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The dystopian world of software engineering interviews

jarednelsen.dev

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Re: The dystopian world of software engineering interviews

#301

Post by whack »

LordFast wrote: post #100
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…

My experience as both a 50+ hiring manager and as a candidate tells me that we are collectively living in an illusion of whacked up expectations. Yes, it's super hard to hire good people, but most of the time it's because "good enough" isn't good enough anymore, and while we may think our company is a 9 and we deserve 9s, we are probably more of a 4 based on what people are actually working on. Yes, interviews suck,…

> we are collectively living in an illusion of whacked up expectations. Yes, it's super hard to hire good people, but most of the time it's because "good enough" isn't good enough anymore, and while we may think our company is a 9 and we deserve 9s, we are probably more of a 4 based on what people are actually working on.

You're essentially implying that companies like FAANG can get by just fine, even if they hired "average" programmers, as opposed to "exceptional" ones. If this were the case, they wouldn't need to pay anyone 250-350k compensation either - they can just hire some average programmer for 70k and call it a day. Or better yet, hire someone in a country with much lower COL, pay them 30k, and everyone walks away happy.

I don't think this is true, for the simple reason that companies are far too greedy to pay people 200k a year, unless they really need to. Do you honestly think that a company like Amazon is going to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on someone, if they can get someone else for a fraction of that? Maybe I'm wrong and one day, some startup will grow to be a unicorn while paying their developers sweatshop rates. I'll believe it when I see it.

Re: The dystopian world of software engineering interviews

#302

Post by nhumrich »

codingslave wrote: post #55
parsimo2010 wrote: post #33

Comedian Daniel Tosh had a bit about people that claimed to be smart, it's just that they were just bad at taking tests. He said, "oh, so you struggle with the part where we find out what you actually know?" I hear a lot of complaints about the "typical" software engineering hiring process, and it usually comes from the people that don't do well within the current system. Could the process be improved? Almost certain…

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…

Then its working. Big companies love it when people spend time studying for their interview process. It shows commitment and means that person will feel like they "earned" that job, and should stay longer. This reduces churn, which is the thing they screening out the most. To the big tech companies, this isnt a problem, its a sign of success.

Think how whiny this sounds to any law firm/medical practice. People spend years studying/preparing/working for free to get an internship. And yet, most software devs are still payed better.

Re: The dystopian world of software engineering interviews

#303

Post by nhumrich »

Can we move on? Interviews suck in every industry. "Sell me this pen" isn't relevant to what a saleman will be doing. He will be on the phone, following a script but its so standard.

It could be worse. In the medical industry you have to work for free (or low pay) for 1-2 years to even be considered for a "real job". Law firms are highly competitive, and have very rigorous interviews . And yet software engineers are payed better on average then both.

Re: The dystopian world of software engineering interviews

#304

Post by eyegor »

hnruss wrote: post #140
allovernow wrote: post #11

In my admittedly limited experience, there's one way to avoid such nonsensical interviews - run away from bureaucracy. Seek smaller organizations (startups in particular) and if you're lucky enough to have a minimally cross-disciplinary background, you can seek out niche organizations where you'll interview with technical specialists who'll ask reasonable questions that are actually related to your work and your inte…

Agreed. I've never had much difficulty finding software development work at smaller companies. If I have the required skills that they are looking for, I'm usually confident that I'll get an interview. An interview at a smaller company is likely to be much shorter and easier than the algorithm-based interviews at larger companies. The chance of an offer is also much higher. The pay at smaller companies is still good…

> start your own software company that is eventually acquired by a large company

Just a heads up, that isn't how it works. If you've built a product that's good enough to be turned into a company and be bought by google/ms/etc, they don't want to hire you. They want your product. If they hired you, you'd steal away their workers to make another startup. At least that's the usual line of thinking.

Source: this happened to 3 friends of mine, whose companies were purchased by Google, Amazon, and Microsoft. Working around startup folk, this is a common story.

Re: The dystopian world of software engineering interviews

#305

Post by 32gbsd »

01100011 wrote: post #34
32gbsd wrote: post #25

No matter how many APIs and tutorials you do it comes down to being calm under pressure and knowing who you are talking to. You have to practice your communication skills and be cool. Often times you will be interviewed by HR people and managers - rarely will you get to be interviewed by a TDD Clean code geek that you follow on twitter. Eitherway there is nothing out there that you deserve more than other people. If…

> rarely will you get to be interviewed by a TDD Clean code geek Have to disagree. Every interview in the last 3 years was majority technical with top-tier team members. Yes, I talked to a couple HR reps and managers but they were less than 10% of the individual interviews.

well I guess it all depends on where you are and the ratio of HR people to startups

Re: The dystopian world of software engineering interviews

#306

Post by ajross »

taeric wrote: post #163
starpilot wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Does it? Because their strong data haven't helped them not screw up their messenger space. Or to have a fast email web client. Indeed, they seem to be going backwards on that chart. They flopped on wave and Google plus, hard. Those are the kinds of mistakes that kill most companies. Even Google glass still somewhat rankles and has left me with no confidence in any of their consumer things. And I say this as a happy G…

> their strong data haven't helped them not screw up their messenger space. Or to have a fast email web client.

That second example seems to invalidate your whole point, doesn't it? Yeah, they've had flops, but gmail has been an outrageous success, to the extent that more than a decade after launch it completely dominates internet email. I mean, yeah, I'm sure it could be faster (not a user, which makes me painfully aware of how rare my condition is!). But clearly they're doing this product "right" for any reasonable definition you want to use.

Re: The dystopian world of software engineering interviews

#307

Post by jackcosgrove »

jophde wrote: post #293
jackcosgrove wrote: post #272

If you work at a FANG too much of your income is hoovered up by rent anyways. Especially factoring in the hours and stress. Promises of a career ladder are breadcrumbs for most people. Why bother. Big Tech has been captured by finance and professional management. In other words those companies are now political bureaucracies where workers, as opposed to connected operators, are exploited. Workers now need to go elsew…

Hard to save money in the Bay if you aren't making FANG money.

Then leave the Bay.

Re: The dystopian world of software engineering interviews

#308

Post by mLuby »

> 23 interviews and I didn’t get a single offer

That's… an unusually consistent signal. Suggests to me that either this person is getting into the wrong interviews (eg junior interviewing for senior role—though they say that's not the case), or more likely there's some hidden variable, like a bad reference, bad BO, really noticeable "culture" misfit, or other "red flag".

Regardless, the general points are spot on; it's a mess, for both sides. And even if the game weren't improved, I wish we all gave and got more honest feedback (however illegal that would be).

Wishing you luck in this numbers game!

Re: The dystopian world of software engineering interviews

#310

Post by alexpetralia »

DoreenMichele wrote: post #295
_bxg1 wrote: post #279

A few months ago I interviewed with Major CDN Company for a front-end dev position. They sent me a take-home React/NextJS project stub with dependencies and such already defined, and instructions to finish building out the full app. "Perfect!", I thought. No stage pressure, plenty of opportunities for going an extra mile. They encouraged me to get creative and I did; it met all the requirements and then some. I proud…

It's hilarious, but I think you dodged a bullet. Imagine for a minute actually working there.

To be honest I never understood this logic. Clearly a firm's skill at interviewing might diverge from their ability to mentor, innovate, have a great engineering culture and so on? Sure - perhaps it's slightly less likely, but it's not at all obvious that interviewing skill and company excellence are 100% convergent.
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