The dystopian world of software engineering interviews • Hacker News Board

Re: The dystopian world of software engineering interviews

#231

Post by Retric » Sat, Feb 15, 2020, 2:06 AM UTC

paxys wrote: post #115

ideal0227 wrote: post #90

When my classmates were preparing interview coding questions, I was working on a mini TCP implementation and a toy kernel. AWS rejected me since I failed to write prefect code to traverse a tree in level order. Google did not even give me an interview since I told the campus recruiter I have not prepared for the coding questions. Then I ended up with an internship at CoreOS and created etcd. I am glad that they did n…

Hah! Reminds me of https://twitter.com/mxcl/status/608682016205344768 . Cynical answer though — Google does not want people like you. They don't want to hire entrepreneurs or inventors. They want people who can churn out code when given specific instructions, and that is what their interview process optimizes for.

Reading posts like that make the process seem stupid, but it has utility for the interviewers. All of this silliness is creating an artificial talent shortage which drives up salaries at FANG companies.

It’s far from universal, but the incentives between managers, workers, and shareholders never really align that well.

Re: The dystopian world of software engineering interviews

#232

Post by tanilama » Sat, Feb 15, 2020, 2:06 AM UTC

I mean looking at the author's resume, it looks like he is mainly focused on machine learning domain, where the hiring is tight. Yes, in ML top 5% candidates are sought after like there is no tomorrow, but there is barely anything left for the left 95% of candidates.

So here is my advice. For your first job, and as a newbie, be accommodating. When I was out-of-college, I thought Java is no fun and is only for old people, I am functional and cool. And the job scene is just a hammer right on my head. So brush up my Java knowledge like in 2 weeks, and putting Java everywhere on my resume. Get a job pretty quickly.

Now I have experience, and don't have to bundle myself as Java programmer anymore. But that is only after I have grown from that early experience.

So again, be accommodating, get a job first and everything else can be figured out more easily.

Re: The dystopian world of software engineering interviews

#233

Post by Cu3PO42 » Sat, Feb 15, 2020, 2:06 AM UTC

gonehome wrote: post #220

Cu3PO42 wrote: post #210

Earlier quoted context omitted.

ARM, for example? But let's assume for a second that the only relevant companies are US-based. A lot of them also hire in other countries and it is my understanding that compensation isn't what it is in the US either.

I think American companies generally do have a lot better comp in places like London compared to the non American software companies there. I’m not 100% sure - I have less insight into this.

I can't speak to the job market in the UK, but in Germany there doesn't seem to be a great difference based on anecdotal evidence from friends. There's absolutely a chance this is incorrect as well, because discussing wages is still somewhat against societal norms here (which is stupid in my opinion).

Re: The dystopian world of software engineering interviews

#234

Post by amznthrowaway5 » Sat, Feb 15, 2020, 2:06 AM UTC

starpilot wrote: post #138

MAGZine wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Google might not need you to code some efficient algorithm to search a b-tree every day, but they pay top dollar and can rightly expect that their software engineers can come up with efficient and creative solutions to hard problems without dragging the rest of their team down. This is a non-sequitur. Being able to write good software has nothing to do with reading cracking the coding interview and practicing leetc…

Google has strong data that it does predict job performance, better than GPA, college degree and so on. What are your aggregate data showing that Google is wrong on this?

What is "job performance"? I assume job performance in this case means getting promotions or good reviews. How well correlated are promotions to actual ability? In my experience they are mostly just political.

Re: The dystopian world of software engineering interviews

#235

Post by city41 » Sat, Feb 15, 2020, 2:07 AM UTC

salixrosa wrote: post #173

vqc wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What kind of house is a reasonable house for $2.5M?

It's always... interesting... To look at SF on Zillow. There are a few nice-looking options in the ~1.5M range, mostly foreclosures, and it seems mostly in not-so-great areas. I don't know if there are any great areas in SF proper though.

FAANG has a much larger presence in Silicon Valley than SF. SF is more biased towards startups. Although it’s true all the major tech companies have SF shuttles.

San Jose’s median house price is $1.2 million. A million will get you a quality ranch.

