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On Leaving Facebook

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Re: On Leaving Facebook

#201

Post by skinnymuch »

zionic wrote: post #127
comp_throw7 wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can't imagine a single person where I work factoring this in when scoring a candidate. I guess someone could lie and say a candidate performed worse than they did, but unless the candidate actually performed poorly on other rounds, that isn't an automatic rejection (sometimes we'll ask for a follow-up round). Candidate performance tends to be pretty strongly correlated across rounds (unsurprisingly), so sharp outli…

> I can't imagine a single person where I work factoring this in Then it’s entirely possible you work for an immoral mega corp and your judgment has been compromised by your paycheck. Let me put it in a more blunt way you are more likely to understand. Your team is interviewing someone who was a process engineer on the deep water horizon oil spill. You’d probably feel gross hiring someone whose incompetence poisoned…

No I wouldn’t. I’d feel gross being so judegemental and thinking so highly and self righteously about myself. I highly doubt the work your company does is blessing the earth with immense positivity.

I highly doubt, just based on sheer numbers and basic data, that the people working at your company are amazing humble people who care so much about the world. I doubt they are concerned with the homeless population and other disenfranchised groups. Vs in your case being all gung ho about the evils of FAANG that you are so above. The number of people who are against the current status quo enough and willing to sacrifice the comforts of their lives to fix the issue are so small. It’s not even a bad thing. That’s a hard thing to do. It’s much easier to point to a couple of big companies and say how evil they are and any one working for them.

Re: On Leaving Facebook

#202

Post by sockgrant »

vmception wrote: post #132
sockgrant wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

If you’re struggling I don’t think you should try to memorize leet code problems, you should try to understand how to apply algorithms.

Re: On Leaving Facebook

#203

Post by renewiltord »

throwawaylinux wrote: post #90
renewiltord wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’ll hire at $400k cash comp for 2 yrs experience and I won’t skip you for Meta. The only problem is that, like most big tech companies, it has some people who are there as a retirement. Meta is better than Alphabet about that, though.

You hire people with two years experience out of college for $400k/yr package? Is this in SV? What kind of job, what experience is needed?

It's in SF by the Embarcadero. You will write financial trading code. I pay salary plus bonus plus other stuff.

Experience:

- You spent those two years becoming very skillful at some language where you can express invariants/constraints neatly, and know how to structure programs in something like Java, or modern C++ (OCaml, Scala, Rust, whatever, is fine)

- You are the kind of person who spent those two years with very little time road-blocked, i.e. every time you got stuck you found a way out.

- You have a conceptual understanding of low-latency

Lots of people do find the comp attractive, so I find that leading with it hits poor outcomes, so sadly I won't post a job link, but you can either email me and I promise to respond or you can stick something in your profile and I will look tomorrow.

Re: On Leaving Facebook

#204

Post by bmitc »

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…

> It’s easy to study leet code, and it’s relevant because it shows the interviewer you can write code.

I have a million things I want to learn about. If a potential employer would rather I spend time on what amounts to trivia, then great, I don’t want to work there.

> I’ve had non-leet code interviews, like write some feature in 60minutes.

This is also a problem because it’s impossible to understand the constraints, context, specifications, etc. during this time. When I am asked to implement a feature in the real world, it takes time to understand the domain and context. Writing code is usually the last and easiest bit. It also never occurs that you need to understand and complete something in just an hour or two.

So in leetcode interviews you’re asked to turn on a bunch of knowledge you don’t really need. And in implement this feature interviews, you need to turn off a bunch of important knowledge and experience.

Both are irritating interviews.

The best way to interview, in my experience, is to ask about a project or projects someone has worked on. Even better if there’s time for them to present on it. That way you get a real world picture of their skills, they are comfortable, and you can ask detailed questions without jumping the shark. Further, it is perfectly reasonable for someone to be required to present and answer questions over something they’ve worked on in an hour or two. That does happen in the real world.

