101–110 of 289 posts
My age, work experience and expertise are similar to the OP's. I just interviewed with Google, FB and Amazon, and found myself nodding my head at several points in the article. Something I learned after the whole process was that people apparently take a month or two to prepare intensively and specifically for interviews with these 3 companies. Luckily I came out of the ordeal with an offer, but I wish I had known th…
My age, work experience and expertise are similar to the OP's. I just interviewed with Google, FB and Amazon, and found myself nodding my head at several points in the article. Something I learned after the whole process was that people apparently take a month or two to prepare intensively and specifically for interviews with these 3 companies. Luckily I came out of the ordeal with an offer, but I wish I had known th…
who'd you go with?
(sorry for sidetracking the excellent piece but...) 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 n…
I am now fairly involved in my company's interview process and Im constantly surprised that none of the resumes I get mention anything about the applicants character or professional demeanor. For all the fear of being "culturally unfit" for a company, highlighting what kind of role you play and how you interact with your coworkers is fundamental. Are you diligent and consistent with your work? Are you the kind of per…
It's up to the interviewers to make that determination with the help of professional references.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
If you work at Google or Facebook or any other of the tech giants, you need to know your algorithm-type questions. For the other 98% of companies, there's just no need. I've also never ever had to do strange things with binary trees.
You should know enough to avoid doing nested loops to find the intersection of two lists. Things like that come up on a regular basis for me, although I don't work at any tech giant.
intersection = ary1 & ary2Earlier quoted context omitted.
You sure you wouldn't prefer someone who's really good at implementing binary search trees ...
There are plenty of people who are great at CS fundamentals yet write messy, excessively complex, and/or over engineered code. For many software roles I'd much rather have someone who can write clear, maintainable, and performant code first, with deep knowledge of CS fundamentals only a requirement depending on the nature of the role and product.
Augh, PTSD trigger.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Agreed. I think there's a tinge of arrogance to the claim that Google/FB/what have you need The Best(tm) while everyone else does not. The reality is that there are some jobs (a small minority) at these companies that require incredibly deep algorithmic knowledge - they really do do some complicated things. But the majority of jobs at TwitGooFace are your run of the mill programming jobs, where the requirement and th…
The thing is, that 0.1% would probably be better off just looking for a Math PhD. I suspect it is much easier to teach a mathematician C (Or Python/Haskell/OCaml/Java) than a programmer real math.
>> You want to start negotiating at your strongest point - when they have said “we love you, let’s make a deal.” One simple practice is at the end of the interview when you get the, "So what's the salary range you're looking at?" question, I always give them about 5-10K higher than what I'm currently making with the caveat, "But I'm always open to negotiating." which keeps the door open for the company/agency to get…
This is poor advice. When you say "I'm always open to negotiating", you've immediately lost to a degree. Think about these two scenarios: Q: "How much are you seeking?" A1: "I'm looking for 80K" A2: "I'm looking for 80K, but I'm always open to negotiating" A1 may get 80K, A2 is unlikely to get 80K, because A2 has started negotiations before even being told no. When you are asked for a salary requirement in a live set…
But, unless you've done research and have confidence that the $80k is viable for your experience and the position, you can also scare off many potential employers.
That's why I'd suggest delaying giving a hard number to much later in the process, after all the screening and interviews when its time to develop an offer. You'll have more information then to justify a given price point and more leverage for a "take it or leave it" moment.
I recommend giving either a range ($70-$90k) or your last salary (I made $70k at my last job, so that's a reasonable minimum I would expect). As an employer, I'd likely start on that low end ($70k) with an initial offer. That gives you the opportunity to decline (I made that at my last job, and my skills and experienced are much improved since), and then give me your terms (say $80k or even higher) with justifications.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I've always used this very common tactic successfully in my almost 20 years living in Silicon Valley. If they take offense to this, then they're probably not a good employer. The thing is, what you believe is a fair rate could be vastly below market rate. As a salaried employee, you don't have any real insight into what they are paying people. For example, I've heard from a friend at Apple $170,000/yr + 250k in RSUs…
If your answer to "what salary are you expecting?" is: "I'm fine with a market-rate salary", I'll just ask you what you think market-rate is for your position. Now, usually, you can just say something like: "market-rate will vary with the type of position, role and responsibilities". The goal of the recruiter is just to get a confirmation that your expectations are in within the range permitted for the position. If y…
But in Silicon Valley I've never been pressed to give a salary. So in today's market, if I were talking to you as a prospective employee and you pressed me to give you a salary without you telling me how much you want to pay for the salary, I would politely decline to continue the interview process. I don't need a job that badly (yet). It would feel to shady to me to have the prospective employer force me to give a salary expectation before they give me an offer. They know what their budget is, and if we're in the negotiation process, they know if I'm worth whatever their best offer is.
If you are a recruiter, and this is the initial phases of the conversation, and you press me on salary expectations, then I most assuredly will not continue the conversation. I don't think it's appropriate for either side to discuss salary expectations at that point.
If I'm desperate for employment, then I'm sure my feelings would change on this, but so far (knock on wood) this hasn't been an issue.
(sorry for sidetracking the excellent piece but...) 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 n…
Some companies don't need the latter. Some companies do. The latter companies do want to hire someone who can do both, and not be stuck to a special set of tasks that they can do i.e. they want a generalist who can be assigned to any project of varying complexity.
Personally speaking, many of the tasks I do don't involve the algorithmic skill set. But some do - now without that skill set would I just outsource it to the "brighter" folks in my company or would the company just prefer that everyone who they hire know that stuff ?
>> You want to start negotiating at your strongest point - when they have said “we love you, let’s make a deal.” One simple practice is at the end of the interview when you get the, "So what's the salary range you're looking at?" question, I always give them about 5-10K higher than what I'm currently making with the caveat, "But I'm always open to negotiating." which keeps the door open for the company/agency to get…
It's pretty well accepted that the first person to give a number loses, so you want to push this on them. They are the business with a budget, and a budget for your position, they already know what they can and can't afford. All they are trying to figure out is how much you are undervaluing yourself.
This question typically comes up WAY too early as well. If this is part of the phone screen I just tell them it's too early to tell as I don't know the full responsibilities of the role and other factors such as growth potential, etc.