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Facebook recruiting and Unix systems

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Re: Facebook recruiting and Unix systems

#171

Post by foo101 »

deathanatos wrote: post #161
foo101 wrote: post #130

Here are the facts about Unix. * The name "UNIX" or "Unix" is trademarked. * AIX, Solaris and HP-UX are certified Unix systems. These are bonafide Unix systems and there indeed are software developers today who work with these Unix systems.[2] * The set of Unix-like systems is a superset of the set of Unix systems. The set of Unix-like systems include systems like Linux, FreeBSD, etc. which the set of certified Unix…

If I quizzed engineers, what percentage of them do you think would get that exactly right? Prior to your post, I had myself thought — as Stanley seems to — think that Unix referred to the operating system by that name. I did not know that, > By decree of The Open Group, the term "UNIX" refers more to a class of operating systems than to a specific implementation of an operating system; those operating systems which m…

All I am saying is that when technology people like us are debating about terminology, we can cut the recruiter some slack, be nice to him or her and be more explicit in our communication to the recruiter.

For example, instead of responding to

"We are looking for experience in Linux and Unix"

with

"I have updated my resume with POSIX",

respond with the following instead assuming you indeed have real Unix experience with a system like Solaris,

"I have mentioned Linux and Unix more explicitly in my resume in the following manner: Debian (Linux), CentOS (Linux), Solaris (Unix) and FreeBSD (Unix-like).

Re: Facebook recruiting and Unix systems

#172

Post by throwaway76543 »

aspyrx wrote: post #154
samoright wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thank you for commenting here! I am curious. Can you be a little specific and tell us what Linux or Unix experience do you have? I mean can you specify the Linux distro names and the Unix brand names (AIX, Solaris, etc.) that you have worked with?

RE: Linux distros, I am familiar with Ubuntu, Debian, and Arch Linux. To some extent RHEL as well. RE: Unix (commercial brand names), none. It was my fault that I assumed the recruiter meant UNIX-like systems. I can claim experience with developing userland applications portable across POSIX-compliant systems, as well as some understanding of lower-level operating system concepts. However, to be honest it seems I am…

The recruiter did mean UNIX-like systems. There exists no useful set of experience which is common among pedantically defined "UNIX" and which excludes UNIX-like systems. The pedantic definition-lawyer type responses you've gotten are absurd.

A role might specifically require extensive AIX experience in particular -- and if it did you would say you needed "AIX experience" -- never some vague umbrella family of "UNIX experience."

It is entirely unbelievable that the requirements for this role would exclude your experience. Doubly so as they're recruiting from interns. Triply so if you know anything about Facebook engineering teams. "Production Engineer?" "Frontend Engineer?" At Facebook? Yeah, those teams run Linux.

ps: The folks telling you not to language lawyer are correct. But your initial assumption that the recruiter had made a dumb mistake was also correct.

Re: Facebook recruiting and Unix systems

#173

Post by foo101 »

tristor wrote: post #155
foo101 wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wrong: "Yep, I have UNIX experience!" Right: "Yep, I have Unix experience! I have worked on Solaris which is a bonafide Unix system. I also have experience with Unix-like systems like FreeBSD and Debian GNU/Linux."

Solaris and AIX /are/ UNIX. Solaris is derived from SunOS, which is derived from 4.2BSD, which was directly licensed by Sun from AT&T via a UNIX source license. Solaris and SunOS were both certified as UNIX. Similarly IBM licensed AT&T UNIX and derived AIX. It is still certified as UNIX. The Open Group holds the UNIX trademark and copyrights and conducts the certification and licensing process these days. See here: h…

> Solaris and AIX /are/ UNIX.

Did you read my comments carefully? I am saying the same thing as you are. I am saying that Solaris and AIX /are/ bonafide Unix systems in all my comments.

Re: Facebook recruiting and Unix systems

#175

Post by hohohmm »

The recruiter is an idiot who doesn't really know the hiring requirement of his/her employer, which is exactly the job he/she is supposed to do. Simple as that. I marvel at people who can spin it as the student's bad communication. Maybe you communicated your way to your current position? The recruiter is tasked with a job to find appropriate candidates, and is apparently failing. If it were to happen in my company I'll just fire the recruiter on the spot.

