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Facebook senior software engineer interview

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Re: Facebook senior software engineer interview

#191

Post by Philip-J-Fry »

mrits wrote: post #85
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…

"But why?" Because most people can't. And they want to make sure you can.

If you can describe an acceptable algorithm with enough detail in words, you can code it.

If some guy had a good employment history, maybe a GitHub with some examples of their skills and described an algorithm to me... Why would I doubt their ability to write it in code?

Re: Facebook senior software engineer interview

#192

Post by LordHumungous »

nilkn wrote: post #140

You can simplify the coding preparation by just getting a basic LeetCode subscription, filtering down to problems asked at Facebook in the last six months, and then sorting by frequency (how many times each question has been asked recently, according to user reports). CLRS, etc., are nice books, but if you're seriously considering a senior role at Facebook presumably you already know the basics and just need to memor…

Yep, most of their questions are straight out of leetcode.

Re: Facebook senior software engineer interview

#193

Post by engineeringwoke »

rektide wrote: post #74
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…

I'm quite sympathetic. I think there's a huge domain of experiences that engineers bring with them. However, I also see some wisdom here. I still don't full agree with it, but I see some sense too. These are core skills for an undergraduate Computer Science degree. They represent the bulk of our abstract knowledge of how to compute well, how to think about & break down problems. Without proficiency here, a coder risk…

> Without proficiency here, a coder risks creating potentially dangerously inefficient solutions, that, at Facebook's scale, may well literally cost the company millions of dollars in server costs, or which could make the difference between a successful on-time positive-PR roll-out, & a failed highly-negative public-relations roll-out.

This is a common refrain, but juniors and mid-levels don't work on stuff like this at FAANG. If there's anything those guys are good at, it's making sure that you don't have too many cooks in the kitchen. Interviews like these don't find cooks, which is somewhat the point.

Re: Facebook senior software engineer interview

#194

Post by spoonjim »

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…

FB pays astronomically well. You don’t have to work there, but if you do, this is what you have to do. Saying that it creates a “monoculture” is like saying that soccer teams only hiring people who can run this fast, jump this high, and kick the ball this hard get to be on the team. Sure, they might miss the occasional great talent who is unathletic but has some great gift for the game, but it’s not a bad set of hiring standards for the task at hand.

Re: Facebook senior software engineer interview

#195

Post by Kranar »

sombremesa wrote: post #72
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…

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.

I can't speak for Harvard, but in the vast majority of the world, going to college is strictly on the basis of entrance exams, with some countries also using high school grades, nothing more.

This is done to avoid bias and/or favoritism. I am not an expert in U.S. admissions but my understanding is that they give points for things like whether your parents are alumni or have donated, whether you play sports, whether you were school "president" or other tests of popularity, and a host of things that in my opinion are pretty poor indicators of whether one should be admitted.

Re: Facebook senior software engineer interview

#196

Post by mathattack »

gamerDude wrote: post #68
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…

My ex girlfriend is a pediatric cardiologist who recently passed her boards. When I talked to her about it, she was very much on the side that she wished she didn't have to study for it because it didn't have much to do with her job at all. She just wished she could spend her time getting better at the skills she actually used rather than a wide range of academic material that didn't matter to her day to day. Her fri…

Is it that they need to create some objective barrier to entry?

Re: Facebook senior software engineer interview

#197

Post by croo »

mrits wrote: post #85
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…

"But why?" Because most people can't. And they want to make sure you can.

Exactly this.

I interviewed lots of people for a small company and multiple times I became convinced the person across a table would be a good hire (based on past work experience and soft talk) only to see them bleed to death on the first technical question. Demonstration of technical skill is absolutely crucial for an interview.

Personally I don't care about pseudo code vs real or syntax errors, but the price of a bad hire is much higher than a few more questions or round for a candidate. Also FAANG will always have enough senior CV on their desk to miss a few good hire...

Re: Facebook senior software engineer interview

#198

Post by notacoward »

crorella wrote: post #86
NeverFade wrote: post #7

Besides the usual advice, this observation is very interesting: > Applying for senior engineering positions (>E4) in FANG companies is one of the best ways to get into them. This comment by a veteran senior engineer confirms to me that Facebook, just like most other FANGs, does a poor job of promoting from within. There are multiple comments to the same effect from many other FANG employees: It's much easier to get r…

This is a major issue that causes major frustrations to the people working on such companies.

It's worth noting that Facebook has a separate recruiting team for higher-level hires, starting at either IC5 or (more likely) IC6. In any case I know because it included me. From what I can tell, hiring at IC7 and above is so hard that the process for most candidates deviates in some way from what's usually described. I saw some really great hires (that might otherwise not have happened) that way, and some that were ... less great. Basically it increases the variance that the standard process is constructed to minimize at lower grades.

Re: Facebook senior software engineer interview

#199

Post by chillacy »

jonnypotty wrote: post #150

I'm not interested as I think it would be hypocritical and immoral for me to persue a job at Facebook. Considering Facebooks current issues I'd be interested how people would justify this career path to themselves. It's like wanting to sign up for the UK armed forces in the middle of the Iraq war. Like, it's a really bad idea. What are your principle, are they summed up as "I want as much money as possible and who ca…

Some people probably _did_ sign up for the armed forces in the middle of the Iraq war. Not that I agree with them, but they probably saw themselves as patriots. Sometimes people just have different morals, try speaking to people who work in the MIC and you’ll notice that they all think they’re doing good.

Re: Facebook senior software engineer interview

#200

Post by burnthrow »

xR63cRyqrL wrote: post #101
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.

Turns out you got to pay bills even if you are on a moral high horse. Besides if one has to have a clear conscience to match everyone's standard here, one should stop working at FAANG, stop using FAANG products, maybe stop using big oil products, stop using big pharma products, is it ok to pay taxes to a govt if you don't agree with something they did or should one pick up and move too? what else did I miss? HN is so…

Give me a break, a job with Facebook isn't the only one that pays the bills.
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