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Ask HN: When did 7 interviews become “normal”?

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Re: Ask HN: When did 7 interviews become “normal”?

#161

Post by gherkinnn »

qq66 wrote: post #56

There needs to be something like the SAT for computer programming. Getting a 1500 won't mean you're a genius but it will mean you can do the job, and then there can be 1-2 interviews for domain-specific skills and culture fit. I know many have tried this, some have built great businesses, but nobody has yet become "The Credential" but I do believe this will eventually exist.

I know too many people who do well at tests but suck at life.

Standard tests this and universal metric that are shite.

Re: Ask HN: When did 7 interviews become “normal”?

#162

Post by azinman2 »

mylons wrote: post #129
StupidUser123 wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m a HM at a big tech company with this format as well. Honestly, I really like it. I don’t want to hire the wrong person, it’s expensive and it makes my job awful for a while. It’s great getting data points on several programming interviews, system design, etc. That makes my sell interview so much easier because I can trust the process to assess their technical skills. You need multiple people because you’re consta…

People get PIP’ed and fired routinely that make it through this process. I think there’s a lot of bias in your response. The process worked for you, you work at a large tech company and it gives you validation. It also makes you feel good to lord over the process and boosts your ego, reinforcing your priors.

I don’t think that’s routine. While I know it happens, certainly I’ve personally never worked with someone who this has happened to.

There will always be burning mistakes, or people who lie or are otherwise hard to predict will be a disaster. What else would you propose?

Re: Ask HN: When did 7 interviews become “normal”?

#163

Post by rootusrootus »

This is why I won't ever work for a FAANG company. I am too old for such shenanigans, and I am not underpaid at my current gig. Plus, I'm spoiled -- every single job in my career (even the first one, LOL) has been a trusted referral. So I usually just sit down with the hiring manager and one of their tech leads (if I'm not interviewing to be the tech lead...) and it's pretty relaxed. Sometimes we just go to a local pub and meet over beers. I'm no 10x developer, but I'm pretty good at cutting out the bullshit, unfucking existing projects, and getting them out the door. A solid track record makes it really easy to get referrals.

Re: Ask HN: When did 7 interviews become “normal”?

#164

Post by prepend »

dleslie wrote: post #121
kjeetgill wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I never understand answers of this format: "status quo has flaw of some known, finite impact" time to "completely ridiculously overcompensate, overreact, and make arbitrary move?" I can't even fathom in what ways you think "time to hire more, and fire fast?" is more "effective and equitable"? You just shove even more risk onto individuals who might be getting their footing still. You're just turning a 8-9 hours commi…

The response is to the needless growth in complexity of the hiring process; advocating for reducing that complexity is appropriate. You're tacitly expressing a concern that a fast hiring commitment would be riskier; but that's not necessarily so. A minimal set of filters are meaningfully effective: resume, references, and meet the team. Anything beyond that doesn't have just diminishing returns, it can negatively imp…

> expressing a concern that a fast hiring commitment would be riskier; but that's not necessarily so.

I think it is necessarily so. Hiring fast is effectively hiring randomly and that is way riskier.

Would you read random books? Watch random movies? Maybe, but probably not.

Would you buy a random car? Of course not. Would you buy a random home? Etc etc

You can logistically reduce the number of days by maybe doing multiple interviews into a single day, but that’s still hours.

I’ve worked back in the dot com days where you were hired on the spot and that was fun until they fired on the spot.

Having a well-designed process that takes a while is not perfect, but is better than the other options. “Slow to hire, slow to fire” is a good maxim.

Re: Ask HN: When did 7 interviews become “normal”?

#165

Post by azinman2 »

logifail wrote: post #157
mabbo wrote: post #44

Having been an interviewer at a FAANG for many years, I can explain some of the logic behind it. I'm not saying this logic is valid , but it's how we got here, imho. First: we no longer trust the hiring manager alone, because probably they aren't a strong developer. We instead trust strong developers that are well trained at evaluating good devs. At the same time, we don't want to thrust a dev onto a hiring manager,…

> Can one interview really tell if you're good problem solving, coding, algorithms/data structures, and any specialization the role has? Sorry, but if it can't, aren't you doing the interview wrong?

