If You Want This Job, We Must Interview You Forever • Hacker News Board

Re: If You Want This Job, We Must Interview You Forever

#141

Post by bdcravens » Sat, Sep 03, 2022, 2:49 AM UTC

treyfitty wrote: post #130

JohnJamesRambo wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How low was the lowball? Maybe you should have taken it.

It was at a crypto trading platform who gave me a verbal offer, and then a month later tried to pull a fast one and wrote down an offer 50% less than what was discussed. When I probed, they responded “it’s out of my hands, leadership changed their needs…etc” The offer was a pay cut from my current, very boring, but stable role.

There's something to be said about boring and stable. I don't know how long you've been in your career, but I do know we're coming off a very long bull market for developer roles and salaries. That has created an expectation that our career must always be fun and fruitful. I've been doing this long enough that I've seen the other side of the market, and have gotten emails from talented developers desperate to get a job with the very boring company I was working with at the time.

Re: If You Want This Job, We Must Interview You Forever

#142

Post by kortilla » Sat, Sep 03, 2022, 2:50 AM UTC

yrgulation wrote: post #75

jackblemming wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It always amuses me seeing programmers chasing as much money as possible when they make a fraction of executives or many other professions. Even if they're at the "elite grand master SRE" level. Still a fraction of some MBA.

thats why i keep telling people that software “engineering” or computer “science” are not worth pursuing. unless you use either as a launchpad. these types of jobs are just fancy bricklaying. however there is nuance to everything. some people find 200k a year and living with flatmates in an expensive city rewarding. to each their own. i know i did. until it hit me.

Bricklaying? Google had a great WLB and l5s were clearing 500-700k TC and l6 was bumping up against a mil a year when I left more than 5 years ago. That’s early retirement and you don’t have to make a single sales call or ever manage people.

Re: If You Want This Job, We Must Interview You Forever

#143

Post by WalterSear » Sat, Sep 03, 2022, 2:51 AM UTC

VirusNewbie wrote: post #96

I wonder how much the difficulty/pain of interviewing is a joint effort by big tech to make it annoying to switch jobs once you get in? I have met numerous FAANG engineers who say they would never want to do the process again and, despite [insert a normal work gripe], interviewing at another well paid company is too much work. Certainly before big tech agreed not to poach from each other once upon a rime, but now I w…

Sufficiently advanced stupidity is indistinguishable from malice. Occam's razor.

Re: If You Want This Job, We Must Interview You Forever

#144

Post by HomeDeLaPot » Sat, Sep 03, 2022, 2:51 AM UTC

hammyhavoc wrote: post #43

stackbutterflow wrote: post #17

My last job search took a toll on my mental health. I felt like a worthless person for 3 months. I could feel (or imagine?) the disdain of the interviewers as I was failing their tests. The fake enthusiasm on their side as they rejected me ("that was great! But we're not going to move forward with you! Good luck!!!") and on my side while pretending I was excited when in fact I was worried about money and the gap on m…

Who watches the watchmen? Who hires the people who hire people?

Each employee, when interviewing candidates, is required to make the interview harder than their own was. In this way we incrementally improve talent velocity. We call it Agile Interviewing.

Re: If You Want This Job, We Must Interview You Forever

#145

Post by md5wasp » Sat, Sep 03, 2022, 2:51 AM UTC

shoo wrote: post #104

eastbound wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m sorry, what are typical pays for a junior engineer (Say, JS and Java?), a medium and a senior?

You can certainly hit AUD 200k (including superannuation) as a senior software engineer at one of the big australian banks. To go much higher you probably have to stop being an IC and start being an engineering manager. Or stop being a permie and start being a contractor. Some US-based well funded companies that hire software engineers in Australia are willing to bid substantially higher for senior engineers (i.e. ~…

Can you say any company names? I’m an ex-FAANG eng in Sydney currently considering options.

Re: If You Want This Job, We Must Interview You Forever

#146

Post by BuckRogers » Sat, Sep 03, 2022, 2:52 AM UTC

PebblesHD wrote: post #114

nuclearnice1 wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree with the other poster. The possibility of ending up unemployed is a bit stressful here. What percentage of people get let go within 90 days?

For us, it’s a tiny fraction. I’ve hired around 30 engineers over 5 years and we’ve let go of 2 during probation, both for dramatically overstating their capabilities compared to their actual experience, to such a degree that it was clear it was done intentionally and with no effort to try and bridge the gap with learning during the period. Others who may have slightly embellished their skills but could learn as they…

I like that approach now more that you said that. It's very true, many will surprise you for various ways, and would never survive the absurd interview gauntlet and tests.

I just present myself as-is, which is probably less impressive, but I don't want to be hired somewhere based on false pretenses. That's just stress I don't need. I'd rather just switch careers and find something else to do before I do that. So I guess I just don't care enough to lie, which is kind of a lack of ambition of sorts. Misrepresentation is probably a better qualification for a sales position though.

