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Getting a job at Apple without going to college or doing LeetCode

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Re: Getting a job at Apple without going to college or doing LeetCode

#381

Post by pb7 »

GlassOwAter wrote: post #380
pb7 wrote: post #366

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The quality of my life is not defined by stomping around or playing loud music. It’s having access to and making use of amenities. What the hell good is money to me if I have no goods and services to spend it on? Maybe most of your time is spent on a computer.

The quality of my life is not defined by how close I am to fast food diners or other frivolous goods and services.

Neither is mine, which is why I live in a place that has amazing restaurants with cuisines from all around the world. There's nothing frivolous about food or any other good or service that enhances one's quality of life.

Re: Getting a job at Apple without going to college or doing LeetCode

#382

Post by mcmcmc »

pb7 wrote: post #259
deckard1 wrote: post #217

Earlier quoted context omitted.

ah, yes. The American Dream of living in a 50 year old shitbox fixer that costs $2M in the suburbs of Cupertino. If you can make that much remote out in Nebraska then sure, fine. There are people doing a lot worse. But when doing much better looks like that, what even is the point?

Living in Nebraska when you have the means to live in civilization is a punishment. Why would someone choose to live in a place where the nearest restaurant is a Denny’s 45 mins away?

Lincoln and Omaha would like a word

Re: Getting a job at Apple without going to college or doing LeetCode

#383

Post by slt2021 »

pb7 wrote: post #379
slt2021 wrote: post #372

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well these are more affordable places in sf, not everyone is techie millionaire, you know. and Nebraska has nice places too, especially if you have a family. Try to raise a family with 5 kids in sf, and compare to Omaha. I would pick Omaha 10 out of 10 times, if I was not a millionaire

>Try to raise a family with 5 kids What am I, a farmer? I would pick not doing that 10 out of 10 times regardless of how much money I had.

so we can agree that people can have their own preferences in lifestyle and critique of other people's lifestyle is not mature behavior

Re: Getting a job at Apple without going to college or doing LeetCode

#384

Post by KaiserPro »

circuit wrote: post #265
KaiserPro wrote: post #30

The problem is that "leetcode" is a definitely a thing that exists in "FAANG" interviews. The biggest stumbling block with leetcode is that you shouldn't be programming like that in real life. "make a linked list" no, just use a library like everyone else. "Implement addition in python but with string inputs", "no you can't use the built in x" All of that "clever" shit should be filtered out at PR/MR/diff review time…

You do know we hire people who have to _write_ these libraries, and they can't just defer to something else with no consideration to time or space constraints. None of the questions are designed to be brainteasers or 'gotchas' but to get you to start discussing the problem and show your depth of knowledge/expertise. If I ask you a question along the lines of "write me a function to tell if two number ranges intersect…

> "Use a library for everything" is how we ended up with left-pad on npm.

bollocks, that's because javascript doesn't have a standard lib.

> You do know we hire people who have to _write_ these libraries

I know, because I'm there. I'm working in VR/AR. We have a number of people who are world experts for doing what they are doing. Do I go off and re-make a SLAM library because I don't like the layout? no because I have to ship something useable in a normal time frame. I can't just drop 3 months replicating someone else's work because I think the layout is a bit shit, or I can't be bothered to read the docs (I mean obviously there are no docs, but thats a different problem)

But, and I cannot stress this enough, having more than one person making similar or related libraries is a disaster. Nothing gets shipped and everything is devoted to "improving" the competing libraries.

Re: Getting a job at Apple without going to college or doing LeetCode

#385

Post by KaiserPro »

pphysch wrote: post #196
marliechiller wrote: post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The filter works perhaps for whatever niche you might be working in. I cant imagine asking this to one of my candidates and then assessing their entire professional experience off of something like this though.

What domain do you program in where handling strings/bytes is not a weekly if not daily task?

There is a difference between "handle this string to do a normal thing, but make it secure" and "do something stupid with this string, which goes against all good practice, oh and you can't use the obvious tools because reasons".

for example, if you are using strings to do addition, why the fuck aren't you allows to to atoi? also, why are you using strings to hold numbers?

everything to do with that question is something that you'd insta-reject in a diff/pr/mr.

Surely converting from string to int, validating it, catching errors and generally making it nice, is a much better test?

Its like going to an interview for a copywriter(someone who writes text) for safety sign company, and they ask you to make a riddle in English, but you can't use any words that are derived from Latin. Sure it shows an impressive command of both etymology and english, but its totally opposite to making clear, easy to understand text.

