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Job Hunting in 2022

mhlakhani.com

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Re: Job Hunting in 2022

#211

Post by scarface74 »

lr4444lr wrote: post #176
listenallyall wrote: post #142

> 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…

This is true, but I think you have the reason misconstrued: it isn't that working at a FAANG on your resume provides a signal of greatness, it's that it guarantees a reliable floor competency. The recruiter is concerned with making her quota just as much as finding rock stars, if not more, and ex FAANG candidates probably stand a higher chance of making it through the interview funnel on average.

The recruiters just spray and pray wildly. Since 2020, I’ve had:

- A recruiter from Google reach out to me about an Engineering Manager position - I’ve never managed anyone in my life.

- A recruiter from Facebook reach out to me about a senior software engineering position even though the last job I had at the time that had an official title of “software engineer” was two years prior and I had no details about what I did and the company I worked for was unknown

- two recruiters reaching out to me from Amazon about “exciting software development opportunities” - while it clearly showed on my LinkedIn profile that I was working at AWS.

Re: Job Hunting in 2022

#212

Post by scarface74 »

listenallyall wrote: post #135
turing_complete wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can take vacation or save some money before quitting. Or just do a few interviews per week while working like most people.

sorry kids, no Disneyland this year, I used up my vacation days back in Feb when I interviewed for a week straight

Given the choice of being able to take little Timmy to Disney world and providing him food and shelter and being able to cash flow him through college, he will get over it.

Before you respond that I don’t know what it’s like juggling a family and I must be a fresh college grad, the 74 in my username has significance

Re: Job Hunting in 2022

#213

Post by scarface74 »

Falkon1313 wrote: post #152
Sodman wrote: post #39

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…

Hiring people all too often focus on required skills like 'X years of experience with generic tech Y' and look for those buzzwords on the resume. But the real thing is, every company has its own processes and procedures, its own legacy and proprietary code, its own business and product goals in its industry, etc. That's where the real ramp-up comes in. 6-12 months is not a bad ramp-up target. Would you really rather…

> Would you really rather have someone who knows new tech XYZ very well and can hit the ground running with no ramp-up, but breaks process, refuses to touch the legacy code, knows nothing about the industry, and builds things counterproductive to your business goals?

It’s not an either/or someone with experience should be able to do both, at my current job and my prior two jobs, I was specifically hired because the manager was looking to bring on someone who could lead initiatives and was a subject matter expert.

Well my last two jobs prior to my current one - the current company I work for has quite a few people who know my specialty well…

Re: Job Hunting in 2022

#214

Post by scarface74 »

jacurtis wrote: post #168
bradlys wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Not OP. But I would say that from my experience (I've avoided FAANG for culture reasons, not interviewing reasons) and I can get comparable offers to my FAANG friends at least in terms of Salary & Benefits. The big difference is bonuses, specifically stock bonuses. So a lot of the crazy salaries you see people brag about are often taking stock programs into account. And because tech stock has been generally hockey st…

> The big difference is bonuses, specifically stock bonuses.

Since stock makes up a large portion of $BigTech compensation, ignoring RSUs is not logical.

Re: Job Hunting in 2022

#215

Post by throwaway2037 »

fma wrote: post #177
angarg12 wrote: post #84

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…

"doctor appointments" are also great for refusing full day of interviews. I have used that technique before. Or "I need to visit a friend/relative in hospital". They back-off immediately.

Re: Job Hunting in 2022

#216

Post by fullmoon »

listenallyall wrote: post #179
lr4444lr wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is true, but I think you have the reason misconstrued: it isn't that working at a FAANG on your resume provides a signal of greatness, it's that it guarantees a reliable floor competency. The recruiter is concerned with making her quota just as much as finding rock stars, if not more, and ex FAANG candidates probably stand a higher chance of making it through the interview funnel on average.

> you have the reason misconstrued I don't believe my post suggested any reasons. > it guarantees a reliable floor competency I disagree. FAANG experience only demonstrates that, at one point, somebody believed you could do the job. There are dead-weight employees at FAANGs (and everywhere of course) who don't really have much competency (or perhaps one very specific competency that's only valuable in that specific r…

People that have a family but don’t focus on it will never be exceptional employees.

They will tell themselves sweet little lies all day about how their need for external validation and appearance of being busy / important is actually in service of their family.

They lack the ability to reflect, put something more important above them when there is no validation, and won’t take honest ownership either.

Re: Job Hunting in 2022

#217

Post by throwaway2037 »

nsxwolf wrote: post #30
nvarsj wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> They had a _full_ pipeline, interviewing every day for three weeks straight. I honestly think I'd be physically incapable of doing this. I'm on the HSP side and even a single set of interviews is enough to drive me into an insomnia/anxiety cycle for weeks. I can't even imagine what this would be like for me. Albeit I admit it's the best way to get the job you want. Maybe I'm in the wrong industry...

This is incredibly common. I hate running interviews - we do the leetcode whiteboard pressure cooker crap - it's a policy I have no say in unfortunately. I've had candidates with strong backgrounds go to pieces right in front of me - it's awful to watch and I hate that I had anything to do with making someone experience that. More people than you might imagine take Xanax to get through interviews.

Someone posted on HN recently that they slowly drink wine from a mug during remote interviews to calm themselves. People also recommended a light beta-blockers (which are incidentally used to cheat in some concentration sports like bow+arrow shooting). It sounds like a good strategy.

Re: Job Hunting in 2022

#218

Post by jimbo99912 »

klardotsh wrote: post #133
avmich wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This must be extremely subjective. Many times over I see very well qualified candidates spending months in this market looking for a position - when it took them weeks before.

Anecdotally, this. I'd never spent more than 3 weeks looking for a job prior to my October/November job hunt post-layoff. This one took about 6-7 weeks, all told (and likely would have come out closer to 8 had one branch path played out). I was intentionally looking for remote-first companies that seemed halfway stable, and was prioritizing those open to sub-40h workweeks (30h, 4DWW, 9-80, etc.), which admittedly, al…

Yikes on that bit about Kubernetes. That's kind of appalling given the constraints most young companies are (or at least should) be operating under.

Re: Job Hunting in 2022

#220

Post by hef19898 »

scarface74 wrote: post #210
listenallyall wrote: post #190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

I went from demonstrating a “high degree of ability and skill” that brought in an extra 1 million in revenue at a 60 person company over a year. It was lauded by CxOs. 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…

That is something Amazon does got right, they look for the experience during interviews, for the skillset. And yes, they tend not to care that much about where that experience comes from.
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