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The anatomy of the perfect technical interview from a former Amazon VP

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Re: The anatomy of the perfect technical interview from a former Amazon VP

#81

Post by michaelt »

rhizome wrote: post #71
RogerL wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think that is perhaps telling. Google doesn't interview you on your experience, but whether you can can solve network/graph algorithms taken from Knuth exercises. I would expect a random mess from that. It sounds like this person actually drilled down into what the candidate actually knew. I think it is far more useful to ask somebody about what they actually did. Are they excited and engaged by it, did they come u…

Google doesn't interview you on your experience, but whether you can can solve network/graph algorithms taken from Knuth exercises. I believe this is a backdoor method to requiring a college degree for positions that do not require one within labor law.

Is there any labor law that would require you to use a back door method?

Re: The anatomy of the perfect technical interview from a former Amazon VP

#82

Post by [deleted] »

bane wrote: post #68
evanjacobs wrote: post #21

In my 10 years at Amazon, I interviewed lots of engineers and I think Amazon's interview process is fatally flawed. Of course Amazon is still able to hire good candidates but I believe it is in spite of this process and not because of it. Here were the most frustrating aspects of interviewing for me: 1. Bar raisers don't ask questions that they themselves don't know the answer to. I believe this is what Roseman is re…

I remember my own interview process with Amazon. I wasn't interviewing for an SDE position but a TPM role. I made it through the gauntlet and it all fell down due to Amazon's grossly unrealistic understanding of what the going rates for experienced PMs are. I mostly had fun with it, but I was also frustrated. The phone screens were the hardest in a purely technical sense, lots of algorithm questions that really didn'…

[deleted]

Re: The anatomy of the perfect technical interview from a former Amazon VP

#83

Post by michaelt »

saraid216 wrote: post #25
walshemj wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"over paid" what is this concept that you speak off - there is no big guy with a big white beard sitting on a cloud who's going to reach down and say "you yes you with a third in media studies from Luton university should be paid X and those cheeky blue collar train drivers or miners who have scarce skills should be paid less than you". The PHB might think they are over paid but like it or not this is Laissez-faire c…

Paid more than one standard deviation higher than average for that level of competency, scarcity, and bargaining power.

If you could have hired someone equally competent for less money, why didn't you?

If you couldn't find such a person, the person you hired is hardly overpaid.

Re: The anatomy of the perfect technical interview from a former Amazon VP

#84

Post by tomjohnson3 »

one of the most important things - something that is difficult to suss out in an interview - is how well you (or your team) would work with a person. (i think this is perhaps the most important quality - definitely more important than being able to solve brain teasers.)

i've wondered lately if it'd be better, during an interview, to choose a problem that both you and the candidate don't know...and try to solve it together...

Re: The anatomy of the perfect technical interview from a former Amazon VP

#85

Post by [deleted] »

Zimahl wrote: post #53
ryandrake wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think I'd rather use my tech skills to play multi-million dollar poker on Wall Street then create yet another beautiful, responsive, flexible, tweet-able, location-based, modular MVC library API component framework backbone architecture.js.

Also, who wouldn't want to play high-stakes poker with someone else's money!

[deleted]

Re: The anatomy of the perfect technical interview from a former Amazon VP

#86

Post by learc83 »

afandian wrote: post #4

"No matter how many times they say it, most still make decisions based on gut feel, basic credentials, GPAs, ivy league educations, flashy company names - even SAT scores. Roseman objects." What's a Roseman object? Is it some psychological classification of the means by which we just things? Of course, I mis-read it. Shame, that could have been an interesting topic.

>SAT scores

Wait...what? Is this a thing? Are people actually putting this on their resumes?

I had the highest SAT in my county (still just a 1360/1600), but I don't go around putting 2002 "STAR student"[1] on my resume.

[1]Local award for highest SAT score. I think each school in Georgia awards this.

Re: The anatomy of the perfect technical interview from a former Amazon VP

#87

Post by AsymetricCom »

bane wrote: post #68
evanjacobs wrote: post #21

In my 10 years at Amazon, I interviewed lots of engineers and I think Amazon's interview process is fatally flawed. Of course Amazon is still able to hire good candidates but I believe it is in spite of this process and not because of it. Here were the most frustrating aspects of interviewing for me: 1. Bar raisers don't ask questions that they themselves don't know the answer to. I believe this is what Roseman is re…

I remember my own interview process with Amazon. I wasn't interviewing for an SDE position but a TPM role. I made it through the gauntlet and it all fell down due to Amazon's grossly unrealistic understanding of what the going rates for experienced PMs are. I mostly had fun with it, but I was also frustrated. The phone screens were the hardest in a purely technical sense, lots of algorithm questions that really didn'…

My understanding is when they fly you out, you're pretty much a shoe-in and now they're letting their devs have a shot at trying to interview, while getting a feel how you work with others. i.e. are you sane or will you eat on of our disposable dev's face?

Re: The anatomy of the perfect technical interview from a former Amazon VP

#88

Post by eropple »

rhizome wrote: post #71
RogerL wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think that is perhaps telling. Google doesn't interview you on your experience, but whether you can can solve network/graph algorithms taken from Knuth exercises. I would expect a random mess from that. It sounds like this person actually drilled down into what the candidate actually knew. I think it is far more useful to ask somebody about what they actually did. Are they excited and engaged by it, did they come u…

Google doesn't interview you on your experience, but whether you can can solve network/graph algorithms taken from Knuth exercises. I believe this is a backdoor method to requiring a college degree for positions that do not require one within labor law.

This doesn't make sense to me on first read. I'm unaware of a labor law that requires you to interview people without college degrees. Care to elaborate?

Re: The anatomy of the perfect technical interview from a former Amazon VP

#89

Post by enraged_camel »

hyperbovine wrote: post #34
freyr wrote: post #22

"The anatomy of the perfect technical interview from a former Amazon VP" And more recently, a former Zynga VP. Surprising that such an expert at evaluating people chose to work for Zynga, of all places.

Money is a hell of a drug.

Either that, or they really wanted a challenge.

Re: The anatomy of the perfect technical interview from a former Amazon VP

#90

Post by bobbles »

svdad wrote: post #44
pnathan wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There is no room in the Amazon interview process to "try out" a candidate for a week or two in a real world setting to see how they perform. When looking for work, I have no room for companies that want to do this: I already have a job and commitments. Also, I might not even be in the same state as the company I am talking to.

I barely even have time for the 3-6 technical interviews most companies want to do, let alone multiple days/WEEKS of "try out" period.

I used to live about 8 hours drive from where I'm currently working (rural australia to Sydney). When they found out where I was, they arranged the normal 4 interviews to be arranged back to back rather than spread out over a few days.

Just the fact they were willing to do that meant a lot for me (because no one else had ever bothered how inconvenient it was for me to do interviews).

Still here 3 years later and the attitude shown during the interview process extended right through the company.

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