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Job Hunting in 2022

mhlakhani.com

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Re: Job Hunting in 2022

#121

Post by lovich »

paxys wrote: post #98
symlinkk wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

“Lazy” is the wrong word. People work for 8 hours a day and then are expected to cook, clean, exercise, and maintain some sort of social life. Adding in Leetcode on top of that is going to cause something to give. There’s only so many hours in the day.

Regardless of the exact word choice, if you have a life goal that requires some extra effort and sacrifices, and you cannot get yourself to do it, you can't really blame your busy life or anything else. There are others who do all of the above and still make the time, and they are going to be more successful than you while you continue to complain about the industry/interview process/leetcode/whatever else.

Nah man, I can complain about anything I want.

That grind set mindset, “you can do anything you set your mind to, so you can only blame yourself for not having {life goal}” is a recipe for depression and burnout

Re: Job Hunting in 2022

#122

Post by the_jends »

I think this write up is a good resource for those who got called into at least an interview. I wonder how does one improve if the rejections come even before a single interview? At that stage companies typically will not give you any reason for the rejection either for legal reasons or simply convenience. This leaves you hesitating whether to apply to other companies for fear they will reject you for the same unknown reason.

Maybe someone who has been in the other side of equation can explain, what are the common reasons would get someone discarded before an interview and is there really no way to communicate those better to the rejectee?

Re: Job Hunting in 2022

#123

Post by MathMonkeyMan »

dgb23 wrote: post #89
fnimick wrote: post #31

This is just depressing. How is the technical interview process valuable _for companies_ at this point when it seems to be evaluating how well you can prepare for their specific leetcode interview, and how well you practice the incantation of the system design problem (make sure you follow the template and the pattern!) - do they really think they're selecting the best candidates, and not the most practiced interview…

I think the best way to interview is to just have an experienced, respected worker or two ask some questions, which hopefully leads into a normal conversation about work. Talk about specific problems, nerd out about tech.

The counterargument is that this selects people who are similar to that one guy, produces inconsistent results, and doesn't scale up well.

Re: Job Hunting in 2022

#124

Post by turing_complete »

angarg12 wrote: post #84
sbuccini wrote: post #3

Thanks to the author for taking the time to write this up. I think it is a fairly realistic description of what the process is like for an engineer who has spent several years working in Silicon Valley at a well-known company. The key takeaways, coming from someone with a similar background: * Rely heavily on your personal network to both identify worthwhile opportunities and for referrals which, in the Before Times,…

> * They had a _full_ pipeline, interviewing every day for three weeks straight. It's a grind, but you definitely get "in the zone". Additionally, setting this goal ensures that you are being properly proactive/aggressive in pursuing opportunities. As a married man nearing his 40s I can't imagine doing this. I need to keep my full time job to support my family, so just quit and focus 100% on prepping is not an option…

You can take vacation or save some money before quitting.

Or just do a few interviews per week while working like most people.

Re: Job Hunting in 2022

#125

Post by mhlakhani »

UncleOxidant wrote: post #104

> I completed full interview loops at 13 companies and received 11 offers. I'm glad I got the rejections I did - it was clear there wasn't a mutual match. 11 out of 13 seems like a really extremely good hit rate. Even a 50% offer rate would be really good so I'm guessing this person is way better at interviewing than most of us. As most of these interviews were in in October/November I wonder if it would go as well n…

I filtered companies down to places where I felt I had a good chance of success, and applied to jobs within my comfort zone - this was a very biased sample. I don't think this generalizes unfortunately

Re: Job Hunting in 2022

#126

Post by mhlakhani »

bradlys wrote: post #82
mhlakhani wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be clear, I explicitly chose to not interview at FAANGs since I was previously at a FAANG and wanted to try my hand at a different type of company. I'd probably practice a bit more for FAANGs

Is the comp comparable to FAANG or is it a big step down? (At least in terms of liquid compensation) This is partially why I haven't been interviewing. All the big p(l)ayers have slowed down their hiring so much - why bother taking a role that pays less than half.

It varied, but I would say most places I looked at were comparable (or higher). there were a few places with lower comp that I was OK with (startups, or nonprofits).

Re: Job Hunting in 2022

#127

Post by Cypher »

abdullahkhalids wrote: post #109

In the job market right now. I have a question about talking to recruiters. I am talking to a couple of them, who are working with companies whose name or location they won't even disclose until the company looks at my CV and decides to move ahead. But the recruiters want me to specify a salary expectation. But my salary expectations depend on whether I am living in the downtown of large city or in a smaller city, or…

The trick is to give a range where the low end is one you're happy with and top end is of the jobs who you're going for. At the end of the day it's a filter and not the be all end all that you'll accept when negotiating time comes.

Re: Job Hunting in 2022

#128

Post by chucksmash »

shagie wrote: post #5
sbuccini wrote: post #3

Thanks to the author for taking the time to write this up. I think it is a fairly realistic description of what the process is like for an engineer who has spent several years working in Silicon Valley at a well-known company. The key takeaways, coming from someone with a similar background: * Rely heavily on your personal network to both identify worthwhile opportunities and for referrals which, in the Before Times,…

> The classic one I've seen like 5 times is "how would you design a social media feed?" I still do not know the "correct" answer to this question. There is no "correct" answer to it. It is an investigation into how you break the problem down and approach it. When presented with a challenge to it, how do you then look at it and consider how to solve it. The Codeless Code - Case 83 Consequences http://thecodelesscode.c…

There sort of is though, right? At a meta level, making sure you touch on the points they want you to touch on ("is this workload read heavy or write heavy?", "fan out vs fan in", "eventual consistency") is a right answer that you phrase in the form of a series of questions designed to look as if you've never been asked the question before, yeah?

Re: Job Hunting in 2022

#129

Post by singron »

Ancalagon wrote: post #10

Granted I've only attempted the Amazon interview of the FAANGs, but good job to the OP for cracking the FAANG interviews with only 60ish leetcode questions. I'm at 150 and have yet to crack any.

Wow. I thought 60 was a lot. I don't think I did any. Honestly, if you spend that much effort practicing something, and it's not paying off, you might have the wrong strategy. E.g. maybe you are failing something besides coding, or maybe you are missing some other fundamental background that you need to go back and study.

Re: Job Hunting in 2022

#130

Post by mattgreenrocks »

UncleOxidant wrote: post #113
wildrhythms wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or maybe the hiring process is broken beyond repair when engineers who are perfectly qualified need to inhibit parts of their brain just to 'perform' at an artificially inflated level.

This right here. If there are more and more of us who do just fine in an actual engineering job but need beta-blockers or other anxiolytics just to make it through an intense set of interviews maybe something's broken with the hiring process?

And yet it persists, unfortunately. The amount of signal gleaned from these is very low, and they’re still super common.

Kind of says something about the amount of cultural sway technologists actually have.

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