Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Get that job at Facebook (2012)

facebook.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

31–40 of 174 posts

Re: Get that job at Facebook (2012)

#31

Post by ritchiea »

I hope this doesn't sound facetious, but what I hear over and over again is that places like Facebook have difficult technical interviews that are algorithm focused to create more false negatives than false positives because they work on hard problems.

What are some concrete examples of hard problems tech companies face that require novel solutions and why are algorithms problems the best way to find the people qualified to solve them?

I know these seem like a naive questions, but these two things seem to be taken for granted in every interview discussion (or even if someone argues against them it's mostly a "this is how I find good people" argument). I think it's pretty clear this isn't the only way to find good people, I'd just love to hear more about the thinking behind this interview style and what it really means to these companies when they say "we deal with hard problems." The only concrete example I've ever been given is someone at another big Valley company speaking about difficulty of master-master writes between data centers at a large scale. Which certainly qualifies but I'd love to hear what other "hard problems" are out there.

Re: Get that job at Facebook (2012)

#32

Post by cantankerous »

jonathanjaeger wrote: post #15
coldcode wrote: post #4

Why? Work 70 hours a week finding new ways to put more ads in people's lives.

Don't trivialize Facebook. There's no other place online that so easily melds chat, messaging, wall posts, and general keeping up with those closest to you (even when they're not close to you physically). Despite its problems, Facebook provides a lot of utility for many people without having to be cynical about it. I'll put up with all the ads that are somewhat relevant and are not so obtrusive to the extent that the…

I don't think anybody who trivializes Facebook is speaking to the problems they have to tackle at the scale they're at. I think the real cynicism comes from the real added value coming from Facebook at the cost to society it brings (i.e. lost time, ad sales, impact on human interaction, etc.).

Re: Get that job at Facebook (2012)

#33

Post by dmoy »

nilkn wrote: post #29
coldcode wrote: post #4

Why? Work 70 hours a week finding new ways to put more ads in people's lives.

I was thinking of applying, but... is it really 70 hours a week? Because that's not going to fly with me. I don't do more than 45 as a worst-case average no matter who the employer is.

I don't know many Facebook employees, and I don't know any in California, but 40-45 is what I hear, not 70. I don't know if that's representative of what a normal employee does, but 70 sounds implausible.

Re: Get that job at Facebook (2012)

#34

Post by bbillings »

orangethirty wrote: post #2

Does facebook still use PHP?

Yes, but no. Since moving to HipHip which is a translated/compiled version of PHP, we have been able to fork the language to clean it up. We have a strongly typed version, Generators, etc.

Syntactically it looks a lot like PHP and is backward compatible for many thing, but it's not really PHP anymore. The HipHop team has done a ton to make the language a lot more enjoyable to work in.

Re: Get that job at Facebook (2012)

#35

Post by CoolGuySteve »

kubrickslair wrote: post #28

Never interviewed at Facebook but have been offered roles at similarly hard to get places. Though I am working at my own startup now, the absurdness of the interviewing process at majority of such places confounds me. In short, I can't cope up with them well without going through quite a few glassdoor type questions of that respective company. And partially it is because most interviewers already have a set of soluti…

The thing that really bothers me about these postings is the advice that you should 'prep'. Conceivably, many applicants will already have a job that requires them to code 8 hours a day. But somehow, the skills required to pass their interview are so out of line with what a programmer does day to day, that extracurricular studying is required.

It would suggest that the interview itself selects for mostly irrelevant skills if that is a problem they're having with the process.

Re: Get that job at Facebook (2012)

#36

Post by BadCRC »

ritchiea wrote: post #31

I hope this doesn't sound facetious, but what I hear over and over again is that places like Facebook have difficult technical interviews that are algorithm focused to create more false negatives than false positives because they work on hard problems. What are some concrete examples of hard problems tech companies face that require novel solutions and why are algorithms problems the best way to find the people quali…

one I was given in an interview:

You're working on the front-end development for a chatting website. Each conversation gets it's own 100x200px div and they are placed on the screen such that two conversation windows are never intersecting.

We want to display a new conversation window, write an algorithm to determine where a conversation can be placed such that it does not overlap with any current conversations. Assume that the website is being displayed at 1024x1280px.

Re: Get that job at Facebook (2012)

#37

Post by dudurocha »

sriramk wrote: post #25

I should also point out that Facebook is hiring not just engineers but also designers, product managers, infrastructure people,... I just joined a couple of weeks ago as a product manager and in the short time here, I've loved it.

How is the interview for a product manager?

Re: Get that job at Facebook (2012)

#38

Post by bbillings »

coldcode wrote: post #4

Why? Work 70 hours a week finding new ways to put more ads in people's lives.

I'm not sure why this is such a common misconception. I almost never work 70, or 60 hour weeks. 50, often, but that's usually my own fault for making promises to others I want to keep.

I've managed inside Engineering at Facebook and am now back to just being a straight Engineer, and my advice to everyone I work with is the same: Don't kill yourself working 70/80 hour weeks. We pay you to give 40 solid hours, and that is what I want. What I ask of you is that you set expectations for the people and teams around you as accurately as you can. Don't make a bunch of promises you have to work crazy hours to keep.

The majority of our most successful engineers have a very good work-life balance.

Re: Get that job at Facebook (2012)

#40

Post by cdjk »

I interviewed at Facebook (a while ago - they were still on University Ave). This article is a pretty accurate description of the interview process that I remember, but could apply equally well to technical interviews most places.

The "fit" category is fairly vague, but a better description of it (and what I think about when interviewing candidates) is "how would I feel if I had to stay late fixing a live site issue with this person?" Ideally that doesn't happen, but I find it helpful framing question.

For coding questions, I generally have a pretty low bar - and it's gotten lower. Generally I look for understanding of basic data structures, and the ability to manipulate them. I realize that's slightly biased towards recent grads, but I think linked-lists, binary trees, and pointers are fair game even for experienced candidates. I'm sometimes amazed at how many people have problems with what I think are simple questions.

SQL and schema design questions are also good, and lend themselves very well to iterative questions. It's easy to start with simple problem statement, have someone get a reasonable solution, and then throw additional requirements in.

Post reply on HN