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Laid Off, Now What?

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Re: Laid Off, Now What?

#361

Post by manuelabeledo »

unnouinceput wrote: post #264

I don't get it. Is that hard to apply for citizenship in US once you're there and working/paying taxes, all legal? Because if there is some legal crap that basically once you get H1B you can't apply for citizenship then this needs to be changed. Otherwise there is absolutely no excuse to become a US naturalized citizen. You went there, spend a decade and then you complain you have 60 days and then you're out. What ab…

It takes years to be even considered.

And for some nationals (Chinese, Indian), decades.

Re: Laid Off, Now What?

#362

Post by mav3rick »

H8crilA wrote: post #344
mav3rick wrote: post #336

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you not value the fundamental tenets of CS ? Is it beneath you to learn them ?

Keep in mind that even if you value them you'll eventually forget them given enough time in the ranks of the managers.

I won't. That's like saying Jeff Dean has forgotten Big O or how hash maps work.

Re: Laid Off, Now What?

#363

Post by hinkley »

bradlys wrote: post #143
gcheong wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If only it had stopped at fizzbuzz as a quick check for whether you can meet the lowest bar for coding I think it would still have some merit but it just seems to have gotten out of hand to the point that ability to get a job now is completely decoupled from your prior experience.

It's an arms race. Big name employers only wanted the top 1% of candidates. A bunch of people wanted to get into the top 1% and figured out a way (leetcode, ctci, etc.). And then employers kept only wanting the top 1% - so they just raised the bar higher and higher. Now we're at the scale where if you haven't done a minimum of 200 problems before any interview round - you're not likely getting an offer from FAANG/etc…

I wonder if anyone at FAANG has figured out that they collectively employ over 1% of the developers in the US.

What they are trying to do is not just practically impossible, it is literally impossible.

Re: Laid Off, Now What?

#364

Post by Hydraulix989 »

austincheney wrote: post #325
Hydraulix989 wrote: post #308

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not true at all. Senior developers are routinely subject to the same algorithmic questions in their coding interviews, especially at FAANG (I successfully interviewed and got offers for senior positions at multiple FAANGs two years ago). Even worse, the actual coding one does on the job is a completely different skill set than being able to dish out Dynamic Programming recurrences and tree traversals under tight time…

> Even worse, the actual coding one does on the job is a completely different When I encounter this during an interview, which I have, I don't accept the offer. Why would I want to go through an interview process that is completely unrelated to the job I will be performing? There is no expectation of success in that and its completely open to disappointment. Again, if you are a beginner you do what you must. Senior d…

Why aren't more senior engineers "selective" against these interviews?

Easy: Because FAANG and the companies that do these interviews pay senior engineers THAT much more ($100's of k) than the companies that don't.

Swallowing my pride and grinding through Leetcode for a month or two in preparation for tech interviewing was easily worth the extra boost in compensation.

Re: Laid Off, Now What?

#365

Post by titanomachy »

ctvo wrote: post #312
dccoolgai wrote: post #12

These are all great tips. It is a really well-written article with great advice. I just come away from this with a crushing sense of depression driven by the following thoughts: I can't believe this is how the country I live in treats people who bring their high-demand skills here. 60 days or get out. This absolutely effects every engineer. Even the most racist ones: that there is a bedrock of people they are allowed…

> I can't believe this is how interviewing works in this field. Everyone in every other respectable field (and ones that pay as well or better, and have worse consequences for hiring a "bad fit") seems entitled to some baseline level of respect and recognition for their experience and work. Having some smarmy piece of shit ask questions from Jr.-year computer science should be justifiable grounds for a broken nose. T…

I agree. Watching a friend struggle to land a corporate law job has been eye-opening. Maybe some consider it disrespectful of Google to ask computer science questions to an experienced engineer, but at least Google will interview you whether or not you have an ivy-league degree. Law firms are incredibly elitist and not the least bit meritocratic.

Re: Laid Off, Now What?

#366

Post by titanomachy »

epmaybe wrote: post #316
ctvo wrote: post #312

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I can't believe this is how interviewing works in this field. Everyone in every other respectable field (and ones that pay as well or better, and have worse consequences for hiring a "bad fit") seems entitled to some baseline level of respect and recognition for their experience and work. Having some smarmy piece of shit ask questions from Jr.-year computer science should be justifiable grounds for a broken nose. T…

Is that really what the field is paying right now? Is that after 5-10yrs or right out of school?

In SV, SF, NYC, or Seattle, at a top-tier company, after 5 years or so of experience: $300k including equity and bonus is pretty normal. In the rest of the world, not so much.

Re: Laid Off, Now What?

#367

Post by thatfunkymunki »

epmaybe wrote: post #316
ctvo wrote: post #312

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I can't believe this is how interviewing works in this field. Everyone in every other respectable field (and ones that pay as well or better, and have worse consequences for hiring a "bad fit") seems entitled to some baseline level of respect and recognition for their experience and work. Having some smarmy piece of shit ask questions from Jr.-year computer science should be justifiable grounds for a broken nose. T…

Is that really what the field is paying right now? Is that after 5-10yrs or right out of school?

Visit levels.fyi to get a picture of silicon valley comp levels. With 8 years of exp I was able to secure about 350k/yr this most recent job cycle

Re: Laid Off, Now What?

#368

Post by bradlys »

hinkley wrote: post #363
bradlys wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's an arms race. Big name employers only wanted the top 1% of candidates. A bunch of people wanted to get into the top 1% and figured out a way (leetcode, ctci, etc.). And then employers kept only wanting the top 1% - so they just raised the bar higher and higher. Now we're at the scale where if you haven't done a minimum of 200 problems before any interview round - you're not likely getting an offer from FAANG/etc…

I wonder if anyone at FAANG has figured out that they collectively employ over 1% of the developers in the US. What they are trying to do is not just practically impossible, it is literally impossible.

Considering that a significant (half or more?) portion of their engineers are from other countries... is it not still the 1%?

Re: Laid Off, Now What?

#369

Post by jjav »

marcinzm wrote: post #358
jjav wrote: post #347

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> When you have 50 well qualified applicants (ie: could pass most interviews) per position then you need some way to weed out 49 of them. No, you don't. Simply hire the first one that's a fit. If all 50 are well-qualified, that means hire the very first one you interview.

Why settle for merely well qualified when you can have the absolutely best?

Because there is no such thing, people don't rank on a linear scale.

Re: Laid Off, Now What?

#370

Post by 908B64B197 »

bgorman wrote: post #146
paxys wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Every one of the numerous studies done in this area over the years has come to the clear conclusion that high-skilled immigration produces a net economic benefit to the country and its workers (here's a recent one - https://nfap.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/The-Impact-of-H-... ). Silicon Valley itself wouldn't exist had it not been openly attracting talent from all over the world, and the difficulty in getting visa…

The main problem with this idea is that high skilled labor is conflated with h1B labor. The H1B system is completely abused by big outsourcing companies like Infosys, HCL,TCS and Wipro. The proof of this abuse is that the average salary from these workers is much lower from non-outsourced H1Bs e.g. microsoft workers on H1Bs. For example, a few years Disney theme parks laid off all of their IT staff and immediately re…

If I want to hire: A smart graduate from EPFL, Polytechnique or ETH Zurich who interned at CERN and has contributed to the Linux kernel for a software engineering job at a unicorn startup

or

A grad from a second tier "technical college" in India with a visa refusal rate of ~90% for a job doing manual UI testing and QA for a body shop

my only path forward is H1. They'll both be listed as "computer related occupations" and apply for the same visa in the same quota. Does that makes any sense to anyone?

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