I do think with poignant questions during interviews, you can tease out if someone knows what they're talking about. I just had a few interviews at a Fortune 500 and they peppered me with pretty great questions. Simple stuff, but good questions like, "what is a singleton" etc. You need to give a candidate some leeway, it's stressful and I don't sit around thinking about what a singleton is.. but I did have an acceptable answers to questions like that in my mind. "A static class which can only have a single instance". They liked me, but didn't hire me.

It's a tough industry that has brought engineers to their knees. Begging when nothing would work without them. It was supposed to be the next buoy of the American working class but instead the state of affairs is pathetic. That's what we get for disrespecting collective bargaining. At this point, there's definitely easier ways to make a buck than software. I wouldn't do it again but it's all I know.

Re: If You Want This Job, We Must Interview You Forever

#147

Post by tehjoker » Sat, Sep 03, 2022, 2:52 AM UTC

lovich wrote: post #76

sulam wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not really. It comes down to the asymmetry in hiring outcomes. It is much more expensive to hire a bad employee than it is to hire a good employee. It’s gotten exceptionally hard to just fire people in corporate America, at-will employment notwithstanding.

Is it more expensive than leaving the position open for months though? I’ve seen multiple companies I’ve applied at and my own employer just sit with empty roles which meant the job never got done. I was under the impression from the startup world and my won engineering experience that getting to market with a substandard product was always better than never releasing because you were aiming for perfection.

I think at big companies that serve millions, it's more the other way. The brand hit of a substandard product or actual defects could result in recalls or lawsuits. It's the problem of scale: imperfect code works for a few hundred users but you need finely engineered code to work for millions. Same with other products as they will be used in every crazy way you can imagine and some you can't.

Re: If You Want This Job, We Must Interview You Forever

#148

Post by vogt » Sat, Sep 03, 2022, 2:52 AM UTC

dvtrn wrote: post #109

yrgulation wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> but at least I don't have to go through yet another life draining and de-humanizing interviewing process. Stop interviewing at code assembly lines? There are loads of sane places to work at with sane interviews and great tech and pay. FAANG and similar are undergoing a slow rot. You’ll do fine.

Is there some magical keyword or ‘tell’ that you’ve zeroed in on and want to share with the rest of us when looking at a job ad to tell if it’s a “code assembly line” or not before applying? From the rest of your comments you seem pretty confident and specific about not having these problems, so I’m curious to know what’s in your secret sauce.

I don’t have magic to share and certainly have taken on bad jobs I regretted signing on to, but for one, I always look for some degree of humanized speech in the job listings. So what I mean by that is not so much fluff about how great the company is and how big the mission is, and more about “we’re looking to add X people who are good at Y”. But most of all, just simply job descriptions that feel like they weren’t churned out by a machine trained to hunt for “3 years of python”.

Also I like to see that engineering managers are the ones doing recruiting if it’s a company that is not Google sized, or at least a recruiter who specializes in engineering. I don’t trust that the “Head of talent” shares the same motivators that get me out of bed In the morning. An engineering manager might not either, but I feel safer betting in that direction.

My two cents, YMMV, mine certainly has

Re: If You Want This Job, We Must Interview You Forever

#149

Post by cooldrcool3 » Sat, Sep 03, 2022, 2:52 AM UTC

OrangeMonkey wrote: post #122

treyfitty wrote: post #94

I’ve been interviewing for 8 months. Getting to many final rounds, 1 lowballed offer, 1 rescinded offer, and it’s playing a mental toll. Today, I got a rejection that went along the lines of “everyone loved you and there was absolutely 0 negative feedback, but we just found a better fit.” I almost broke down, but hid behind a facade of positivity because the long weekend was starting and my kids can’t afford a bummed…

Look man - you fucking matter and you will get this. The crap you are going through is not fair, this entire process is not fair, but who the fuck cares - you will get this. Do NOT let this fucking industry joke of an interview process harm you man. Seriously. It really is not you - its them.

Why should we put our mental health on the line for this industry? There must be other jobs that are fulfilling and pay the bills.

Re: If You Want This Job, We Must Interview You Forever

#150

Post by antiterra » Sat, Sep 03, 2022, 2:53 AM UTC

Hits close to home. I did an interview with a static analysis company and everything went well until the “People Gardeners” interview. It was a relatively short meeting that was mostly taken up by them asking basic career history questions, but part of it supposedly had some kind of personality fit methodology.

I was told matter-of-factly that I was out of touch with my emotions and therefore couldn’t fit the team. To anyone who knows me, that’s basically the polar opposite of how I am. But, the ‘what if you’re wrong and are just oblivious?’ self-doubt circled for weeks. I can’t imagine what this sick joke of a psychology test would feel like for someone on the spectrum.

I definitely got the vibe from the recruiter that this step was maddening and unpredictable.