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I interviewed at six top companies in Silicon Valley in six days

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Re: I interviewed at six top companies in Silicon Valley in six days

#201

Post by scarejunba »

sigstoat wrote: post #168
andrewla wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The technical interviewing scheme is not great, but I haven't seen another system that works. > I cannot help but think that these big tech companies (FAANG, et. al) are missing out on diversifying and increasing their engineering expertise by passing over developers like you. I think this is certainly true. > I often think what would Google/Facebook would be like if they hired in some experienced engineers that may…

> Practically speaking, FAANG companies do hire such individuals, they just do it through acqui-hires. there's a huge pool of employees that are in companies which aren't potential acquisition targets. > Well... how do we find these people? By looking at their resumes where they claim this? By contacting references who will attest to it? internal references? if you've got a couple of internal folks who are doing good…

> internal references? if you've got a couple of internal folks who are doing good work, and they all worked with and vouch for old bob, maybe that's better than anything you're going to find out from At big companies this is hard to scale because you have to protect against nepotism at the top layer. This forces policies protecting against the bad outcome.

At small companies this does happen.

Re: I interviewed at six top companies in Silicon Valley in six days

#202

Post by lhorie »

x220 wrote: post #84
decebalus1 wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I'm reading this as a guy with a wife, kids, full-time job, and rusty whiteboarding skills yeah, well these companies don't want you. I mean they do but they need to make sure you have the same availability as a college hire. One way of checking that is to have you block time like that for a while.

Not sure why you're being downvoted. You're right. These companies like workers who have no other responsibilities in their lives except their jobs. Edit: single men and exceptions to the rule, please keep downvoting me.

Eh, that's borderline conspiratory. I work at one of those companies and know for a fact that many coworkers have kids and sometimes have to leave early or get in late due to kids' doctor appointments and whatnot.

Besides, in addition for it being illegal to discriminate candidates based on marital status, in my experience nobody that does interviews ever thinks of considering that as a hiring criteria.

Re: I interviewed at six top companies in Silicon Valley in six days

#203

Post by rhizome »

m0zg wrote: post #194
hodgesrm wrote: post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The role of Facebook in events like the Rohingya persecutions is a lot harder to write off than opinions about US electoral results. [0] There is a good argument that Facebook--like many--failed to foresee the misuse of social networks but for business reasons then failed to act on that knowledge once it became more obvious. [0] https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/15/technology/myanmar-facebo...

That's not an argument against FB per se. That's an argument against anything social-network-like in general, because there's nothing that makes FB uniquely suitable. If anything, because of its vast resources and investment in AI, FB is better positioned to respond to adversarial use.

>That's an argument against anything social-network-like in general, because there's nothing that makes FB uniquely suitable.

Then why did they choose FB when there are so many other group-chat type websites out there? I mean, Friendster is still around, or LinkedIn, or...

Re: I interviewed at six top companies in Silicon Valley in six days

#204

Post by yonibot »

mav3rick wrote: post #170
andrewla wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The technical interviewing scheme is not great, but I haven't seen another system that works. > I cannot help but think that these big tech companies (FAANG, et. al) are missing out on diversifying and increasing their engineering expertise by passing over developers like you. I think this is certainly true. > I often think what would Google/Facebook would be like if they hired in some experienced engineers that may…

Many acqui hires get interviewed again. Most acqui hires are a business deal for the company's business.

This is correct.

Re: I interviewed at six top companies in Silicon Valley in six days

#205

Post by AmericanChopper »

ForrestN wrote: post #10

I find it shocking that Facebook would still be considered as a peer to these other companies in terms of desirability as an employer. I would only accept a position at Facebook, which seems to be building a fundamentally destructive product while going out of its way to behave unethically in many dimensions, if it was an absolutely last resort to pay the medical bills of some dying loved one or something. Why would…

>Facebook, which seems to be building a fundamentally destructive product while going out of its way to behave unethically

You could say the same thing about google, who are better at invading people’s privacy, and controlling the information they consume. The rest of them could also be seen as ethically objectionable in one way or another.

If you’re considering the sophistication of their engineering, and the benefits and remuneration you receive, then they’re very comparable. If you’re evaluating them ethically, then which ones are better will come down entirely to what you value as an individual, because each of them could receive some perfectly valid criticisms.

Re: I interviewed at six top companies in Silicon Valley in six days

#206

Post by behringer »

guessmyname wrote: post #9

> If it’s of any use: I was interviewing for my second job out of college with about two and a half years of experience without any particularly notable internships or employers on my resume; I went to a very small school that had zero known software companies at their “career fair”; I started preparing in late April and started applying in June/July; and, lastly, a few months in, my job is everything I could have po…

If you want my opinion, these companies aren't looking for awesome talent. They're looking for people who will put up with their schedules, demands, management. They don't want creative thinkers with experience in multiple fields. They're looking for one-trick ponies that will do what their told and will be happy to get stabled by 40.

You're better off following your own path and making your own things happen.

Re: I interviewed at six top companies in Silicon Valley in six days

#207

Post by jarjoura »

markdoubleyou wrote: post #12

"After about a month of consistently practicing problems each day (maybe 2–3 hours/day, more on weekends)..." I'm reading this as a guy with a wife, kids, full-time job, and rusty whiteboarding skills. My inability to make this kind of time investment makes me feel trapped at my current position.

Not really sure what the point of your comment is? Are you asking the NH community to feel sorry for you? You made some life choices about what's important to you and that's great. The OP made their life choices and decided to study and work their way into on those companies.

Besides that, I work with plenty of people who are married with kids. Sure, at the end of the day, there's some amount of luck, but they didn't get in because someone felt sorry for them.

Re: I interviewed at six top companies in Silicon Valley in six days

#208

Post by kamarg »

hungryhobo wrote: post #144
ojr wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The creator of ruby on rails wouldn't pass a whiteboard interview. Ruby on Rails had more of an impact at Twitter, Github, Airbnb than BFS is my guess DHH's tweet https://twitter.com/dhh/status/1085987159406927872

i mean if had to choose between no graph theory vs no ruby on rails...i would probably go with no ruby on rails

What if you had to choose between someone with a proven track record of building high quality software used by millions of people who has also shown they're capable of leading groups of people in successful projects but hasn't memorized the specific algorithm you asked about and another candidate who doesn't have as good of a track record but can totally nail that easy algorithm you asked for?

Edit: Typos.

Re: I interviewed at six top companies in Silicon Valley in six days

#210

Post by drugme »

deegles wrote: post #174
drugme wrote: post #70

It is critical, in my opinion, to either whiteboard problems with someone or mock a phone interview with someone. Not critical as in “very important”, but critical as in you should consider it an absolute requirement when studying. Which would seem to further substantiate the observation that the modern interview process seems to be (strongly) calibrated not towards finding folks who are good at real-life problem-sol…

Isn't the author doing the rational thing though? If I knew ahead of time that BigTechCo's final interview would be a test of my juggling skills, I would definitely spend hours honing my juggling. Whether or not it's an appropriate measure of my skill as an engineer is irrelevant to my goal of "getting a job at BigTechCo"

Oh sure -- once we realize that these are (at beast) minimally overlapping goals --

it all become infinitely easier to swallow and manage.

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