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We analyzed 100K technical interviews to see where the best performers work

blog.interviewing.io

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Re: We analyzed 100K technical interviews to see where the best performers work

#61

Post by rootusrootus »

kieselguhr_kid wrote: post #44

I'm glad to see this getting roasted in the comments, as it's a really good example of how companies put out self-serving pseudo-statistical nonsense in an effort to promote themselves. There's no effort to quantify what "technical" or "communication" skills are - these are left to the interpretation of a the interviewer. It makes no effort to show where these engineers are going, what the interview process they're c…

> It perpetuates the myth that there's something really special about Silicon Valley engineers

Does this myth still have much traction? If anything, my general regard for engineers in the bay area has steadily declined in the last few years. There are so many really worthless folks who have only figured out how look like they have a clue, but go any deeper and they flail. I know I'm painting with a broad brush, and that's not fair, but most of the great engineers I work with are at various other places around the country, not California.

Re: We analyzed 100K technical interviews to see where the best performers work

#62

Post by gcheong »

"If things go well, they skip right to the technical interview at real companies (which is also fully anonymous)."

So the most I'll get out of this is to skip the initial screening interview and jump straight to the "real" interview? Or do I even get that?

Re: We analyzed 100K technical interviews to see where the best performers work

#63

Post by agumonkey »

WYepQ4dNnG wrote: post #6

I think people put too much effort and time in this whole interview business. My suggestion, based on my experience, is to spend a reasonable time like a month, brushing up on most common data structures and algo. Then just take your chances. Rinse and repeat.

It's insane to me that we have to rehash everything every time. You graduate, you leetcode, you rehearse for a round of interview, and then you have to that all over again. So boring.

Re: We analyzed 100K technical interviews to see where the best performers work

#64

Post by gcheong »

paxys wrote: post #47
WYepQ4dNnG wrote: post #6

I think people put too much effort and time in this whole interview business. My suggestion, based on my experience, is to spend a reasonable time like a month, brushing up on most common data structures and algo. Then just take your chances. Rinse and repeat.

> people put too much effort > spend a reasonable time like a month Spending a month on interview training is exactly what I would consider unreasonable effort. Here's a scenario – I have worked at big tech company A for a decade writing backend code. Big tech company B has many openings for senior backend coders, and is desperate to fill them. B's recruiters are hounding me every day to consider a switch. The job lo…

This is why I don't believe it when companies say they are desperate to hire.

Re: We analyzed 100K technical interviews to see where the best performers work

#66

Post by hparadiz »

kderbyma wrote: post #30

this is laughable to me. Dropbox is so bad on all accounts. it's my least favourite cloud storage product

They used to be the best but then ran their client software into the ground. Weirdly the Linux client is still the old school one and since I only use Linux it's fine for me.

Re: We analyzed 100K technical interviews to see where the best performers work

#67

Post by gcheong »

"Of course, the really interesting question in all of this is the holy grail of technical recruiting: Does performance in interviews reliably predict on-the-job performance? "

And until you can really say for sure this is the case, any speculation about the value of technical interviews other than just being a barrier to entry is really moot.

Re: We analyzed 100K technical interviews to see where the best performers work

#69

Post by jenoer »

chewbacha wrote: post #42

Oof, non-zeroed charts are very deceptive in enlarging differences that might be within the error margins.

I was curious what one of these would look like as a "regular" chart.

Here's what it looks like: https://imgur.com/a/BkzEoGV

Re: We analyzed 100K technical interviews to see where the best performers work

#70

Post by kieselguhr_kid »

rootusrootus wrote: post #61
kieselguhr_kid wrote: post #44

I'm glad to see this getting roasted in the comments, as it's a really good example of how companies put out self-serving pseudo-statistical nonsense in an effort to promote themselves. There's no effort to quantify what "technical" or "communication" skills are - these are left to the interpretation of a the interviewer. It makes no effort to show where these engineers are going, what the interview process they're c…

> It perpetuates the myth that there's something really special about Silicon Valley engineers Does this myth still have much traction? If anything, my general regard for engineers in the bay area has steadily declined in the last few years. There are so many really worthless folks who have only figured out how look like they have a clue, but go any deeper and they flail. I know I'm painting with a broad brush, and t…

Personally, as a (now relocated) Bay Area native, I agree. Over, I think there's still a lot of prestige for large Silicon Valley firms, even if some of the gloss has justifiably started to fade.

This article certainly assumes that myth is still in place.

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