331–340 of 740 posts
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I didn't know about "BFS trees", do you have any references? I tried Googling but I could only find breadth-first searching (which I do know well, though apparently not the acronym BFS), but that's just a traversal algorithm.
BFS is "Breadth first search". One tree you would do this on is a BST or "Binary Search Tree". Probably OP got the acronyms mixed up.
I'm impressed with this person's ability to write a blog that BOTH:
— feeds people's curiosity via the current interview experience at several of the worlds biggest companies all in one read
— Incorporates (advertises) his own personal work ethic and credibility throughout, to where I would bet he's getting all sorts of significantly higher paying offers around the area.
The latter was likely the motivation to write it, which is great. I'm surprised more people with similar stories don't use their ultra-blog-worthy experience as an opportunity to humble brag and display their value. Might as well, right? Small risk/big reward
It's interesting that software interviews have degenerated into literal auditions. Just as with auditions, you need to train specifically for them. Is there really a reason why software jobs can't hire in a blue-collar fashion where there's a background/experience + sanity check and a subsequent trial period? Even looking beyond that, is there any similar profession where interviews like these take place? I'm startin…
About trial periods, there are places that do those, and a lot of people hate it. There is a lot of risk involved in leaving a permanent gig to "try out" for another one. If they let you go at the end of the trial period then you're out on your ass. I personally would never do this if I were already employed- there's nothing in it for me but downside.
But more broadly, lots of places try these different avenues for hiring and inevitably some large portion of potential employees hate it.
Try doing take-home tests? Well, those are biased toward people with more free time, so obviously you're discriminating against people who have children. Interviews using Coderpad? Now you're discriminating against people who get anxious in the moment and need more time to think.
This is not easy or simple.
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I share both of your concerns (while I was very lucky in getting initial experience, I know of other beginners that haven't/arent, so I'm very sympathetic.) . Started coding for work in '95. > was I wrong then? Or am I wrong now? Perhaps both. Neither, I think. The Algorithm interviews are bad for 90% of the positions out there, and experience matters much more than trivia, so you were right then. And today, everyone…
I’ll share my process: 1. The first interview must not be a technical assessment — identify shared interests, look for collaboration opportunities. You need to understand if the person in front of you will be someone you would work with for the next 10 years, their current technical skills have little to do with this. 2. At the end of the first interview, right before the logistic questions, assess how they position…
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…
Except it's well known that Facebook asks you 2 coding questions in 45 mins and if you don't solve them it's an automatic fail.
Obviously, people who can't finish a problem correlate with people who aren't good candidates in general. But that's not necessary. You can have someone who shows very good problem solving and reasoning, but just doesn't make it to the end.
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This is just ridiculous. BFS is such a useful building block. If you're stubborn enough to not spend 10 mins on this the best of luck.
I honestly don't mean this in a snide way. Can you give a few concrete examples of how a deep understanding of BFS that can't be googled and read in 10 minutes at the time you need it can help you ship profitable software products faster than your competitors?
These questions come up all the time. You just need to be proficient enough with algorithms to identify them.
When I was a new college grad, I felt trapped by the fact that everywhere I looked they wanted several years of experience, and I had none yet. How can I get experience if it's required to get the job? Now that I am 51, I feel annoyed that all of these stories of interviews involve asking questions about algorithms that rarely come up in real coding, and if they do you should NOT be rolling your own code, you should…
More mundanely, when I was starting out at a small shop (I'm around your age) my coworkers hadn't mastered undergrad algorithms, and it made a significant difference in what we could do.
It's unfortunate that attempting to test for this seems to have encouraged too much memorizing of known tricks relative to better mastery of principles.
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> 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…
I've had internal referrals at a few FAANG myself, I have one of the "unique" (no degree, some high school, ops/coding since 12 so about 15 years on/off) backgrounds and the people who referred me would be on the team that I'd be joining and all seemed incredibly excited to get me on board. I work on FOSS projects with them already. At each place it was people from other teams completely unrelated to that team who in…
First of all it sounds like your interview experience was unpleasant so if this was at Google I apologize.
Secondly, I can totally relate to feeling like I don't belong having also come from a nontraditional background (No college degree).
> At each place it was people from other teams completely unrelated to that team who interviewed (or would interview) me and eventually turned into a decision panel where everything about me would be considered by these people who really knew nothing of my character/skills aside from the resume and white boarding.
This sounds similar to what we do at Google; people who know you actually aren't allowed to interview you because they will be biased. We try to make the interview as objective as possible. Note that information from anyone who knows you or referred you will be shown to the hiring committee though so it's not as though that feedback is not used.
> Between that and the amount of times I heard "Stanford" tossed around in a way that put down other schools (while not having a degree at all myself) I decided to give up on ever working at any of these places without being an acquihire. It just seems like a far fetched pipe-dream and I'd never check the required boxes that they expect for someone to sit in the same building with them. And honestly, none of that sat well with me.
I understand why you feel this way but that's definitely not true! I don't think you necessarily should want to work in FAANG but I strongly think you should believe you are capable.
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There is a robust debate about whether or not facebook provides negative value to its users. In my opinion, it's charitable to say that the question of whether Facebook harms its users is open to debate. There seems to be a clear correlation between use of facebook and negative mental health outcomes. The fact that people use a product is absolutely not evidence that it provides value to its consumers, especially whe…
This assumes that FB is harmful to everyone, instead of a subset of people. I don't think that's very well proven. The mental health studies also have a bit of a correlation issue, similar to drug use. I think sugar is a more apt analogy than smoking. Facebook, like sugars, provides a source of a required human input. (Calories/human connection). Overdone, both are harmful. Tobacco is a much more charged analogy, and…