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On Leaving Facebook

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Re: On Leaving Facebook

#281

Post by renewiltord »

throwawaylinux wrote: post #233
renewiltord wrote: post #203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 ve…

Thank you for the answer, much appreciated -- a lot of people throw out comments like yours but won't back them up. I'm probably not the right fit for the job, I'm happily a lowly kernel developer with 20 years experience on half the salary and not in SV/SF. But I do appreciate the answer and maybe your post leads to a mutually beneficial arrangement with someone here.

I once aspired to be a kernel dev. As an aside, I once spoke to an engineer at a previous gig and told him that we don't get as low-level as what he was used to (wrote kernel code) and he was affronted. Had to calm him down and tell him that I meant "close to the metal" not "inferior software".

Didn't work out for other reasons but I was embarrassed.

Re: On Leaving Facebook

#282

Post by [deleted] »

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…

[deleted]

Re: On Leaving Facebook

#283

Post by dmitryminkovsky »

zionic wrote: post #258
sockgrant wrote: post #219

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What’s the pay for someone with 10-15 years experience and is “the best people”?

It entirely depends on the role. My point is I make sure my companies pay well. I want every employee to feel like they’re robbing me. But I also want to make sure that I have as few employees as possible.

I personally wouldn’t hold it against someone for working at FB. Life and people are way more complicated (or not complicated, for that matter) than what you’ve reduced it down to. For one thing, consider that just because you exclude people who worked at FAANG, you’re not actually accounting for all the other thousand ways people can behave immorally or amorally. Screening out FAANG employees doesn’t actually get you very far in this regard. So it just looks like you’re harping on this one thing. Do you screen candidates who you think associate with politics you think are immoral? Or who have worked at tobacco companies? Etc.

That said I appreciate your attitude here. These companies are civilizationally damaging. It’s good to keep repeating that. I’m just not sure your approach makes sense.

Re: On Leaving Facebook

#284

Post by loeg »

zionic wrote: post #191
loeg wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Surely if your business has such a strong moral stand on hiring former Facebook employees, you can name it?

Quoted post unavailable.

My manager doesn't care about your company. My primary interest is in knowing what company I should avoid interviewing at.

Re: On Leaving Facebook

#285

Post by shroompasta »

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…

the reason why FAANG/M companies do ds/algo interviews is because they get an ocean of applicants and it's necessary for these questions to be the immediate filter.

Most startups I have applied to previously rarely asked ds/algo interview questions.

It's not that they want to, it's that they have to.

Re: On Leaving Facebook

#286

Post by VirusNewbie »

zionic wrote: post #268
russelldjimmy wrote: post #260

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s one thing to state your values and non-negotiables, and it’s another to seem arrogant and sanctimonious about it. To me, your comment appears to be firmly in the latter. If that truly is the case, hope you figure out what you are resentful about because, unbeknownst to you, it is alienating those who see such language. I agree with your values but I would still think twice about working with you based on the com…

> to seem arrogant and sanctimonious about it. I’m firm, firm in my belief that the people who have chosen of their own free will to work for FAANG have made moral compromises that disqualify them from my employment. I don’t get how this is “sanctimonious”. These people have made some absolutely terrible life choices, and alienation is a part of the consequence package that comes with those life choices.

You think netflix is a moral compromise? What about the US government?

Re: On Leaving Facebook

#287

Post by a10c »

lolinder wrote: post #274
tofurocks wrote: post #229

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't understand what you mean here - would a company not want a well rounded developer ?

The large companies don't need tens of thousands of system architects. They need tens of thousands of coders who can do what they're told on small parts of a system without fussing too much about the bigger picture. I think that's what OP is referring to—leetcode filters for young developers who don't need to understand all the reasons why they're doing what they're doing.

Why would a well rounded senior developer be interviewing for a role that requires a code monkey?

Re: On Leaving Facebook

#288

Post by throwaway31332 »

zionic wrote: post #105
throwaway3137 wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

(throwaway account for the obvious reason) I've been at Meta for 3+ years. I'm also interviewing. I have somewhere between 4 and 8 offers right now (not a humblebrag, just the facts). Not a single interviewer (from junior engineers to directors and VPs of engineering) asked me anything remotely like "Why are you still at an awful company like Facebook?" The plural of anecdote is not "fact", but that's my experience:…

> Not a single interviewer (from junior engineers to directors and VPs of engineering) asked me anything remotely like "Why are you still at an awful company like Facebook?" Sure, we disqualified you when you listed them on your resume. You never got callbacks and probably blamed it on XYZ. You don’t understand, there’s a growing group of us in Silicon Valley that will never hire you if you have FAANG on your CV.

After reading your many comments in this thread, I honestly hope you *did* come across my resume and silently "disqualify" me. Sounds like it saved me from a miserable job working for a toxic narcissist of a manager.

You seem to have an enormous chip on your shoulder towards FAANG companies. Did you work for one and fail spectacularly, or did you just get rejected a bunch of times?

Re: On Leaving Facebook

#289

Post by ZephyrBlu »

zionic wrote: post #242
twy_new_fb_hire wrote: post #216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Would you mind sharing what top-tier means?

Sure. What I mean by top-tier pay is essentially paying well above average to fewer, higher quality people. I’d rather have 2-3 expert engineers making 2x pay than 10 mediocre engineers making 1x pay. There is a sweet spot where you can scale with one expert in each domain, and if that “expert” is well compensated they can replace an entire engineering dept.

What's the ballpark of 1x pay in this example?

Re: On Leaving Facebook

#290

Post by bitwize »

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…

Leetcode is a first-order screen to find people of base-level minimum intelligence and problem solving ability. It's not a quiz of actual problems you'll solve on the job, it's a way to screen out the wannabes who couldn't program their way out of a wet paper bag.

Grinding leetcode also shows you've got grit, and are willing to prepare for a task and do what it takes to succeed.

Grind leetcode, show the companies that you can meet their minimum threshold of cognitive and executive capability for entry into their tech department... or don't work for them, it's that simple.

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