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A confession of a FAANG hiring manager

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Re: A confession of a FAANG hiring manager

#31

Post by everfrustrated »

erik_seaberg wrote: post #19
stefanba3 wrote: post #18

As a hiring manager, I find talking in detail about work (school or industry) a candidate has done is a lot more illuminating than a coding problem. The trick is that it takes more preparation and focus from the interviewer because they need to know how to ask the right questions, they must know how to guide the conversation in real time, they must understand details about entire project in a few minutes, etc.

How do you know they personally solved a problem, rather than just studying someone else’s solution?

I call this the "did they do it or did they sit next to the person who did it" problem.

I find going into the technical details of projects on the candidates CV quickly sorts them out.

Re: A confession of a FAANG hiring manager

#32

Post by sage76 »

stackedinserter wrote: post #15

The other day I got a PDF with prep materials for Facebook interview. It's a few pages of pure insanity, e.g. "In your tech screen, you’ll be asked to solve one or two problems in under 35 minutes. Practice coding solutions to medium and hard problems in less than 15 minutes each to help you be ready for the constraints during the interview.", "If your tech screen is in person, you'll use a whiteboard" Who can solve…

And you have 3 coding rounds, so it's 6 problems.

Even the slightest problem solving one of those will be a sureshot ding.

Re: A confession of a FAANG hiring manager

#33

Post by sage76 »

OnionBlender wrote: post #28
stackedinserter wrote: post #15

The other day I got a PDF with prep materials for Facebook interview. It's a few pages of pure insanity, e.g. "In your tech screen, you’ll be asked to solve one or two problems in under 35 minutes. Practice coding solutions to medium and hard problems in less than 15 minutes each to help you be ready for the constraints during the interview.", "If your tech screen is in person, you'll use a whiteboard" Who can solve…

Which system design books does it suggest reading? Last time I interviewed I did poorly on the system design interview because it was all about a scalable web app while my experience is mostly in smallish devices.

A literal online course called Grokking the system design interview.

Re: A confession of a FAANG hiring manager

#34

Post by Gortal278 »

I ramped up to do a bunch of interviews last year after some covid layoffs and, I'd rather the format stayed in its current form. It isn't great, but I can study one style of interviews and apply that across the board to all the companies I interview for. The system interviews are easy, it's just talking about side projects or work I do for a living anyway. After ramping up and successfully landed a role last year I do a couple of leetcode questions every few days to keep my skills sharp.

I have been burnt doing so many take home exercises, getting ghosted, zero feedback declines that I am drawing a line under the sand and not doing them anymore.

The alternative is prepping for many different interview types, sometimes full of people blindly happy for candidates to burn a weekend in homes of getting a callback, other-times full of unprepared, unmotivated interviewers who pull crappy nonsensical tests out their ass. No thanks. While the leetcode style isn't perfect at least it's reasonably standardized and consistent. I'll stick with that thanks.

Re: A confession of a FAANG hiring manager

#35

Post by stackedinserter »

avmich wrote: post #22
stackedinserter wrote: post #15

The other day I got a PDF with prep materials for Facebook interview. It's a few pages of pure insanity, e.g. "In your tech screen, you’ll be asked to solve one or two problems in under 35 minutes. Practice coding solutions to medium and hard problems in less than 15 minutes each to help you be ready for the constraints during the interview.", "If your tech screen is in person, you'll use a whiteboard" Who can solve…

> Leetcode psychos? Yes :) . It's known for quite some years that this interview approach produces _those_. By induction, those who have FAANG lines in their resumes are, unfortunately, suspicious for this reason alone. All else being equal, non-FAANG person would get preference on the interview, and seeing somebody applying to FAANG causes both frowns and sighs. One should be really desperate for that these days. :(

> Yes :)

Haha this needs to be said with Zuck's poker face and without a smiley, just "Yes".

Re: A confession of a FAANG hiring manager

#36

Post by splittingTimes »

We ask candidates to prepare a 20min presentation about one or two interesting projects they worked on. The whole dev team (8 people) is present and we all discuss it in a friendly, genuinely interested manner on eye-level, trying to understand what the candidate has build by asking design choices or more details on certain aspects, how error paths were handled, which trade off considered, how was the collaboration in his old team etc. Typically goes for 45min. The candidate is encouraged to ask the team any questions about how we work, what our tools and processes are etc.

We get to know candidate and the candidate us.

60-75 min is all it takes.

Afterwards we sit together as a team and share our impression, could we see working with them, did anybody see red flags, etc. Maybe 15-30min conversation. Then we reach a go-nogo decision right there and now. No coding questions, no brainteasers or similar. Haven't seen a candidate yet that could bullshit their way through the presentation and crowd consensus decision.

Re: A confession of a FAANG hiring manager

#37

Post by wildrhythms »

splittingTimes wrote: post #36

We ask candidates to prepare a 20min presentation about one or two interesting projects they worked on. The whole dev team (8 people) is present and we all discuss it in a friendly, genuinely interested manner on eye-level, trying to understand what the candidate has build by asking design choices or more details on certain aspects, how error paths were handled, which trade off considered, how was the collaboration i…

Personally, as an engineer at a highly desirable company, I would hate this process, and I imagine your candidates hate it too. And if your point of view during hiring comes from a place of looking for candidates trying to 'bullshit their way through' (your words), I wouldn't feel comfortable working there.

Re: A confession of a FAANG hiring manager

#38

Post by wildrhythms »

Sloppy wrote: post #8

I was an engineering hiring manager for several small startups. I never asked for coding on a whiteboard. I asked some work style questions and then concentrated on a collaborative exercise where I laid out a problem and important applicable technology. Then I'd answer any Google-ish questions in realtime. This technique found good collaborators and also which people were good problem solvers. Never made a bad hire f…

This is how it's done. An engineer just walking through a problem 1-on-1 with a candidate can reveal more information about a candidate's skill in just 15 minutes than any number of leetcode or annoying, useless take home exercises.

Re: A confession of a FAANG hiring manager

#39

Post by zozbot234 »

wildrhythms wrote: post #38
Sloppy wrote: post #8

I was an engineering hiring manager for several small startups. I never asked for coding on a whiteboard. I asked some work style questions and then concentrated on a collaborative exercise where I laid out a problem and important applicable technology. Then I'd answer any Google-ish questions in realtime. This technique found good collaborators and also which people were good problem solvers. Never made a bad hire f…

This is how it's done. An engineer just walking through a problem 1-on-1 with a candidate can reveal more information about a candidate's skill in just 15 minutes than any number of leetcode or annoying, useless take home exercises.

True, but that's expensive. Leetcode-style quizzes make the most sense if you just want to pick a bunch of promising candidates out of a large amount of applicants, all with minimal effort.

Re: A confession of a FAANG hiring manager

#40

Post by alanwreath »

Gortal278 wrote: post #34

I ramped up to do a bunch of interviews last year after some covid layoffs and, I'd rather the format stayed in its current form. It isn't great, but I can study one style of interviews and apply that across the board to all the companies I interview for. The system interviews are easy, it's just talking about side projects or work I do for a living anyway. After ramping up and successfully landed a role last year I…

Opposite for me - I have always gotten an offer when given a take home. Every. Single. Time.
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