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A Senior Engineer’s Guide to FAANG Interviews

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Re: A Senior Engineer’s Guide to FAANG Interviews

#181

Post by yodsanklai »

mgaunard wrote: post #178
yodsanklai wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're making a lot of generalizations here. 1. First, there are plenty of roles in these companies. You could be working in a very small specialized team on open source software that is used beyond the company. It doesn't matter if the company is past its prime or not, and you're not more or less a cog that if you work for a startup. 2. I can only speak for my experience, but my compensation isn't based on politics…

1. In a start-up, you being good at what you do is what separates the company failing from it succeeding. In FAANG, none of what you do matters. There are thousands of initiatives and redundancies. 2. Highly standardized is exactly what leads to politics. Everyone's circumstances are different but somehow you need to fit everything to the same ill-fitted mold, so everyone is trying to exploit the game. The standardiz…

Well, we have totally different experience, on each of these points (I worked in both environments).

> At least Google is backtracking from it.

Interesting, I didn't know that. How do they hire people nowadays?

Re: A Senior Engineer’s Guide to FAANG Interviews

#182

Post by mgaunard »

lapcat wrote: post #180
mgaunard wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A good company will reward key people with equity. Either you were not a key person or you badly picked the company you worked for.

> Either you were not a key person or you badly picked the company you worked for. This is a really uninformed and insulting reply. You speculate without having any knowledge or details about the situation. First of all, I didn't join the company with the intention of staying 8 years or rising to management; I joined because they offered a big pay raise from my previous job. So no, I didn't badly pick the company I w…

This is merely a logical conclusion of the previous statement that I made.

Feeling insulted by logic really takes the cake for a computer scientist.

Re: A Senior Engineer’s Guide to FAANG Interviews

#183

Post by mgaunard »

yodsanklai wrote: post #181
mgaunard wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1. In a start-up, you being good at what you do is what separates the company failing from it succeeding. In FAANG, none of what you do matters. There are thousands of initiatives and redundancies. 2. Highly standardized is exactly what leads to politics. Everyone's circumstances are different but somehow you need to fit everything to the same ill-fitted mold, so everyone is trying to exploit the game. The standardiz…

Well, we have totally different experience, on each of these points (I worked in both environments). > At least Google is backtracking from it. Interesting, I didn't know that. How do they hire people nowadays?

It's in the article...

Re: A Senior Engineer’s Guide to FAANG Interviews

#184

Post by lapcat »

mgaunard wrote: post #182
lapcat wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Either you were not a key person or you badly picked the company you worked for. This is a really uninformed and insulting reply. You speculate without having any knowledge or details about the situation. First of all, I didn't join the company with the intention of staying 8 years or rising to management; I joined because they offered a big pay raise from my previous job. So no, I didn't badly pick the company I w…

This is merely a logical conclusion of the previous statement that I made. Feeling insulted by logic really takes the cake for a computer scientist.

No, you still don't have a clue what you're talking about.

Re: A Senior Engineer’s Guide to FAANG Interviews

#185

Post by harshalizee »

mgaunard wrote: post #176
harshalizee wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Been at two FAANGs, a small startup and a mid sized company. I cannot overstate how little I care about being an enabler and a transformer of the business, or even care about the business. You see, as a business ( of one), I'm here to ensure my company (again me) is generating cash flow and profit for my stakeholders ( me + family + dog). Unless I own the company or have equity >10%, it never made sense why anyone wo…

You will never achieve great things if you're not dedicated. Settling for a cushy job where you don't have to care and can focus on your family, yes, that's what FAANG is for. That's what I meant by retirement.

I don't know what constitutes as 'great' and 'dedicated' in your books, but I'm pretty happy with how my career and life so far ended up at.

I joined a FAANGM straight out of Uni, wrote code that currently runs even today on billions of devices worldwide, and services that processes requests also in billions. Then ended up at another FAANG with similar outcomes.

Being at large corps in my early 20s was one of the best things that happened to me financially, setting me up for life by 30 to pursue anything I wanted - a lot of it was timing and luck, but some credit for my dedication wouldn't be asking too much.

The startup, on the other hand, was bought out and the service eventually scrapped. I'm pretty sure that code doesn't even exist anymore or an archive somewhere never to be touched. Ironically, this is the place I've had to work the hardest.

Today, I can at least get my foot in the door at most places purely based on past experiences. Whenever some company wants me to do a song and dance take-home interviews, I respectfully tell them to knock it off and they usually do.

I'm definitely focused on family now, and I'd argue it is the greatest thing I'll ever achieve.

I hope young, newly-minted engineers don't take your advice too seriously. You can definitely forge your path in multiple ways in your life. Not drinking the kool-aid is paramount to maintaining perspective of what really matters in life. Every decade or 5-year chunks of your life, has unique phases, choices/oppurtunities and experiences that are strictly for that part of your life. Your real job is to figure out which to pick and choose to minimize regrets.

