31–40 of 83 posts
I note he interviewed to a wider range of companies than just FAANGs (Booking, Databricks, etc), but ended up getting offers only from Amazon, Facebook, and Google. With no disrespect to Andrey, does that suggest they're actually easier to get into than the rest of the pack?
Anyone else a bit surprised by the shotgun-like application approach? I have learned from past mistakes to only apply for companies in which I think I will be happy doing what they do. I can't fathom applying to 400 different companies (but then again I also can't see myself wanting to work at FAANG)
Here I am, writing B2C applications, wondering, why after 8 years of professional programming, I never encountered the need for a "heap". Then I looked it up, read about it, and realized that I'm using it without naming it. I know it by the name of the special class I'm using in my language. I wonder if I would fail miserably in an interview, or if it just depends on the questions that are being asked in the domain I…
"Heap" has at least two meanings. Often when asked about "the heap", it's in the context of heap versus stack. "What's the difference between a heap-allocated object versus a stack-allocated object", or "what's the diffence between the heap and the stack"? That sometimes comes up in early phone screen interviews. Some languages don't have that distinction: Everything is heap-allocated. So it's understandable how you…
That's why part of me does not consider myself a programmer since I'm just building out applications/basic server admin but I'm not worrying about nLogN or memory management. Unless something is really just blatantly bad/noticable lag/bad performance. I only recently started to learn about BST but personally have not had to use it yet.
Harrowing stuff. I note he interviewed to a wider range of companies than just FAANGs (Booking, Databricks, etc), but ended up getting offers only from Amazon, Facebook, and Google. With no disrespect to Andrey, does that suggest they're actually easier to get into than the rest of the pack?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The article is about Europe. My total comp as an L5 at Amazon was about $75k, maybe up to $90k if you count the slowly vesting RSUs.
May I ask which country? This seems very low.
> Tip #7. It is OK to use the same story for all your interviews. Usually, a good life story covers several leadership principles they want to hear. I strongly advise against this, especially for Amazon. We read each other's notes in the debrief. If we all see the same story, questions arise about experience. Have some variety. If you think the same story will answer all questions, it had better be one hell of a stor…
> Tip #7. It is OK to use the same story for all your interviews. Usually, a good life story covers several leadership principles they want to hear. I strongly advise against this, especially for Amazon. We read each other's notes in the debrief. If we all see the same story, questions arise about experience. Have some variety. If you think the same story will answer all questions, it had better be one hell of a stor…
Often the interviewers ask variations of the same question. Variations of "What's your weak spot?", "Tell me about an example where you coached someone", "Walk me through an ethical dilemma you've had", "Why do you want to work here" and so on. Seems unfair to penalize for "same story" when there's "same question".
While the top 20% at FANG's probably do interesting stuff I think most of the people there don't do terribly interesting stuff. If you have to game the hiring process I don't think you'll expect to be in that 20% with the interesting work? So what is it with people wanting to work so badly for large / FANG companies? The money and perks?
The author is quite explicit in their post: "A natural question here is why only publicly trading companies? First, I had already tried working for small and medium-sized businesses, wanted to try what it feels like to work for a proper corporation at a proper corporation-sized scale "Second, I figured that a FAANG entry on my resume would act as a quality stamp, opening many doors in the future . "Third, I hoped tha…
There are other comparisons between the inner workings of the FAANG and Big 4, but I'll leave that for those in FAANG to make the comparisons.
Here I am, writing B2C applications, wondering, why after 8 years of professional programming, I never encountered the need for a "heap". Then I looked it up, read about it, and realized that I'm using it without naming it. I know it by the name of the special class I'm using in my language. I wonder if I would fail miserably in an interview, or if it just depends on the questions that are being asked in the domain I…
On interviews, I have the same fear as you. I know very little on the theory side of things (and don't have much of an interest to either), but I can get the job done. Maybe I should read up on the theory a bit more, or maybe I will another day ;)
Getting a job is a function of: Quantity_of_applications * Quality_of_applications.
I have been somewhat successful in securing positions in the past 10 years or so of my career, including a relocation. And when some friends/associates ask me how I did it, and I offer to mentor them, they are not willing to put the time that it takes to research positions, and apply with tweaked "marketing material"; so eventually they give up, some not even try.
Looking for a job is a full time job, and if you're doing while employed, it means you're working 2 jobs.