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Lessons from a Silicon Valley job search

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Re: Lessons from a Silicon Valley job search

#121

Post by kevinastone »

fecak wrote: post #112
kevinastone wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is generally good advise (don't suggest willingness to negotiate, because that suggests you will take less). 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 dev…

No argument here - if you walk into any hiring situation without some knowledge of fair market value, you are in a bad spot. I think candidates don't prepare for the question as well as they should and try to improvise on the spot, and many are not good at the improv. Having a number that is well-researched is quite useful, and being able to negotiate on your feet as necessary once numbers are discussed is important.…

Yeah, but I assure you that most of your entry level job seekers have no idea and either ask too low or some wildly inflated number (my friend over at blah blah was offered $120k...). It's more about being able to justify your expectations than having an accurate number which is why softer targets like ranges or previous salaries are usually easier.

Re: Lessons from a Silicon Valley job search

#122

Post by jw2013 »

rhizome wrote: post #104
recursive wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

You mean like this built-in from Ruby's standard Array class? intersection = ary1 & ary2

he is probably talking about using hashtable, but that needs linear memory so there is a trade off.

Re: Lessons from a Silicon Valley job search

#123

Post by totalforge »

jfb wrote: post #44
baby wrote: post #18

> “Design the infrastructure for a link-shortener.” I'm wondering how to answer that? * Get a short and memorizable url. * When you enter an URL hash it, put it in a hash table and use the hash for the link. > “If I type https://google.com into my browser and press enter, what happens?” How would you guys answer this one? I'm not sure I've enough knowledge to do that. I'd say: * first TLS handshake thanks to RSA to s…

I'm wondering how to answer that? Ask the interviewer. One of the things that I find most difficult about interviewing is when the candidate doesn't ask me any questions during the technical parts of an interview. If you aren't sure, you need to ask me -- I am perfectly capable of misphrasing a question or assuming you have context that you don't. Asking your coworkers for help is a perfectly legitimate problem solvi…

I sometimes ask questions and get 'What would you do if there was no one to ask?' and 'What would you do if there was no Google?' and I would like to understand this. Should I have everything rote memorized? Should everything I do be a bespoke solution?

Re: Lessons from a Silicon Valley job search

#126

Post by smm2000 »

TylerE wrote: post #89
potatolicious wrote: post #19

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.

The problem is that Math PhDs tend to be arrogant and think that programming is for monkeys and they are above that. Code that they produce tends to be sub-par and under-tested (because they are above writing unit-tests).

Source: worked with multiple Math PhDs. Have a few friends who are Math PhD working on some esoteric problems that I could not understand.

Re: Lessons from a Silicon Valley job search

#127

Post by randomdata »

Terr_ wrote: post #119
randomdata wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Given that, as an employee, you are the seller in the relationship, that would be like Walmart not posting prices on any items and making you suggest what it is worth at the checkout. It is not usually how business is done. About the only exception that I can think of is in sales of commodities, where the buyer typically does make the offer. I'm not sure you want to treat yourself and career as a commodity, do you? W…

> Given that, as an employee, you are the seller in the relationship Very serious question: Is that actually true, and why do you believe it? Is it "I'm not the one with hard cash, therefore I am obligated to negotiate like a big box retailer"? Don't be fooled into adopting an unhelpful paradigm or power-relationship just because what you are bartering is harder to quanitfy. In many ways your employer is much more li…

> why do you believe it?

The opposite of a seller is a buyer. Do you think an employee is better described as being a buyer?

> In many ways your employer is much more like Walmart than you will can be.

This is the commodity situation I mentioned. Try being a farmer for a while and see what it is like selling your crops. You'll then know exactly what I'm talking about.

If you are just another person that is easily replaceable by any other person, then you are, in fact, a commodity. However, I don't think that is what you want to strive for in your career. Setting yourself apart is how you make more than commodity wages. And, in that case, only you know how much your time is worth since there is nobody, or few, to even compare you with.

If you don't even know how much your time is worth, how is anyone else supposed to know? If you do know, why hide it? You are (hopefully) the desirable smartphone that boasts to everyone how expensive it is, not the undesirable flip phone that has to hide its true cost in fine print in hopes someone might be foolish enough to buy it.

Re: Lessons from a Silicon Valley job search

#128

Post by rogeroga »

onion2k wrote: post #43
petenixey wrote: post #5

(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…

Most software isn't hard to invent; all software is hard to maintain. For the overwhelming majority of software development, being organised is more important than being clever.

I say that if you can organize well a messy closet or kitchen you have a basic skill to be a good ok programmer.

Not necessarily means that all good programmers are superb closet organizers, but they should be able to face clutter and leave things much better than how they found them.

Re: Lessons from a Silicon Valley job search

#129

Post by typon »

sergiotapia wrote: post #11
mpeg wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why? Do Google or Facebook engineers live in a magical world in which they need to know off the top of their heads the big-O complexity of every possible sort function ever mentioned in an academic paper? 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 :)

They deal is data volumes so large and so interconnected, it can't hurt to know those sort of things. Surely you agree?

Unless you're being hired a PhD Senior Software Designer, there is exactly 0% chance (in 2014 anyway) that you're going to be working on improving Google's PageRank algorithm.

Re: Lessons from a Silicon Valley job search

#130

Post by cmbaus »

smm2000 wrote: post #126
TylerE wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

The problem is that Math PhDs tend to be arrogant and think that programming is for monkeys and they are above that. Code that they produce tends to be sub-par and under-tested (because they are above writing unit-tests). Source: worked with multiple Math PhDs. Have a few friends who are Math PhD working on some esoteric problems that I could not understand.

I think you are drawing conclusions from a small sample size. I've had the exact opposite experience.
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