Paraphrasing another HN comment -- In a decade, the only people who will remember you worked late to go above and beyond to deliver, is your kids. And if you choose not to have kids, well there's your answer.

Re: A Senior Engineer’s Guide to FAANG Interviews

#186

Post by nomel »

nomel wrote: post #94
codr7 wrote: post #9

I don't know, I've walked into these interviews with zero preparation and succeeded. And I've failed FAANG-ish interviews where no amount of leetcode grinding would have helped me. In my opinion, it's getting rather silly. They're scaring off and filtering out excellent candidates with these excessive processes. None of them even cared about my Github repository that's full of code I write for fun. Software developer…

> None of them even cared about my Github repository that's full of code I write for fun. Context: I've interviewed around 200 people for our current org, and have "settled" on an interview that's used for a certain position. I don't think I'm necessarily good at interviews, and I'm not sure I'm "doing it right". I give the number to show that my sample size is reasonable. We're solving practical problems, with code.…

I realized I've left out some detail. I'm on a panel, and I'm not one of the hiring managers. Others might be looking at resumes and repos, ideally before they make it to us. The above was to show why I, personally, don't consider them.

Re: A Senior Engineer’s Guide to FAANG Interviews

#187

Post by dpe82 »

dekhn wrote: post #165
stcroixx wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would definitely leave. Maybe for an intern that would be acceptable, otherwise red flag.

How can you expect to interview for a job without doing a basic coding interview?

Maybe by presenting your education and past experiences by discussing the design and interpersonal challenges you worked through?

IMO quizzing someone on whether they can solve an artificially tricky algorithm problem on the spot does not correlate very strongly the actual day-to-day work we do as software engineers. At best it's a measure of... whether someone can solve a tricky algorithm problem on the spot. It looks like engineering but it's not really what we do.

Re: A Senior Engineer’s Guide to FAANG Interviews

#188

Post by dekhn »

dpe82 wrote: post #187
dekhn wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How can you expect to interview for a job without doing a basic coding interview?

Maybe by presenting your education and past experiences by discussing the design and interpersonal challenges you worked through? IMO quizzing someone on whether they can solve an artificially tricky algorithm problem on the spot does not correlate very strongly the actual day-to-day work we do as software engineers. At best it's a measure of... whether someone can solve a tricky algorithm problem on the spot. It loo…

If you read my comments you'll see I'm not advocating tricky algorithm problems.

We're talking fizzbuzz-level verification, I'd say about 50% of applicants that I interview can't do fizzbuzz.

Do you want me to make it easier? how about reverse a string?

Re: A Senior Engineer’s Guide to FAANG Interviews

#189

Post by nomel »

bhasi wrote: post #158
nomel wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> None of them even cared about my Github repository that's full of code I write for fun. Context: I've interviewed around 200 people for our current org, and have "settled" on an interview that's used for a certain position. I don't think I'm necessarily good at interviews, and I'm not sure I'm "doing it right". I give the number to show that my sample size is reasonable. We're solving practical problems, with code.…

> no compilation, no running code I recently had an interview where, for the first time, the coding round was Coderpad based, which allowed me to run my code and build my solution bit by bit with instantaneous feedback. I know for sure that I wouldn't have been able to solve that recursion problem without that live terminal. I now am going to insist on this live terminal in all of my future interviews and refuse to d…

I think this is fair. But, with how simple the problem is that I give, it's a real issue if they can't read/understand the code they've written. It's simple enough that anyone should be able to mentally run the program.

Regardless, I'm going to offer that as an option and see how things go. Maybe everyone will be in a better mindset, allowing me to add a bit more complexity/depth to the problem.

Re: A Senior Engineer’s Guide to FAANG Interviews

#190

Post by mgaunard »

harshalizee wrote: post #185
mgaunard wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You will never achieve great things if you're not dedicated. Settling for a cushy job where you don't have to care and can focus on your family, yes, that's what FAANG is for. That's what I meant by retirement.

I don't know what constitutes as 'great' and 'dedicated' in your books, but I'm pretty happy with how my career and life so far ended up at. I joined a FAANGM straight out of Uni, wrote code that currently runs even today on billions of devices worldwide, and services that processes requests also in billions. Then ended up at another FAANG with similar outcomes. Being at large corps in my early 20s was one of the bes…

You don't work hard for your code to be used, but for the opportunity to learn how to build things.

3 years of experience at a startup are worth a lot more than at a big corporation.

Personally I'd rather my kids are proud of having a father who believes in what he does, rather than one that just clocks in-and-out. I have a similar sentiment when looking for a partner too; I simply cannot date someone who's not driven by their job.

That being said, to each their own. I know a lot of people who prefer focusing on hobbies and family than on their career. I suppose that for those, FAANG isn't such a bad compromise.

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