181–190 of 224 posts
I’ve been rejected 5 times from Google. And yet every year like clockwork they email me again asking to interview. At this point I just say yes every couple of years and try again because why not. I think I do well enough to deserve a call-back but never good enough to get hired (I made it to the hiring committee though).
Just got off a FB phone screen which I think I failed. Only got through one question, and even that required assistance from the interviewer. My understanding is that if you don't finish two problems, you're doomed. Spent the past week basically taking time off from work to do leetcode problems nonstop. Too bad it didn't help. Third time failing at FB. First time failed the phone screen in 2018. Passed phone screen l…
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Maybe in the hope that the interview would reflect the actual work that needs to be done, which my education and previous work experience have prepared me very well for. Then I'm happy to prepare for the interview in the sense that I try to learn as much as possible about the company and the people I'm going to meet.
Copying this response from my older comment: The rampup at FAANG can be brutal and you'd be doing lots of learning even after getting in. The leetcode style interviews are designed to select people capable of studying and materialising broad problems in depth and scope under time constraints. They are also objective and can't really be faked nor you can talk your way in like in most banking/finance IT jobs. I was of…
Edit: Anecdote time. The best interview I ever had was for my current job. It was a hour long where they gave me 1 design problem to solve. It was an open problem but the interviewer kept introducing new information. "Lets say the speed of stage cannot exceed x", "what if the wafer cannot take the stresses you will generate?", etc. I think that showed both my design thinking and the ability to assimilate new information in my mental model.
I’ve been incredibly fortunate to have few rejections in my career. Off the top of my head: - Google (the feeling was mutual) - GitHub, if you count no response as a rejection - I likely would have been rejected by Microsoft, but I ended the interview early That said, I’ve been even more fortunate to have established great working relationships with peers, mentors and mentees, which has helped me get all but my first…
I wish I had the balls to do that. I mean sometimes u just know you bombed and there's no going back, like 30 minutes into a bad date. You just know. Yet there I am going through the whole 1.5 hours sweating it. Why not just say : Hey guy, thanks for the opportunity. I think we both know this isn't going well for me, good luck! Actually this can work for bad dates as well!
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You think that’s unbelievable? Google and Facebook recruiters told everyone at my university they expected people to spend 2-3 months of several hours a day leetcode type practice before applying. This was said in a panel type "how to get a job at FAANG" seminar for graduating seniors, with actual Google/FB SWEs present, and all nodding in agreement that this is the norm.
I think it's definitely worth it for some people, at least financially. But many many others will study for months just to find out they can't make it no matter how much they prepare. I mean they accept how many - 2% of applicants? If you can look at it as a learning experience that's fine as well.
A gambling addiction is also something you get from (in)appropriate learning experiences.. I think Nordvig's view of programming and materials that fit a longer view of learning good style are likely to work against getting a job in this climate. You are more or less demonstrating your willingness to embrace the anti-patterns a company holds dear to the point that you could be stuck with them without even being considered for the job.
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It's so they can't fall in the hole, but who asks a question like that in an interview anyway? Was it a civil engineering role?
My immediate answer would be it is because it eliminates a constraint. Thus placement is easier if alignment is not a constraint. Do not see much of a value in this kind of question except for amusement of the interviewer and check if the person is wired differently.
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> You don't have to have an optimal solution first. The problem is that they still want that optimal solution in the 30 minutes given to you. There’s no point in thinking about it unless you already know what they are looking for. Whoever thought up that alghorithm the first time certainly didn’t do it in 30 minutes during an interview.
> The problem is that they still want that optimal solution in the 30 minutes given to you. This is only half true in my opinion. A lot of the interview questions I've gotten are pretty straightforward, for example given two lists of length M and N, brute force searching their product space is O(M*N), but if you sort one list the complexity reduces to O(NlogN + MlogN). I get the impression that the interviewer did ex…
There are many things which are easier for you but others take more time to do the same. This doesn't mean the person who does it within 30min is any better than the other who does the same in 2h.
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why do you expect to pass an interview without preparing for the interview?
I think you are genuinely curious. The point here is, people are confident that they can do the job, just can't pass the interview. The purpose of the interview is to select someone to do the job, not to pass the interview. "Preparing for the interview" is chasing the wrong KPI for both parties. Companies don't want someone who can pass the interview, they want someone who can do the job, they are not the same things…
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That is so similar to what happened to me, only I had graduated December 2006. So I had 1.5 years until it went south and got laid off. Luckily I had acquired a condo in that time at the market peak, so I had a place to lay awake at night and worry about how I'd pay the mortgage.
This right here is the goods... only thing that would make this better is if it was a variable interest mortgage
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Copying this response from my older comment: The rampup at FAANG can be brutal and you'd be doing lots of learning even after getting in. The leetcode style interviews are designed to select people capable of studying and materialising broad problems in depth and scope under time constraints. They are also objective and can't really be faked nor you can talk your way in like in most banking/finance IT jobs. I was of…
The assumption that leetcode is the only way to know if people have learning capabilities is weird. My job is a semi niche industry (semiconductor manufacturing equipment), most people who enter here need to go through a brutal ramp up. There are ways to assess learning ability without asking people to make interview preparation their part time job. Edit: Anecdote time. The best interview I ever had was for my curren…