Re: Getting a job at Apple without going to college or doing LeetCode

#386

Post by deckard1 »

gretch wrote: post #317
deckard1 wrote: post #217

Earlier quoted context omitted.

ah, yes. The American Dream of living in a 50 year old shitbox fixer that costs $2M in the suburbs of Cupertino. If you can make that much remote out in Nebraska then sure, fine. There are people doing a lot worse. But when doing much better looks like that, what even is the point?

> But when doing much better looks like that, what even is the point? Cupertino is an hour away Santa Cruz beaches. 3 hours away from skiing (or boating) at lake tahoe. 1 hour away from one of the best NBA teams (GSW). 30 minutes away from Stanford. 1 hour away from Berkeley. Some of the best average temperatures in the country. Maybe they live in a "shitbox fixer", maybe they don't. You might consider that people li…

> Cupertino is ...

a lot of hour drives away from everything? London or Tokyo it is not.

> Maybe they live in a "shitbox fixer", maybe they don't.

I was being rather generous at $2M on a $300k salary. Let's just assume the spouse makes that much too. Where do you place the odds of getting a nice house at, in that area? Of a similar quality that would run around $200-400k in the rest of the country. It's the suburbs. You're going to be inside your home more than you would in a city.

> You might consider that people like and care about those other properties though.

The point is $300k in SV isn't living large. You save more for retirement or to move out. Great. But you still have to leave to realize that benefit. You're just planning for some tomorrow that usually never comes for most people.

Re: Getting a job at Apple without going to college or doing LeetCode

#387

Post by pb7 »

slt2021 wrote: post #383
pb7 wrote: post #379

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Try to raise a family with 5 kids What am I, a farmer? I would pick not doing that 10 out of 10 times regardless of how much money I had.

so we can agree that people can have their own preferences in lifestyle and critique of other people's lifestyle is not mature behavior

Let’s see where this conversation started.

>ah, yes. The American Dream of living in a 50 year old shitbox fixer that costs $2M in the suburbs of Cupertino.

So you’re right, folks living outside of metropolitan areas need to work on their insecurities and learn to be nicer to people that prioritize other things in life.

Re: Getting a job at Apple without going to college or doing LeetCode

#388

Post by pb7 »

opan wrote: post #306
pb7 wrote: post #259

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Living in Nebraska when you have the means to live in civilization is a punishment. Why would someone choose to live in a place where the nearest restaurant is a Denny’s 45 mins away?

Quiet and peaceful, cleaner air, you can play loud music and stomp around without upsetting neighbors, and for many people most of their time is spent on a computer anyway.

Air quality is better in San Francisco than Omaha by the way. If you want peace and quiet, you have world class nature less than an hour’s drive away instead of the endless corn fields flat as a pancake for hours in any direction.

Re: Getting a job at Apple without going to college or doing LeetCode

#389

Post by slt2021 »

pb7 wrote: post #387
slt2021 wrote: post #383

Earlier quoted context omitted.

so we can agree that people can have their own preferences in lifestyle and critique of other people's lifestyle is not mature behavior

Let’s see where this conversation started. >ah, yes. The American Dream of living in a 50 year old shitbox fixer that costs $2M in the suburbs of Cupertino. So you’re right, folks living outside of metropolitan areas need to work on their insecurities and learn to be nicer to people that prioritize other things in life.

Insecurity?

More like well-justified feeling of intellectual superiority, of being able to afford 5000 sq ft home with few acres of land, and raise a family with 5 kids on a single income, and not having kids wade their way through poop and needles on the way to school, not having to smell urine and marijuana on the streets of neighborhood

Re: Getting a job at Apple without going to college or doing LeetCode

#390

Post by victor_bg »

didibus wrote: post #369
seanmcdirmid wrote: post #364

Earlier quoted context omitted.

“Cracking the coding interview” was first published in 2008. One guesses that those techniques arose between 1999 (when google started) and then, but I’m sure it was in place in 2005.

Even earlier than I thought. It be interesting to know when the practice started, by what company and all the history behind it. But it does seem like it's been around a long time at this point.

The Leetcode style interviews were already a thing in 90s. Cracking the Coding Interview book was published in 2000, right after the dot-com bubble, and it drew on the interview process at different companies in 90s. The book is mostly about preparation for Leetcode style questions.
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