Same for most Realtors.

Because to them it is a numbers game. They try hard to make the interactions seem personal but for the most part to them it is all business. It you're susceptible they'll have you relocate your family across country for an at-will contract knowing retention sucks. As long as they get paid they do not care for the most part. They will also spam the hell out of you for eternity no matter how much you tell them you don't want to do something.

Re: On Leaving Facebook

#138

Post by blocked_again »

jakear wrote: post #93
smallerfish wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Travel, surf, garden, build and fly drones, make music, enjoy time at the beach, sculpt metal, write interesting programs that occur to me, write a novel, play poker... I could go on. You'd rather be working? You only have 40 or 50 years left on the planet and then that's...it.

I think the critique is that you should be perfectly able to do all those thing and more, while working, if you have a job that properly respects work/life balance. On the other hand, if you spend a decade or two constantly grinding on work at the expense of all else, so that when you’re 40 you can do those things, you might find that your body isn’t up for the task.

I have friends who retired at age 25. Retiring early should be the number one focus you have in your life. Everything else is bullshit, noise and propoganda.

Re: On Leaving Facebook

#139

Post by dc-programmer »

zionic wrote: post #116
tmule wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Make sure you’re not violating your company’s guidelines. If I were at a company and I knew of signals based on subjective morality being used for filtering, I’d summarily fire the offending employee.

I’ve written all of my companies guidelines. I explicitly codify that the hiring of former surveillance capitalism mercenaries is a fireable offense. “But the equity was great” is not an excuse.

Does your company collect information about users?

Re: On Leaving Facebook

#140

Post by zionic »

iamstupidsimple wrote: post #39
pkdpic wrote: post #11

Glad to see this was about working at FB / Meta rather than being a user. Just for personal interest. Newish dev doing my first attempt at a FAANG interview. Wondering if I should be trying for FaceBook as long as Im bothering to study. Had a very positive-feeling convo with a recruiter there ~6mo ago before "Meta". Sounds like it might be a negative thing to have on your resume now though? Any thoughts?

Unpopular opinion: Facebook is widely disliked by the loudest voices in the room (for good reason), but the vast majority of people still just treat it like a fancy forum. It's not going to stain your CV. Plus, Facebook-the-app is far more disliked than Meta-the-company especially now that's a formal distinction. I imagine it's still relatively cool to work on Instagram, for example.

> It's not going to stain your CV.

Not with that attitude. I refuse to hire anyone with FAANG on their resume and you can all do it too.

Most of you on here are all woo woo Linux this and FSF that, but you won’t put your money where your mouth is.

I won’t hire you if you work for these assholes, and I’d love for more of you to join me.

To the rest of you: Sure, take that $300k total comp bro. Good luck working outside SV. Better be worth it.

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