291–300 of 833 posts
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I was going to say this. To add more: a single person (HM) might have biases for or against certain candidates. More people in the loop brings in diversity and helps to keep interviewers honest and consistent. Also these roles are usually high stakes and the cost of a bad hire is too high.
> usually high stakes You obviously haven't worked in finance. Google is as far from high stakes as you can get.
Most tech companies now do around 4-5 interviews. It has been like that for at least 7-8 years (probably more) but I just found out that not all companies are like that. After being subjected to these demeaning Leetcoding interviews I went through a refreshingly pleasant experience. It was an interview with just one person. They gave me a technical open-ended problem and two weeks time. After two weeks I had to do a…
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.
It is absolutely absurd some of the study plans that people go through where they are trying to study over multiple months. In order to truly memorize all the solutions, most people need these programs. Otherwise, it's just a luck of the draw. I actually got stuck at an interview because I forgot the nlogn solution for two sums. Absurd!
My favorite interview so far involved opening a raw TCP socket to Postgres and sending a query (Actually relevant to the job). I was given the prompt ahead of the interview and spent about 2 hours figuring it out. I learned something valuable and demonstrated an ability to expand my knowledge base. This interview has been the only one even remotely close to demonstrating my abilities to work at the job.
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…
Is FizzBuzz cargo cult? I had my own company in 1995. We tried to hire programmers. The candidate would come in and we'd spend an hour interviewing. 9 out of 10 could not program at all and effectively wasted our time. So, we switched to "here's a short test, go in this room and do the test". Then we'd look at their answers. If the answers were wrong/poor we'd thank them for their time and excuse them. This way, less…
It literally takes a few minutes and is great for weeding bad candidates. It is a win-win for everyone involved.
So at least for FANNG it's been normal for a while.
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Is FizzBuzz cargo cult? I had my own company in 1995. We tried to hire programmers. The candidate would come in and we'd spend an hour interviewing. 9 out of 10 could not program at all and effectively wasted our time. So, we switched to "here's a short test, go in this room and do the test". Then we'd look at their answers. If the answers were wrong/poor we'd thank them for their time and excuse them. This way, less…
> So, we switched to "here's a short test, go in this room and do the test". Then we'd look at their answers. If the answers were wrong/poor we'd thank them for their time and excuse them. I remember about a dozen years ago taking one of these tests at an interview. Interviewer takes me to a room and says "We've got this little test, I'll be back in 2 hours.". I take the test. Guy comes back in and says ok, we'll loo…
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how is it better than alternatives? this seems like a huge straw-man given almost every company that hires developers thinks they’re a large tech company and mimics their hiring process. it doesn’t seem like serious alternatives have been explored.
PIPing and firing is a huge time and emotional energy suck, and it sucks for people on both sides. To reduce the amount it happens is worthy. You can’t in practice just say, “this guy sucks, lets fire him next week” And it shows, barely anyone in my entire career has ever been fired. I only personally have been close to one.
So is the 7 interview gauntlet. But I guess it just shifts the burden on the candidates and externalizes cost.
I think 3-4 interviews is fine, depending on context.
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If it takes months to determine that someone is a bad fit for a team then the team has internal issues that need to be resolved. Moreover, if someone has the skills on paper, and the references to support that, then any tech screening is unnecessary. It just tests for ability to pass tech screens.
That's what internships are in a way. Do you think that's a bad idea?
University students already have a three-month gap in their schedule where they aren't doing anything, so they are willing to take a temporary role to fill that gap.
Experienced people who already have a job aren't going to drop that to take on a temporary role unless they have an unusually high risk-tolerance or unless they are desperate.
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I lean towards the status quo of one day interviews. But I liked how you considered probably of success as a consideration. Consider also that: 1-((1-.7)*3) = .97 3 interviews with a 70% chance give you a 97% chance of landing atleast one job. More interviews improve your situation rapidly. Job hunting is better seen as a campaign than individual battles. But I also think maybe in my estimation you FAANG chances aren…
I got the 2% from a presentation by a company in the business of prepping people for FAANG interviews, the actual number could be higher but I was just trying to make a point about relative probabilities.
What do you think your chances are if you're actually qualified? My made up gut numbers: At least 70% even if you don't practice leetcode. That's the real question here in my mind, what are an otherwise qualified candidates chances? How much does that change with interview skills, prep, leetcode etc.