They all are doing the interview wrong and everyone knows it. Unfortunately there aren’t a lot of great alternatives that don’t take up even more time.

Re: Ask HN: When did 7 interviews become “normal”?

#166

Post by faangiq »

jcbrand wrote: post #82
lupire wrote: post #6

7hrs of interview for $300k+/yr seems fine. The US President interviews for a whole year, for $400k/yr

Presidents get tens of millions in "speaking fees" and millions in donations to their foundations.

And billions to their offshore accounts.

Re: Ask HN: When did 7 interviews become “normal”?

#167

Post by Bayart »

tomc1985 wrote: post #69
kstenerud wrote: post #4

Tech is very cargo cultish, which comes from having a young average age, and a strong survivorship bias in the media. Remember the Google brainteasers? Fizzbuzz? "Culture fit"? Tech companies have the lowest infrastructure costs of any industry, and so they have no place to hang their risk aversive paranoia except on personnel (the safer you are, the more trivial the things you fear). There's nothing logical about it…

It pains me so much that we've gone from hiring a couple of supersmart ubernerds over a cool demo and setting them loose to... this. Now, everything sucks. People who only know the tech they trained for. Tools are written for idiots, and the only thing even more written for idiots than that is the code we're supposed to be producing. Teams believing whatever stupid fad some trendy consultant prepared for them. Way to…

Mediocre people bring mediocrity. Business and management illiteracy among tech people is what allows snake-oil sellers to get a foot inside the door.

Re: Ask HN: When did 7 interviews become “normal”?

#168

Post by Redoubts »

angarg12 wrote: post #91
kstenerud wrote: post #4

Tech is very cargo cultish, which comes from having a young average age, and a strong survivorship bias in the media. Remember the Google brainteasers? Fizzbuzz? "Culture fit"? Tech companies have the lowest infrastructure costs of any industry, and so they have no place to hang their risk aversive paranoia except on personnel (the safer you are, the more trivial the things you fear). There's nothing logical about it…

Why do people simply assume big tech companies are dumb and they haven't thought their hiring process through? Amazon literally has a research team focused in hiring, and they run A/B experiments to continually improve the process. The current interview format is not a cargo cult, is a high refine process through the years. Is it perfect? hell no, but it isn't the mindless copycat people make it to be. They have actu…

> Why do people simply assume big tech companies are dumb and they haven't thought their hiring process through? Amazon literally has a research team focused in hiring ...

Well it's been a while for me, but "we just do what the other guys do" was the impression I got when I interviewed there. Except they added a lot more "here's a terrible workplace situation, how would you handle it".

I'd love to know what their research is revealing, beyond questions like the latter case being emphasized.

Re: Ask HN: When did 7 interviews become “normal”?

#169

Post by taormina »

gcheong wrote: post #141
KerrickStaley wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would argue that 30 hours invested in interviewing at a single company is a lot more work than you put in doing a couple phone screens and a one-day onsite. I personally abhor take-home projects because they tend to balloon in scope (I'm a perfectionist and want to put the best foot forward). With an on-site loop, when you're done you're done.

30 might be too much but it also depends somewhat on the probability of success. 100 hrs practicing leetcode + systems design for a 2% chance at a FAANG seems a worse trade off than 30hrs researching an interesting subject for a presentation with an 80% chance of success. Problem is you don’t know what your chances are with the latter going in but I think it would be a fair question to ask.

Yet don’t forget the additional double standard of you needing a full-time job or that looks bad, and so where do these hours magically spring from?

Re: Ask HN: When did 7 interviews become “normal”?

#170

Post by mylons »

JohnHaugeland wrote: post #150
alexashka wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Is it perfect? No, but it does work. How do you know it works? > I don’t want to hire the wrong person, it’s expensive and it makes my job awful for a while. There we are. It is all about you. No need to say anything else - your life is all about you, so of course if it works for you, 'it works'.

> How do you know it works? Because the hallways aren't empty.

the hallways aren’t empty due to the total compensation and perceived prestige working at a FAANG or similar company offers.
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