Lessons from a Silicon Valley job search

Lessons from a Silicon Valley job search
robertheaton.com

I do a lot of interviewing (at my company). Here's other common misconceptions lots of candidates have:

* Quicksort is O(N^2) -- don't make that mistake.

* There are plenty of "faster than O(NlogN) sorting algorithms, but they're all special cases. (Radix, Merge on multiple processors, etc.)

* Hashing is not a panacea. Collisions are always worth mentioning.

When I examine the ~13,000 hours I've spent programming I find it hilarious that interviews should centre around algorithmic problems. I've been guilty of it myself and failing FizzBuzz is definitely a true negative but it's so little of a true positive it's not even funny.

What I would really love to know about you as a candidate is:

- do you know how to actually name functions and variables well (unbelievably important)

- do you know your chosen languages and frameworks well enough to avoid cack-handedly reinventing them on paid time

- do you understand how to code an application that someone else (possibly just you) will quickly understand on coming to it cold in 18 months time

- do you understand the trade-offs between features and maintenance, the technical debt that features, designs and toys incur and when to invest in them and when to avoid them

- are you diligent and careful and do you check and re-check your code or just chuck it in the mix for other people to fix

- do you actually do real work for at least four hours each day

- do you take the time to write up the things you've done and share decisions and architecture with the rest of the team

- does your addition to the team on average make your team mates become better or worse coders

- do you understand the exquisite balance between too much testing and too little

In 13,000 hours I have had to wrestle with the consequences of O(n) complexity or binary tree search algorithms approximately NO TIMES.

I did not mean to sidetrack Rob's excellent, excellent piece on finding a job in Silicon Valley however I did want to take the opportunity to state the things that I have empirically found as a professional developer to actually matter.

Hedge fund interviews are a lot more intense and technically difficult (and you feel good when you pass) but don't come with the VC-fueled, youthful arrogance of a proper Valley company. Hedge funds also don't try to lowball you with insulting junior positions because you're not from California or you don't know the five 3-year-old technologies in their stack in detail. If you pass their interviews, the hedgies take you seriously. Most of these VC-funded companies, on the other hand, don't really respect most of the people they hire. They sell aggressively, but the options offers turn out to be ridiculous (sub 0.1%), relocation pay is nonexistent, and, if you're not a Valley insider, the positions are often pretty terrible, as you discover if you ask the right questions.

If you can deal with arrogance, you can probably get a good job in the Valley after enough time. But you'll have plenty of experiences that leave you thinking, "How is this company alive?"

I see this argument used time and time again, but it makes no sense to me. Surely they can just search for it when they need it too :)