201–210 of 270 posts
> After leaving Meta recently That's all I needed to hear. Back in the day, the college you went to opened (or shut) doors to get interviews. And most people, who did not attend an Ivy League school or similar, rejected the concept as being anti-meritocratic. However, today, it's the same thing -- just replace college with the company(ies) you list on your resume. A shitty programmer with a bad attitude from Meta, Go…
> After leaving Meta recently That's all I needed to hear. Back in the day, the college you went to opened (or shut) doors to get interviews. And most people, who did not attend an Ivy League school or similar, rejected the concept as being anti-meritocratic. However, today, it's the same thing -- just replace college with the company(ies) you list on your resume. A shitty programmer with a bad attitude from Meta, Go…
First, even if this is true, are you seriously arguing that people with relevant work experience from biggest tech companies getting opportunities is anti-meritocratic? (And no one is just handing out jobs, they still have to do well at thr interview)
Besides this even true? I personally know lots of people who in big tech that haven't previously worked at big tech. These companies hire tons of fresh grads out of college too, and not everyone is from ivy leagues, in fact from my experience, most are not.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> * 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…
As an engineering manager on multiple projects, my calendar is jam packed. My developers who are on one, or at most two projects have their calendars fairly empty (which is a good thing). I had folks who took many interviews within a short time span and I had no clue at all. I barely have time to take a lunch break. Yes - I can manage my calendar better, but then people would get suspicious, or I'd be worried some em…
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…
That’s by design. Most places don’t want people like you. They want pliable, naive employees who will kill themselves for the company and not count their hours.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I've done a 5 1-hour round interview once, and have refused to do them since- including actively turning down a second interview when the process wasn't clear prior to the initial screener call. I've the good fortune of pretty much being able to pick and choose between jobs, but I also essentially have written off working at a FAANG and at companies run by former or wannabe FAANG engineers. Fortunately, there are sti…
What was your ideal interview experience that you also considered to be very effective?
Along with past experience on CV this should be enough to assess whether a candidate is suitable for the 3 or 6 months probation employment.
If after all this you still can’t decide whether the candidate is a match and worth keeping permanently post probation, your hiring and working processes are seriously broken. I don’t understand then need for multiple, hours long, dozen interviewers processes.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> * 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…
I think the problem these days is that it’s so hard to fire someone. I’m not sure if it’s legal, cultural or otherwise, but I constantly see coworkers who are at best useless and often detrimental being kept on and on and on. So the game becomes to avoid hiring someone like that at all costs, because once they are hired they are impossible to get rid of. I wish employment was more like contracting - you give someone…
I get that it's still a candidates market (especially for strong candidates like OP who can get 11 offers from 13 full attempts), but the spreadsheet of questions you should be asking a company linked in TFA has some eyebrow raising notes and unreasonable expectations imho. For example - there's a big pushback that any hiring manager worried about a candidate who don't have required skills they could learn in 6-12 mo…
> After leaving Meta recently That's all I needed to hear. Back in the day, the college you went to opened (or shut) doors to get interviews. And most people, who did not attend an Ivy League school or similar, rejected the concept as being anti-meritocratic. However, today, it's the same thing -- just replace college with the company(ies) you list on your resume. A shitty programmer with a bad attitude from Meta, Go…
It really didn’t matter where you work if you could pass the DS&A monkey dance interview, you could get a job at most of the tech companies.
I did a slight pivot to fall into BigTech. So I didn’t have to.
> After leaving Meta recently That's all I needed to hear. Back in the day, the college you went to opened (or shut) doors to get interviews. And most people, who did not attend an Ivy League school or similar, rejected the concept as being anti-meritocratic. However, today, it's the same thing -- just replace college with the company(ies) you list on your resume. A shitty programmer with a bad attitude from Meta, Go…
Would the person who wrote the best dry-cleaner management software do well at a company like Google? That is, I think a lot of the required skills there are ‘getting things done in a company the size of Google’ and having worked at Meta for a few years is perhaps a better signal for that than having made some great software. Likewise someone from Google may have a harder time in some startup where the structure is d…
I came straight from a 60 person company to AWS. It wasn’t pretty and I was hired for a remote position during Covid
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Would the person who wrote the best dry-cleaner management software do well at a company like Google? That is, I think a lot of the required skills there are ‘getting things done in a company the size of Google’ and having worked at Meta for a few years is perhaps a better signal for that than having made some great software. Likewise someone from Google may have a harder time in some startup where the structure is d…
> Would the person who wrote the best dry-cleaner management software do well at a company like Google? Offer them a job and find out. > the required skills there are ‘getting things done in a company the size of Google’ this sounds like a fake excuse to exclude someone who has demonstrated a high degree of ability and skill, but doesn't fit your mental image of what a Google employee should be -- otherwise known as…
Doing the same type of work at AWS gets a congratulatory email and is just a drop in the bucket.
I’ve also gone through interview training. We are specifically told not to consider where you got your experience or education from as long as you meet the standards. While they don’t bring me in for coding interviews, I’ve been on interview panels as part of the system design section. I know this to be true.