The lesson that should be learned: HR should have some technical background to do technical hiring.

Re: Facebook recruiting and Unix systems

#176

Post by speiestaaim0 »

Ad: we're looking for guitarists Candidate: I have experience with guitar like instruments Recruiter: can you play guitar? Candidate: as I explained, I have experience with guitar like instruments. I have played a couple of fretted string instruments. Recruiter: do you play guitar? .... ..

Re: Facebook recruiting and Unix systems

#177

Post by qaq »

aspyrx wrote: post #154
samoright wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thank you for commenting here! I am curious. Can you be a little specific and tell us what Linux or Unix experience do you have? I mean can you specify the Linux distro names and the Unix brand names (AIX, Solaris, etc.) that you have worked with?

RE: Linux distros, I am familiar with Ubuntu, Debian, and Arch Linux. To some extent RHEL as well. RE: Unix (commercial brand names), none. It was my fault that I assumed the recruiter meant UNIX-like systems. I can claim experience with developing userland applications portable across POSIX-compliant systems, as well as some understanding of lower-level operating system concepts. However, to be honest it seems I am…

As have being mentioned multiple times already OS X is certified UNIX (https://www.opengroup.org/openbrand/register/) so I am guessing you do have experience with UNIX.

Re: Facebook recruiting and Unix systems

#178

Post by chis »

aspyrx wrote: post #128

Hey folks, I'm the student writing the emails in the post here. Thanks to everyone for their criticisms. While I was initially kind of shocked by the recruiter's response, I've had a lot of time to think about it today and have realized that I was being pretty damn condescending and spoke out of line without regards to the context. It's been a hard lesson learned. I honestly regret the whole exchange, and posting it…

This follow-up shows a lot of maturity. Both sides are obviously at fault here, although you instigated it.

I suspect you could still get the internship if you send an apology like "Sorry for my previous emails they were out of line. You're essentially correct and here's an updated resume to reflect that."

Re: Facebook recruiting and Unix systems

#179

Post by gluggymug »

aspyrx wrote: post #128

Hey folks, I'm the student writing the emails in the post here. Thanks to everyone for their criticisms. While I was initially kind of shocked by the recruiter's response, I've had a lot of time to think about it today and have realized that I was being pretty damn condescending and spoke out of line without regards to the context. It's been a hard lesson learned. I honestly regret the whole exchange, and posting it…

If you are not an old fart like myself, you probably haven't used an actual Unix system but back in the days before the popularity of Linux, you'd see a lot of Solaris.

You stuck to your guns and didn't just lie about Unix experience, so I commend you.

But if you really want the job, next time just lie and set them straight once you've gotten an interview. It is splitting hairs to make a big deal out of actual Unix experience vs Linux experience.

Re: Facebook recruiting and Unix systems

#180

Post by tristor »

foo101 wrote: post #163
derenrich wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Eh, honestly I would've been similarly frustrated. The recruiter seems like they are being needlessly bureaucratic. Either they are familiar with Unix and thus should know that Unix-like is synonymous with Unix nowadays or they aren't and they should take your word. Maybe you were a little condescending but it happens and rejecting someone on the basis of this exchange seems mad to me. If FB doesn't reverse their dec…

Unix-like systems are not synonymous with Unix systems nowadays. * Solaris, HP-UX and AIX are Unix systems. * FreeBSD and Debian GNU/Linux are Unix-like systems but not Unix systems. When technology people like us are debating over this terminology, I think it makes sense to cut the recruiter some slack.

Solaris, HP-UX, AIX, and FreeBSD are all Unix systems. With the exception of FreeBSD they are all also UNIX, because other than FreeBSD the other three are commercial Unix OSes that have been certified and therefore hold a license to use the trademarked name UNIX.

Debian GNU/Linux is a Unix-like system because Linux is not Unix, but it is Unix-like and when combined with a GNU userland is POSIX compliant.

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