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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

#211

Post by matz1 »

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…

Simply not all people share the same concern, I certainly do not. I honestly care more about the money/benefit.

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

#212

Post by somethingle234 »

randcraw wrote: post #122
SamReidHughes wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because Facebook makes one of the most useful pieces of software for everyday people. It's not a "destructive" product.

Many in Myanmar and Philippines might disagree. Facebook Admits It Was Used to Incite Violence in Myanmar https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/06/technology/myanmar-facebo... What Happens When the Government Uses Facebook as a Weapon? https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2017-12-07/how-rodri...

I'm really bored at this Myanmar narrative.

Let's get this straight: The Myanmar government and the majority (probably) of Myanmar people hate Rohingya.

There's no way Facebook can prevent the violence.

And It's just ironic that nobody blames the Myanmar government and the majority of Myanmar people.

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

#213

Post by FranzFerdiNaN »

matz1 wrote: post #169
odorousrex wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 often think what would Google/Facebook would be like if they hired in some experienced engineers that may not be able to whiteboard a BFS tree or can tell you Djikstra's algorithm, but have proven business track records of getting proje…

These company simply want the best of the best. They want people who can whiteboard BFS tree AND also have proven business track records, yada yada. Not just either one of this.

Shame they only test for one of those though. So I doubt they want the best. They want people who can pass arbitrary interviews.

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

#214

Post by CydeWeys »

fokinsean wrote: post #88
Cookingboy wrote: post #61

As someone who has interviewed with 3 of those 6 companies and gotten offers from all 3, I think the best way to approach these interviews is to not walk in with the mentality that it's a one sided "test" where you are put on a spot to defend yourself. In reality it's more often than not a role-playing exercise where you are pretending to be coworkers trying to solve problems together. Sure you'd be the one leading t…

> Out of these companies Google felt most impersonal and "test like" I had this same experience too. I went through the 4 technical interviews onsite which were all whiteboard problems. Not once did we actually talk about my past experience or rather anything software engineering related. Unfortunately(?) I didn't receive an offer despite making it to the hiring committee. Two weeks later they called me back and want…

I've found that I get a lot more signal out of asking people to actually solve a problem by writing a program than by asking them about past experience. Hence I spend most of the interview time on the former. It's surprisingly common for people to be able to talk about something in a way that sounds impressive, but then after seeing their actual coding skills you realize they were likely not a star performer on the team and were just summarizing the work that others mostly did (which they understood well enough to talk about but likely not to have done). Like, it's easy enough to learn one really kick-ass rock song on guitar, but it's another thing entirely to have written said song.

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

#215

Post by abledon »

honkycat wrote: post #104

I've always been curious about working at one of these companies. I believe if I set the goal of getting hired at one of these places, I would probably be able to get a job: - 10 years professional programming experience - half-life, Quake, Starcraft, Warcraft II modding experience growing up - Avid reader ( ~50+ books/yr ) - tons of self practice and continuing education. I just like learning new things and find pro…

we all have time and energy. Time passes us by equally for everyone but its our choice how we spend our energy.

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

#216

Post by aphextron »

rachelbythebay wrote: post #44
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…

Programmer distillation. Companies need to admit that only trying to hire a single type of person is not going to work. It's just like with petroleum: there's nothing wrong with the other products you get from the mix. You just have to appreciate what there is and make the most of it. I bet you're quite good at something (perhaps multiple things), but they don't value it. Their loss. I'm glad you found something that…

>Programmer distillation.

That's a great way of putting it. Hard to see any other explanation.

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

#217

Post by Jach »

Permit wrote: post #131
rachelbythebay wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Programmer distillation. Companies need to admit that only trying to hire a single type of person is not going to work. It's just like with petroleum: there's nothing wrong with the other products you get from the mix. You just have to appreciate what there is and make the most of it. I bet you're quite good at something (perhaps multiple things), but they don't value it. Their loss. I'm glad you found something that…

> Companies need to admit that only trying to hire a single type of person is not going to work. Why? It's not so clear to me that it's not working right now. These companies seem to be doing completely fine. If hiring programmers who aren't good at programming puzzles is a competitive edge, I would expect to see other companies hiring these programmers and succeeding. It seems more likely to me that there is (at mos…

It's really hard to argue with money printing machines that anything they're doing now is wrong. I don't even want to bother much myself if I can help it... Sure, maybe if they changed some things they could print money a tiny bit faster, or set themselves up to survive the next phase of the economy in some years when it's no longer so easy to print money (lots of companies die over ~15 years, which also corresponds to the global economy's doubling rate...). But also any change has an element of risk, so the money printing could slow down or put it in a worse long-term position. When something is working great right now, you're reasonably going to be more risk-adverse about changing things.

We do see other companies hiring differently, and being rewarded in the market, in part, for it. Most of the time it's a marginal reward. Sometimes though we get a new FAANG, staffed by people who wouldn't have made it through FAANG's ringers.

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

#219

Post by bogomipz »

randcraw wrote: post #122
SamReidHughes wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because Facebook makes one of the most useful pieces of software for everyday people. It's not a "destructive" product.

Many in Myanmar and Philippines might disagree. Facebook Admits It Was Used to Incite Violence in Myanmar https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/06/technology/myanmar-facebo... What Happens When the Government Uses Facebook as a Weapon? https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2017-12-07/how-rodri...

And the violence in Sri Lanka last spring is also worth mentioning.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/may/05/facebo...

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

#220

Post by ghaff »

dekhn wrote: post #155
quickthrower2 wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

BFS is common sense. It’s what you use when you’ve lost your car keys for example. Quickly check each room in the house, then if no luck go one layer deeper in each room.

uh, I thoroughly search each room, starting at the left corner and recursively iterating via a hilbert curve. doesn't everybody?

Two different approaches. Each have their adherents. But when someone can’t find their phone or keys that that just had, they probably don’t start by ripping one room apart top to bottom.
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