Facebook senior software engineer interview • Hacker News Board

Re: Facebook senior software engineer interview

#341

Post by amazoniananon » Wed, Jan 06, 2021, 7:27 PM UTC

onion2k wrote: post #2

There are two interesting things in this post. The first is that a senior developer at Facebook believes every single senior developer looking for a role at Facebook can revise the same things. Clearly the author believes that Facebook are looking for programmers who fit a very specific mould, to the point that they're willing to go out in public and state exactly that. I'd argue that points to a massive monoculture…

These are very basic/generalist things, not a specific mould. Refreshing your skills here and making sure you're comfortable with everything on this list will help you be confident that you can pretty much do the kinds of work available to you as a senior engineer. And if you are lacking in any of these, it almost certainly will show up when you're trying to function in the role. I run into this every day with entry level engineers - they have to rely heavily on others and also have to spend a lot of time ramping up on exactly these kinds of things.

Put another way: if you did get hired for this role and managed to keep it, you'll be a master at this stuff within a couple of years. This is because these skills are generally useful no matter what specifically you are doing.

Re: Facebook senior software engineer interview

#342

Post by MajorBee » Wed, Jan 06, 2021, 7:28 PM UTC

mylons wrote: post #167

onion2k wrote: post #2

There are two interesting things in this post. The first is that a senior developer at Facebook believes every single senior developer looking for a role at Facebook can revise the same things. Clearly the author believes that Facebook are looking for programmers who fit a very specific mould, to the point that they're willing to go out in public and state exactly that. I'd argue that points to a massive monoculture…

Your points are basically true across $MANGA as well. (Microsoft, Apple, Netflix, Google, Amazon) I think it’s more a symptom of interviewing being broken than just being a monoculture. They’re probably very related, though. Bad interview practices produce bad results, etc. Why is interviewing so broken? Why isn’t there something like certifications? Do things like unions address this? They seem to in construction, p…

> $MANGA as well. (Microsoft, Apple, Netflix, Google, Amazon)

I must say this is a new acronym (backronym?) for me. Why do people insist on shoe-horning in Netflix in there? Yes, I'm aware without the N these acronyms can collapse into a more distasteful and off-topic term, but is that the only reason?

I'm sure Netflix is a "wealthy" company with a competent engineering org, but surely they are nowhere near the scale that the rest of the letters operate in? Netflix's competitor is just one of many subdivisions in Amazon, after all.

Re: Facebook senior software engineer interview

#343

Post by chris11 » Wed, Jan 06, 2021, 7:29 PM UTC

danenania wrote: post #89

BowBun wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I tend to be on your side of the fence but I have to nitpick your argument: At these companies, algorithms and the basics are fundamentally important. Because you tend to work on tiny parts of a massive whole, there is no tolerance for cowboy-coding and not following best-practices. IMO the interviews test that you can fall in line and follow the patterns that have been in place for decades. With regards to using API…

That all makes sense for hiring people to work on big existing systems, but many of these large companies are also trying to innovate and build new products with smaller, more agile teams. Sure, you’ll still need to integrate with established APIs and focus more on scalability than you would at a startup, but the kind of people who excel in each type of role will have very different personalities and skillsets. Gradi…

> but the kind of people who excel in each type of role will have very different personalities and skillsets. Grading them on the same curve in interviews seems like a pretty bad idea.

I haven't interviewed for senior level positions with FANG. But aren't interviews usually different based on the job? I assume that interviews for job families like front end/backend/sre should all test different skills. And if you are interviewing with a specific team the manager can judge your background and interviews for fit with their team. The interview bar for algorithms is probably too high at some places, but those skills are relevant for all engineers.

Re: Facebook senior software engineer interview

#344

Post by rglullis » Wed, Jan 06, 2021, 7:30 PM UTC

fb_throwaway123 wrote: post #314

LandR wrote: post #30

How can anyone work at Facebooks nowadays and have a clear conscience. Is it just the salary? It is, isn't it? Just money. How depressing.

Here's an honest answer * spread of misinformation on the platform/genocide in Myanmar/election integrity - this to me is the scariest thing about FB, but also something the company is dealing with and working on and trying to get right. It's not an easy problem to solve either. * Targeted ads - This really doesn't bother me. Tracking user interests/behavior and using it to serve ads they are way more likely to engag…

To your last point: the issue here is that Facebook is not interested in making users happy. They are interested in keeping them engaged so that they can sell ads. No studies are needed to show that if users' happiness or well-being gets them in the way of selling more ads, fuck the users.

It is no different than Big Tobacco putting all kinds of additives and carcigenic substances on cigarettes to get people more addicted to it.

Re: Facebook senior software engineer interview

#345

Post by blamestross » Wed, Jan 06, 2021, 7:30 PM UTC

bra-ket wrote: post #262

openfinch wrote: post #59

Ahh, so they're not actually looking for seniors then? Sounds like they want people who are "passionate" enough to spend months prepping for an interview so they can milk them dry without the risk of pesky things like "free time" and "family" getting in the way. Tongue in cheek analysis aside: - A phone interview to weed out timewasters. - A RELEVANT technical take-home task that could be done feasibly in a few hours…

technical take-home task is mostly time wasted for the candidate, working for hours just to be ghosted again and again, you will be selecting for people who have nothing better to do. I'd skip that (and leetcode) entirely and during in-person chat put emphasis on discussing prior projects in detail. As for "system design" ask a question on your current architecture, how would they approach solving a particular proble…

"Prior projects in detail" is a great idea until most of your desired candidates can't do that because of NDAs. Most of my NDAs do not permit me to discuss anything except the broadest strokes of my past projects.