(I fully appreciate the ridiculousness of presenting a million as “affordable”)

Re: The dystopian world of software engineering interviews

#236

Post by Terr_ » Sat, Feb 15, 2020, 2:07 AM UTC

JMTQp8lwXL wrote: post #148

codingslave wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People are completing 500+ problems on leetcode before heading into interviews at google. Don't believe me? Go read the teamblind forums. People might spend six months studying, after which they pass a bunch of interviews and get good comp. Getting just one offer from a FAANG company often doesnt pay well enough, you need multiple competing ones. If you think this has anything to do with incompetent people complainin…

I'm imagining it's going to bite these people on the backend later in life when they sacrificed everything for their careers and potentially missed other major life milestones: cultivating a relationship, starting a family, etc. I know not everyone spends 6 months getting into Google, but there are so many other companies that will take you without 6 months of preparation. If career is the only thing that gives you m…

Pfft, that's nothing, I can miss those milestones and get mediocre pay!

Re: The dystopian world of software engineering interviews

#237

Post by fourmyle » Sat, Feb 15, 2020, 2:08 AM UTC

JMTQp8lwXL wrote: post #214

fourmyle wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I used to think that until I heard of people with far less experience than me getting paid $400k total comp at these places because they can ace the interview and get competing options. That's worth putting 6 months of work in.

Yeah, once you're in, it's cushy, for sure. But that's not the full story. You're likely going to have to move to the bay area to make $400k kind of money. Are you willing to forego living near family, friends? Plenty of people do, but time gets more valuable when you have less of it left.

I already live in the Bay Area and have for 8 years. Startups pay half of what big tech pays once you factor in the stock that is liquid.

Re: The dystopian world of software engineering interviews

#238

Post by ros65536 » Sat, Feb 15, 2020, 2:08 AM UTC

samkater wrote: post #37

proximitysauce wrote: post #3

In addition to all of the very dystopian examples given in this post, there are other non-technical, super-dystopian things that have been popping up as "trends" in the tech industry. Ever heard of top-grading? It's the most oppressive interview technique of all time. A series of grueling multi-person interviews. A retrospective of all work experiences since high school . You also have to get multiple prior employers…

Also other trends that, thankfully in my experience, have not yet made their way to tech. I suspect it is only a matter of time, though... A lot of non-technical positions I have seen and heard about (including non entry-level positions) require a video of the candidate to describe themselves and why they would be a good fit for the position. That just sounds awful to me.

I've had that exact thing happen to me once, and it was for a developer internship position no less. This type of stuff might be coming, at least where I am currently.

Re: The dystopian world of software engineering interviews

#239

Post by city41 » Sat, Feb 15, 2020, 2:09 AM UTC

aidenn0 wrote: post #147

mullingitover wrote: post #32

I honestly don't know why anyone gives FAANG recruiters the time of day anymore. I have yet to meet anyone who feels good about the prospect of working for them, anyone who works there who's super proud of their mission, and the competitors who are looking to hire at that level of talent pay roughly similar wages from what I've seen. My advice for this poor kid is to look around at startups and do more networking. FA…

I looked into moving to the bay area and FAANG were the only companies paying sufficiently high wages for me to break even after the difference in my mortgage payments. I don't want to work for FAANG, so I didn't move.

There is a lot of truth to this. Once you commit to FAANG, you need to stay within FAANG to maintain your quality of life.

Re: The dystopian world of software engineering interviews

#240

Post by Solar19 » Sat, Feb 15, 2020, 2:09 AM UTC

The potential red flag in this account was Jared interrupting the interviewer who was asking a question that mentioned microservices to say that he had no experience in microservices.

Why did he interrupt the interviewer? And why interject that he had no experience in microservices? So what? You can still tackle a question that mentions microservices...

It's not like one's programming skills are useless for questions that merely mention an architecture you haven't officially worked with before. It's very strange to me that he interrupted that way, for that reason, and it makes me wonder if he acted similarly in other interviews. If his attitude is that he shouldn't have to answer questions about architectures and technologies not specified in his resume, that wouldn't go well.

Also, there's a lot of hype and looseness around the term "microservices" these days. You might have worked with what some people call microservices without knowing it. All the more reason not to cut off the question.