On Leaving Facebook • Hacker News Board

Re: On Leaving Facebook

#641

Post by Shocka1 » Wed, Jan 26, 2022, 5:53 PM UTC

Swizec wrote: post #478

boppo1 wrote: post #300

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also interested in top strategy interviews. Not that they aren't hard, just that "strategy" has always seemed so ephemeral to me. My business profs failed to impart any real criteria to define it. Seems like something people either have or they don't and all you can do is hire based on past success.

> all you can do is hire based on past success That’s kinda what they do. You are put through an initial ringer to vet for basic fit and competence. Then you get a take-home exercise that consists of several business case studies. You have to detail a strategy for what you would do in that situation, support your argument with research, etc. My girlfriend said it’s a lot like writing a term paper in college. Last tim…

As a software engineer I would rather do what your gf does than leetcode problems. I went to school already for six years and don't feel like hanging out on a website for the next six months solving CS problems.

I've always been of the opinion that a take home software engineering project that I can present in the interview would be preferable. Coding alone for a few hours and then being able to get all my ducks lined up.... Sounds like a practical and great interviewing process to me.

Re: On Leaving Facebook

#642

Post by arcticbull » Wed, Jan 26, 2022, 11:10 PM UTC

astura wrote: post #158

arcticbull wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not coding interviews specifically for legal reasons no, but consistency of interview. If you ask one person a coding question, you should probably do the same for everyone, otherwise you expose yourself to legal liability. This is especially true the larger the company you are interviewing at - and the more generic the role is internally.

>If you ask one person a coding question, you should probably do the same for everyone, otherwise you expose yourself to legal liability. No! This does not mean you must interview Jr engineers and Sr engineers identically! You can drop the leet coding requirements for experienced candidates and have no legal worries as long as all similarly experienced candidates are interviewed and judged similarly. It's actually ex…

Sorry for the confusion, I was referring to everyone at the same level of seniority.

Re: On Leaving Facebook

#643

Post by unkulunkulu » Fri, Jan 28, 2022, 9:11 PM UTC

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…

I have been struggling with procrastination for years. It got catastrophically worse during pandemic: I was playing bullet chess online sometimes for like 6 hours a day every day. I have been working for like an hour a day for a year. And they still valued me as “above average”.

When I got to therapy, we traced it mostly to the internal critic (schema therapy). It was gone just like that with a flick of a finger almost! I have been productive and having fun with my life for two months leading up the this new year. When suddenly my manager decided that he does not stimulate me enough. He started getting deep into my ways of working saying something like “he does not understand how I perform my tasks and how they progress”, he started moving some not urgent tasks in ways he saw as better than my plans. He did not notice his direct spending 6-7 hours a day instead of 1 and he sarted really pushing and critiquing me and my teammate in a way that even our wives heard some changes during the zoom calls. It lead to a huge nervous breakdown for me. Two weeks passed by in a recess and now I slowly regain myself back.

But my views towards big corp are finalized: some cog a little bit higher than you can at some point decide that he has a right for any method to increase his perceived impact on team’s productivity and you will get hit.

I love myself a little bit more than this, gotta figure out the financial side a bit. The view towards “being fired” has shifted a bit too, now I think that if you’re not close to being fired based on your performance, the pay you too little and you work too hard (for them!) Work hard for yourself, don't work (too) hard for THEM!

Oh shit I must sound so priviliged, but yep this is the place I’m at right now

Re: On Leaving Facebook

#644

Post by throwAway97557 » Sat, Jan 29, 2022, 1:03 AM UTC

skort wrote: post #221

throwAway97557 wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I left FB a handful of years ago and the RSUs left me in this position (low 7-figs in investments/savings). I still work full time, but I only work on things I care about, which mostly involves non-profits and social work. I like getting a paycheck and knowing that I'm still growing my nest egg, but I care very little about getting promotions and raises since they're a borderline rounding error compared to what I've…

I'm looking to do something similar, leave behind the high stress and find something more meaningful to work on that covers the bills while my nest egg matures. I admittedly have not looked into what's next as much as I should have, but do you have any tips on how to make such a transition?

Moving out of the bay made a big difference for me. I'm now somewhere in the middle of the country. I have twice the house to live in and 200x more land to roam for about half the price. With the extra land, I can also grow a lot of my own food.

The openness to remote work has been huge. I have colleagues in the bay and NYC. We get paid the same but my money goes twice as far.

At the same time, I've always been a frugal person. When at FB, I budgeted like I was making about 1/5 of my actual income since I always saw it as a transitory windfall.

I don't think I've done anything outside the standard box of lowering my expenses and investing anything I've saved.

Re: On Leaving Facebook

#645

Post by mercutio2 » Fri, Feb 04, 2022, 11:11 PM UTC

pkdpic wrote: post #41

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.

Counterpoint appreciated. Any chance someone could expand on this? Not sure how serious the commenter was.

I waited a while to reply to you, because the thread got overwhelmed with some pretty over the top opinions.

When I am considering whose resume is worth a call back for, there are a variety of signals:

  - Is your resume even vaguely coherent
  - Do you have things on your resume that suggest curiosity and the ability to get things done
  - Are you likely to stick around long enough to be worth investing in you? So if you changed jobs every 1-2 years, you're going to lose a lot of points
  - If you worked at a company which I don't think aligns with good treatment of the general public, how long did you work there? Was it early in your career, or late?

I don't think anyone is being discarded just for working at Facebook, but if you're borderline in any of these other categories, working for a long time at Facebook is certainly a negative factor for getting a call back.