Re: Facebook senior software engineer interview

#346

Post by orsenthil » Wed, Jan 06, 2021, 7:34 PM UTC

If you can read CLRS in a month thoroughly, the developer deserves more than a Senior Software Engineer position at FB.

Re: Facebook senior software engineer interview

#347

Post by vechagup » Wed, Jan 06, 2021, 7:36 PM UTC

blisterpeanuts wrote: post #211

avl999 wrote: post #201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While I have sympathy for the idea that some of these interviews can be ridiculous, however it doesn't seem like the interviewer was in the wrong here. As an interviewee you should have known what interview process is like, I worked at Amazon and I know the recruiters brief the candidates on what to expect in the interview, so you should have known going in that you'd be expected to write code, you could have said no…

They didn't brief me to expect that. Or, to be fair, maybe they did and I missed it. I didn't mention above that he refused to answer a couple of basic questions (what type of work is it? what language? where will the job be? can I be remote?) until he got through the script. It was like talking to a machine. And he was rude. I got a negative impression. I know, sometimes recruits are expected to put up with some rud…

> he also seemed unwilling to push at all, just said "okay!" in a sing-song voice that implied "yeah whatever, go die"

Is the idea here that you wanted the interviewer to beg you to stay on the call?

I interview for a BigCo. Most of us do it not because we love interviewing but because 1) It's a way to check the "citizenship" box on performance reviews. 2) A director or VP sent a mass email exhorting us to join the interviewer pool. Everyone I know in fact views interviewing as a chore that takes away from one's day job. But, there's standardized training and emphasis on objective tests and rubrics to minimize bias. Given this assembly line process and the fact that most interviewers want to be elsewhere, there's very little reason to expect a random interviewer to want to sell you on continuing a process that you consider yourself above.

If a candidate proclaimed that they didn't agree to the terms of one of my interviews midway through, I'd certainly exchange a few words with them to try to make them more comfortable, but in the end I would by fine with bidding them farewell and being glad that writing up that interview feedback would be easy.

Re: Facebook senior software engineer interview

#348

Post by _qulr » Wed, Jan 06, 2021, 7:37 PM UTC

jac241 wrote: post #340

_qulr wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The US Medical Licensing Examination is mainly for medical students not "senior" physicians, and the pass rate is extremely high for U.S. M.D. medical school graduates, over 90%. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Medical_Licensin... In other words, it's not a standard job interview technique for doctors, it's a one-time requirement for licensing. The other difference of course is that doctors are legally pe…

There are specialty board exams that you take once you're done with residency. Some are written exams. Surgical specialties do oral board exams where they present cases to you and question you on management. Pass rates for those are not as high. Many specialty boards make you take recertification exams every x number of years.

But again, these are not job interviews, they're professional licensing requirement imposed by the government, not by employers. And I don't think Facebook requires its engineers to re-interview for their own jobs every x number of years, so that's disanalogous too.

Ironically, the last thing that Facebook engineers want is for the government to regulate them. Just wait until they face the professional ethics boards. ;-) When has a programmer ever been kicked out of the industry for unethical behavior? More likely, they get promoted.

Re: Facebook senior software engineer interview

#349

Post by Kranar » Wed, Jan 06, 2021, 7:39 PM UTC

cstrahan wrote: post #300

Kranar wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean you listed several database libraries, static analyzers, and a code optimizer. Is it your suggestion that those kinds of applications do not require solid knowledge of a variety of different data structures and algorithms?

> I mean you listed several database libraries, static analyzers, and a code optimizer. Correct. > Is it your suggestion that those kinds of applications do not require solid knowledge of a variety of different data structures and algorithms? No -- precisely opposite. Your response confused me quite a lot, but after some thought, I think I've realized how things have become mixed up. I took this for sarcasm: > Which…

Thanks for the clarification. We're in total agreement.

Re: Facebook senior software engineer interview

#350

Post by almog » Wed, Jan 06, 2021, 7:39 PM UTC

oarabbus_ wrote: post #301

I'm not at the level of a FB Senior SWE, but how does one do anywhere from 1-5 chapters of CLRS each day? Doing a single chapter of CLRS would take me multiple days. Is it that I'm just that far off from the level of a senior SWE? Can most of the experienced, talented programmers here cover multiple chapter problem sets of CLRS in a day?

Exactly so, if they can actually read, understand, internalize and apply the dense content that CLRS delivers, 5 chapters a day (and mind you, he mentioned some of the more dense chapters in one of these 5 chapters days), that would have made for a much more interesting post.

I would never recommend anyone to try and read CLRS in two weeks, or even a month. Even if you could do that, I think it would be much better to get through a chapter then try to apply the algorithms of that chapter to Leetcode/Codeforces question and cycle through the subjects as you advance through the book in a spaced repetition technique.

For me and for many other people the linear approach for studying that they suggest is far from ideal.