Facebook senior software engineer interview • Hacker News Board

Re: Facebook senior software engineer interview

#121

Post by baq » Wed, Jan 06, 2021, 4:34 PM UTC

wan23 wrote: post #83

robjan wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From the article it would appear that anyone with a computer science background and a decent amount of experience as an engineer should pass the technical test without the need to spend the whole month revising. If you don't have a computer science foundation it's probably a good idea to learn the basics anyway, rather than learning just to pass the interview.

The bar for Facebook is something like being able to solve two medium-difficulty problems in 45 minutes. If you want to test yourself, you could try these, which are popular questions: https://leetcode.com/problems/find-all-anagrams-in-a https://leetcode.com/problems/subarray-sum-equals-k/-string/ Note that it's not enough to present any solution - you need to present a solution that is efficient. Also, you should be…

> Also, you should be able to write the solution correctly without looking up anything and without running the code before declaring that it is complete.

That’s the bullshit part. This doesn’t happen in any other context in software engineering except interviews. This just test the ability to memorize algorithms. People with a life are at a disadvantage by either accident or by design, not sure which is worse.

Re: Facebook senior software engineer interview

#122

Post by LordHumungous » Wed, Jan 06, 2021, 4:34 PM UTC

blisterpeanuts wrote: post #65

conorh wrote: post #20

Every time I read these posts I find them very depressing. Crunch through an enormous bunch of algorithm problems in order to perform well on some unrealistic whiteboard programming (I think the system engineering problems are actually more useful though) - as usual we've focused on the easy to measure metric rather than anything actually useful. Maybe these things are meant to be a proxy for how good you are at othe…

After 20 years in software, I had a phone interview with an Amazon guy who sounded half my age (at most). Asked me to write some kind of function to do something, sort some stuff or some such. I described verbally how I would do it, almost line by line, in pseudo-code. He said "I need you to write it out in [some language]". I said "But why? I just told you how I'd do it." But he needed me to literally write the code…

You have a hard time at Amazon

Re: Facebook senior software engineer interview

#123

Post by cstrahan » Wed, Jan 06, 2021, 4:34 PM UTC

xiphias2 wrote: post #118

danenania wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That all makes sense for hiring people to work on big existing systems, but many of these large companies are also trying to innovate and build new products with smaller, more agile teams. Sure, you’ll still need to integrate with established APIs and focus more on scalability than you would at a startup, but the kind of people who excel in each type of role will have very different personalities and skillsets. Gradi…

> That all makes sense for hiring people to work on big existing systems, but many of these large companies are also trying to innovate and build new products with smaller, more agile teams. Which innovation of Facebook are you describing? Instagram, WhatsApp, or the stories?

Not products in the typical sense, but these are some interesting technologies coming out of Facebook that I can list off the top of my head (many of which I have used personally):

* https://engineering.fb.com/2014/06/10/web/open-sourcing-haxl...

* https://osquery.io/

* https://rocksdb.org/

* https://fbinfer.com/

* https://flow.org/

* https://prepack.io/

Re: Facebook senior software engineer interview

#124

Post by vincentmarle » Wed, Jan 06, 2021, 4:34 PM UTC

hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #8

onion2k wrote: post #2

There are two interesting things in this post. The first is that a senior developer at Facebook believes every single senior developer looking for a role at Facebook can revise the same things. Clearly the author believes that Facebook are looking for programmers who fit a very specific mould, to the point that they're willing to go out in public and state exactly that. I'd argue that points to a massive monoculture…

I couldn't disagree more with your post. The author is basically just putting out a detailed study plan for passing an exam. If a doctor posted a plan for passing the medical boards would your first thought be "Wow, look at that massive medical monoculture problem!" That seems like a ridiculous stretch in my opinion. To your second point, I hear this all the time in threads about tech interviewing: "Tech interviews a…

That’s a great analogy but doctors will work on saving lives and Facebook’s software engineers will work on ... ads

Re: Facebook senior software engineer interview

#125

Post by Dirlewanger » Wed, Jan 06, 2021, 4:34 PM UTC

Simon_says wrote: post #97

sombremesa wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A better comparison is getting into Harvard. Do you really want to go to a school where getting in is a matter of acing a prescriptive test? There's a reason college applications value experience and diversity.

Yea, to keep the Jews out. https://www.businessinsider.com/the-ivy-leagues-history-of-d...

This hasn't been the case for decades. Go look up how many Jews are in the Ivy Leagues now.

Re: Facebook senior software engineer interview

#126

Post by jbn » Wed, Jan 06, 2021, 4:35 PM UTC

meowzero wrote: post #11

hpux wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On your second point, that's the reality for many established tech companies. I know many solid senior engineers that can't pass the entrance bar to FANG. That doesn't mean that they are "bad" engineers. Overall I think you can replace Facebook with Google/Apple/Microsoft/Netflix/... in the blog post and the end result would be the same.

I worked at a company, not a FANG, but had interviews like a FANG. We had a solid team. But some of us believed we wouldn't be able to pass our own interviews.

isn't this what's happening at FANG companies: the gatekeepers (i.e. people giving interviews) have an incentive to not let people in too easily? This limits the pool of employees, and since what's rare is expensive, makes insiders more valuable?

Also at FANG companies, interviewing feels (to me) like hazing that is unrelated to what the day-to-day job will be like. Some interviewers I had obviously had a very high opinion of themselves..

Re: Facebook senior software engineer interview

#127

Post by jakearmitage » Wed, Jan 06, 2021, 4:36 PM UTC

I think we have a thread about software interviews every week, with the same discussion topics. Isn't this a problem solved by technical certifications? I mean, if the Top 100 companies do the same tests over and over again, with a very similar mindset and process, why not delegate that to a third-party? Then you just hire people that have Certification X, which matches your lust of algorithmic puzzles or whatever.

I'm fine with meaningless tests that don't prove anything, as long as I don't have to do them for every single interview. I would gladly study for a certification, because it means I get to do it once and then I can prove everything you want me to prove in order to get a job to change button positioning.

Re: Facebook senior software engineer interview

#128

Post by volkk » Wed, Jan 06, 2021, 4:36 PM UTC

Kaizeras wrote: post #73

Most of the people I know who did competitive programming in high school spent a just a few evenings preparing for FAANG interviews and still got offers in the end. I have the feeling that all the bitterness towards this interview process comes from people who refuse to do the initial investment of time to learn the foundation for solving coding challenges. Once you go through and understand a few hundred coding chal…

You're taking a personal feeling and extrapolating onto others. Not everybody finds sitting on leetcode 3 hours a day a fun task. I'm one of those people. It's absolutely mind numbing.

A few hundred coding challenges is months and months of preparation if you're actually trying to internalize everything very well. Kudos to those who can do it and have the willpower to, but I can't seem to get past 3 weeks tops before my body starts physically rejecting these problems.

It also seems to skew towards recent grads and single people that can spend all of that time on these problems.

Re: Facebook senior software engineer interview

#129

Post by fred_is_fred » Wed, Jan 06, 2021, 4:36 PM UTC

Interviewing at some of these companies has become less about skill and more about having an abundance of time free from other responsibilities (work, family, etc). Perhaps that's the selection criteria intended since it indicates ability to work long hours?

Re: Facebook senior software engineer interview

#130

Post by LordHumungous » Wed, Jan 06, 2021, 4:37 PM UTC

Leetcode problems are good because they select for people who are willing to put in the hours to get good at them. Aka, hard workers. Above all else, what predicts success at a job is work ethic. This is even more true at FAANG.