Facebook senior software engineer interview • Hacker News Board

Re: Facebook senior software engineer interview

#151

Post by est31 » Wed, Jan 06, 2021, 4:50 PM UTC

limaoscarjuliet wrote: post #143

blisterpeanuts wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I am often on the other side interviewing the candidates for company I work for. For junior positions we do ask them to write some simple code e.g. matching parentheses or the like. It makes it very clear how much experience writing code given candidate has - typing speed, how they move around source file, even if they can seamlessly copy paste their code, etc., are all very telling.

> how they move around source file, even if they can seamlessly copy paste their code, etc., are all very telling.

This reminds me of the test for cooks. Make them slice up some fruit or vegetable. If you have worked in kitchens for years, you can do it really quickly. Fast and easy test, and nothing to prepare weeks or months for.

Re: Facebook senior software engineer interview

#152

Post by shiohime » Wed, Jan 06, 2021, 4:51 PM UTC

Posts like this remind me immediately why I stopped bothering to apply for software jobs at other companies and stayed at my current place of employment to climb the ladder. The interview process is almost universally terrible and consistently tests you on a nearly useless subset of computer science that doesn't correlate well to actual implementation practices in the event you are hired. It really is a painful process, and probably needlessly so for most cases.

Re: Facebook senior software engineer interview

#153

Post by EForEndeavour » Wed, Jan 06, 2021, 4:52 PM UTC

sfashset wrote: post #117

blisterpeanuts wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

If you're the one copy pasting code, aren't you the cookie cutter software engineer?

They didn't say they copy-paste code. They pointed out that the algorithm's actual code could very easily be copy-pasted from, e.g., Stack Overflow, without deeply understanding it. By contrast, describing an algorithm in natural language demonstrates actual understanding.

Re: Facebook senior software engineer interview

#154

Post by izacus » Wed, Jan 06, 2021, 4:52 PM UTC

LandR wrote: post #30

How can anyone work at Facebooks nowadays and have a clear conscience. Is it just the salary? It is, isn't it? Just money. How depressing.

Did the current political situation in US (and most of the world) not teach you that it's really really dangerous to think that most people in your environment conform to your morality and agree with the sources you're basing it from?

Re: Facebook senior software engineer interview

#155

Post by objclxt » Wed, Jan 06, 2021, 4:53 PM UTC

This definitely isn't the only post you'll need to read, because it doesn't talk at all about the behavioural interview. Which at Facebook is actually one of the most important factors in terms of job levelling.

The more senior a level you're aiming for the more important the behavioural interview becomes (because the less the job becomes about pure technical skill, and the more it becomes about people).

Unfortunately - or fortunately, depending on your perspective - the behavioural is also one of the harder interviews to prepare for.

Re: Facebook senior software engineer interview

#156

Post by pseudalopex » Wed, Jan 06, 2021, 4:53 PM UTC

drchopchop wrote: post #38

hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Agreed, just because you're a senior engineer with decades of experience doesn't mean you shouldn't brush up on general fundamentals every once in a while. Leetcode, while being pretty useless in the real world, does get your brain into "answer hard questions under pressure" mode. Systems design questions prompt you to architect things which may be considerably different than you deal with during your day-to-day. Pre…

The interview pressures and the job pressures are completely different.

Re: Facebook senior software engineer interview

#157

Post by codingdave » Wed, Jan 06, 2021, 4:53 PM UTC

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…

> Maybe these things are meant to be a proxy for how good you are at other development task

They are also a proxy for how hard you are willing to work to join them. I don't find that a useful metric as it implies a huge power imbalance in their minds... nevertheless, sometimes hiring processes make you jump through hoops just to prove that you are willing to do so.

Re: Facebook senior software engineer interview

#158

Post by jordan_curve » Wed, Jan 06, 2021, 4:54 PM UTC

logicchains wrote: post #17

hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

>in most cases doctors have many, many thousands of hours under their belt in training before still needing to study a ton to pass their boards The difference is that what the doctors put so much time into learning can actually be quite useful for their job. The vast majority of competitive coding stuff isn't. Interview procedures based around it completely fail to assess some of the most important abilities in softw…

The content of the boards exam is actually quite comparable to the content of these interviews. They both cover general knowledge and fundamental concepts that very few working programmers or doctors will ever use, but absolutely should know.

Re: Facebook senior software engineer interview

#159

Post by fsociety » Wed, Jan 06, 2021, 4:54 PM UTC

BowBun wrote: post #63

logicchains wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>in most cases doctors have many, many thousands of hours under their belt in training before still needing to study a ton to pass their boards The difference is that what the doctors put so much time into learning can actually be quite useful for their job. The vast majority of competitive coding stuff isn't. Interview procedures based around it completely fail to assess some of the most important abilities in softw…

I tend to be on your side of the fence but I have to nitpick your argument: At these companies, algorithms and the basics are fundamentally important. Because you tend to work on tiny parts of a massive whole, there is no tolerance for cowboy-coding and not following best-practices. IMO the interviews test that you can fall in line and follow the patterns that have been in place for decades. With regards to using API…

Overall I agree with your point, I just wanted to add that my experience with small startup vs FAANG is that it was the opposite experience for me.

Small startup involved wearing many hats, but in general was a more specialized role than FAANG.

FAANG was significantly more breadth than startup (and why I’d say it’s a great experience for beginners to gain a breadth of knowledge).

I could see how some teams are very specialized in FAANG however.

Re: Facebook senior software engineer interview

#160

Post by dec0dedab0de » Wed, Jan 06, 2021, 4:55 PM UTC

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…

that's a hell of a time investment if you're not planning to stay at FB for a long time.

I think that right there is a good enough reason for them to do it. They probably want to weed out anyone that is not planning on staying for a long time. In general, I imagine the more applicants you have, the more difficult you have to make it to get through.