111–120 of 140 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Building the thing right is useless unless you're building the right thing.
Perfectionism is never allowed in a business environment. In fact most of those folks turn toxic because they don't get their way
> Some companies only hire specialists. If you’re Google, it makes little sense to hire a generalist, I think. Having been through a Google interview and offer process, this seems exactly backwards: Google selects heavily for generalists, so that they have people who can adapt to and integrate different technologies. (I'm sure they do hire specialists in various areas, but their interview process optimizes for genera…
No, they hire Competitive Programmers - this is a separate specialty, but Google assumes such programmers should be able jump into real world software engineering. They recognize the flaw but so far can't come up with a different way.
For example, a person who only knows react, angular, vue and node is a specialist and will unlikely be successfully to transfer to a different kind of team. A person who built their own javascript frameworks on the other hand had to build and learn a lot of fundamental concepts which are transferable to any domain, I could use such a person. So personally I strongly favor algorithmic interviews over more specialized ones. I don't care if you learned how to use library X to solve narrow problem Y, no matter how many times you did it.
> Some companies only hire specialists. If you’re Google, it makes little sense to hire a generalist, I think. Having been through a Google interview and offer process, this seems exactly backwards: Google selects heavily for generalists, so that they have people who can adapt to and integrate different technologies. (I'm sure they do hire specialists in various areas, but their interview process optimizes for genera…
But I do generally see at least a backend/frontend/mobile split, with backend sometimes further subdivided into product vs. infrastructure. Does Google not even go that far?
> Some companies only hire specialists. If you’re Google, it makes little sense to hire a generalist, I think. Having been through a Google interview and offer process, this seems exactly backwards: Google selects heavily for generalists, so that they have people who can adapt to and integrate different technologies. (I'm sure they do hire specialists in various areas, but their interview process optimizes for genera…
I second. Most data and anecdata says you need to be a solid generalist software engineer to be hired at Google. You may have some specialty (the vast majority don't), but a single area of expertise won't take you there. Vide the famous tweet ( https://twitter.com/mxcl/status/608682016205344768 ): "Google: 90% of our engineers use the software you wrote (Homebrew), but you can’t invert a binary tree on a whiteboard s…
That's funny. In some HN threads that discussed exposes on awful interviewing practices at Google, time and time again Googlers would point out that Google is a big company and every team does it differently.
So which is it? Do they have a standardized procedure or does each team do things differently?
Update: Ok, maybe it wasn't per team, but the impression I got was that different parts of the company interviewed differently. Whether people you wound up working with wre the ones you interviewed with is a separate issue.
I've been currently looking for employment and job descriptions nowadays are ridiculous. In one paragraph or section of a job description, they'll specifically state that they want a generalist, and in the very next section, they'll state explicitly that they want a specialist; just crazy. Also, throughout my job history I've been more of a generalist; sort of like a modern day devops (but much broader in scope/respo…
Once fully on board, I think many would agree the generalist is desirable.
Another factor is, as someone else pointed out, that there's a huge difference between "learned, skilled generalist" and "inexperienced who hasn't yet learned much" and both characters may go by the generalist name.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I second. Most data and anecdata says you need to be a solid generalist software engineer to be hired at Google. You may have some specialty (the vast majority don't), but a single area of expertise won't take you there. Vide the famous tweet ( https://twitter.com/mxcl/status/608682016205344768 ): "Google: 90% of our engineers use the software you wrote (Homebrew), but you can’t invert a binary tree on a whiteboard s…
"They use standardized hiring procedure (they need to work at a scale)." That's funny. In some HN threads that discussed exposes on awful interviewing practices at Google, time and time again Googlers would point out that Google is a big company and every team does it differently. So which is it? Do they have a standardized procedure or does each team do things differently? Update: Ok, maybe it wasn't per team, but t…
Only after my packet had passed the hiring committee did I speak with potential hiring managers about team fit.
When I was interviewed at Amazon, all but one of the interviewers was a future colleague. And the one who wasn't led an adjacent team.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I second. Most data and anecdata says you need to be a solid generalist software engineer to be hired at Google. You may have some specialty (the vast majority don't), but a single area of expertise won't take you there. Vide the famous tweet ( https://twitter.com/mxcl/status/608682016205344768 ): "Google: 90% of our engineers use the software you wrote (Homebrew), but you can’t invert a binary tree on a whiteboard s…
"They use standardized hiring procedure (they need to work at a scale)." That's funny. In some HN threads that discussed exposes on awful interviewing practices at Google, time and time again Googlers would point out that Google is a big company and every team does it differently. So which is it? Do they have a standardized procedure or does each team do things differently? Update: Ok, maybe it wasn't per team, but t…
You are probably thinking of Amazon or Microsoft or some company like that, but I have never seen a Googler say that interviewing varies from team to team at Google.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
"They use standardized hiring procedure (they need to work at a scale)." That's funny. In some HN threads that discussed exposes on awful interviewing practices at Google, time and time again Googlers would point out that Google is a big company and every team does it differently. So which is it? Do they have a standardized procedure or does each team do things differently? Update: Ok, maybe it wasn't per team, but t…
Of the people who interviewed me on-site at Google, none were in any of the same teams as the roles for which I was being considered. Only after my packet had passed the hiring committee did I speak with potential hiring managers about team fit. When I was interviewed at Amazon, all but one of the interviewers was a future colleague. And the one who wasn't led an adjacent team.
I also like this better than the Facebook model where you don't find out your real team for several months after the hire.
For these broad loops they pull people from across the company to do the interview but will have people from your role if they can. Which isn't hard, the roles for most hiring at sdm, sde, fee, TPM.
Amazon always puts one "unbiased" bar raiser on the loop to ensure hiring isn't made for local only optima like "I need someone for 3-6 month shortfall so I'll lower my standards." These people have veto power on the hire and also play the consistency in level role.
Edit: clarity