Re: On Leaving Facebook

#205

Post by steve_adams_86 »

bcrosby95 wrote: post #195
andrew_ wrote: post #26

I just do not understand why somebody with 20 years of experience would invest that kind of time in leetcode. just say "no" and be done with the BS, and with the kind of financial success the author has enjoyed previously, wait for the right company to come along that doesn't require it. That's the only way the industry is going to fix itself; enough people start saying no.

For me, it's either imposter's syndrome or I just suck. Regardless, I'm worried I won't be able to find a job.

It’s the same for me. I’d like to have that kind of confidence, but the bottom line is that I’m extremely replaceable.

Re: On Leaving Facebook

#206

Post by fy20 »

2457013579 wrote: post #121
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…

This hit home for me as well. I’m currently at a large company and looking for a smaller one where I can work more hours Thor the same money doing something more meaningful. I have a min/max mindset, probably like most people here, so it took me a long time to come to the realization that working longer hours for the same pay was a good thing.

The grass is not always greener. Plenty of small companies are also meaningless and have their own set of problems in different ways. Beuracracy is often replaced with toxic management.

Re: On Leaving Facebook

#207

Post by zionic »

comp_throw7 wrote: post #169
zionic wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I can't imagine a single person where I work factoring this in Then it’s entirely possible you work for an immoral mega corp and your judgment has been compromised by your paycheck. Let me put it in a more blunt way you are more likely to understand. Your team is interviewing someone who was a process engineer on the deep water horizon oil spill. You’d probably feel gross hiring someone whose incompetence poisoned…

I mean, if you've been brainwormed by the idea that FAANG (what, literally all of them?) are _strongly net negative_ compared to the most realistic counterfactual that would spring up in their absence, and not only that, but that engineers working there are therefore morally tainted, then sure. But no, I don't work for FAANG. I could say the same about any of my previous places of employment, none of which were even…

> how does refusing to hire someone _leaving_ one of those companies improve the situation?

It massively improves the situation. The kinds of people who work for these companies now are morally bankrupt. Everyone knows the score going in. They’re smart enough to pass l33t code but dumb enough to not make their own startups.

These are not the kinds of people you build groundbreaking companies with, they’re opportunistic parasites you’d do well to avoid.

Re: On Leaving Facebook

#208

Post by AlexCoventry »

zionic wrote: post #161
unmole wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you please name your company? I haven't worked at FAANG but I most definitely would not want to work for a company like yours.

Not going to dox myself. > I haven't worked at FAANG I doubt that. > but I most definitely would not want to work for a company like yours. You do you. But I make sure we pay way above average, I want the best people and the best people don’t work for Facebook, Apple, Amazon, Netflix, and Google.

Where do you think the best people work, and how did you come to that conclusion?

Re: On Leaving Facebook

#209

Post by zionic »

throwaway2333 wrote: post #190
mizzao wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Whoa, it seems like you might want to be careful with politics creeping into your decision making. I'm seeing several of your posts here and it seems like you are making the inference "worked at FAANG" -> "horrible person", and while I have never worked at FAANG I have many friends I respect who have, and eventually left though it took some time. It feels like you might be making an ad hominem attack here.

If you can make it into a FAANG/MAMAA/whatever flavor of the year acronym, you can make it into most tech companies (and still make a salary that's more than enough to live a dignified life and support yourself, and family if you have any). Working at Facebook as a software engineer is a choice; just like working at a bulge bracket investment bank is a choice. The type of people that choose to work at either of these…

> The type of people that choose to work at either of these two are (more likely than not) people who do not have morals or a sense of character and values.

Thank you, exactly this

Re: On Leaving Facebook

#210

Post by sockgrant »

zionic wrote: post #140
iamstupidsimple wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 outsid…

Hi, I’ve worked for two of FAANG, it’s super duper easy to work outside of SV.

The reason you sound salty is because you evaluate candidates based on whatever perception you have about who they are instead of trying to understand who they are.

I’m sure you don’t care, sounds like it’s working for you, so in any event congrats on finding what makes you happy!

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