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The dystopian world of software engineering interviews

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Re: The dystopian world of software engineering interviews

#41

Post by paulie_a »

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…

Personally I'd call off the interview and let them know they need to rethink their hiring practices. If that's how they interview the company probably is horrible to work for anyways.

Re: The dystopian world of software engineering interviews

#42

Post by gonehome »

mullingitover wrote: post #32

I honestly don't know why anyone gives FAANG recruiters the time of day anymore. I have yet to meet anyone who feels good about the prospect of working for them, anyone who works there who's super proud of their mission, and the competitors who are looking to hire at that level of talent pay roughly similar wages from what I've seen. My advice for this poor kid is to look around at startups and do more networking. FA…

A couple of reasons:

- Comp: Total comp for a new hire with 3+ yrs dev experience is probably 300k -> 400k at a FAANG on average (with possibility to be higher). If you want to live and raise a family in your own house in the bay area (2.5 Million for a reasonable house), this matters.

- Access: Few places have the kind of scale and resources of these companies, that can make them fun places to work. You also get to learn a lot from really good coworkers (and go to talks, explore different things, etc.)

- Work/Life: FAANGs are generally pretty good for work/life balance (though this can vary by team and manager). They're generally pleasant places to work as an engineer.

Re: The dystopian world of software engineering interviews

#43

Post by [deleted] »

Benjammer wrote: post #5
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…

Yet, the people who pass the grueling gauntlet will still be dumped on a fringe feature team with a first- or second-time engineering manager within 2 years of your age, and a PM that's fresh out of college (or worse, just finished MBA) who is spending 100% of their time learning how to use Jira instead of how to build product.

[deleted]

Re: The dystopian world of software engineering interviews

#44

Post by person_of_color »

I once got a Union Find algorithmic problem in an Embedded Systems phone screen.

Seriously.

I've seen that same role unfilled on LinkedIn for more than a year. How do you stop Google engineers from straight out gatekeeping if they are afforded so much freedom?

Re: The dystopian world of software engineering interviews

#45

Post by glofish »

In my personal experience, having interviewed dozens of candidates (data science), I believe that asking "easy" and "simple" questions is the most effective way to probe the problem-solving skills of a candidate. Fun and interesting solutions to easy questions are hallmarks of great individuals.

The question would go like this:

Suppose I have a column-oriented file and I want to print out a column in a reverse-sorted order. How could I go about it?

This question is among the most effective ever. First it filters out the FizzBuzz failures right away, let's you see immediately how people think (does the candidate want to code it up or understands that they could do: cut | sort| head)? It lets you explore the various aspects of sorting numerical, alphabetical, different locales, in numerical you can have generic numerical sort etc. Then what if the file is really large, now a much better approach could be to split sort then merge sort back into one file.

everyone with real work experience has a story about sorting.

but then you can move on, let's do it in your favorite programming language, then explore of what if the data is "infinite" long, a stream ... and so on

it is a topic that can produce very interesting solutions, nobody is stressed out, and people that "fail" do understand why.

Edit: I will also say I feel that I can learn more about a person based on how they respond to easy questions. Are they cocky, are they showing off, are they rattled etc.

Re: The dystopian world of software engineering interviews

#47

Post by berdon »

Apocryphon wrote: post #36
berdon wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That most people have a hard time viewing the world from different lenses. The article presents a picture of a guy “studying up” for a career and his adventures in interviewing. As someone who’s interviewed hundreds of candidates I noticed red flags right away. For instance, if someone asks you to design a micro service - you don’t say “I can’t”. No FAANGco interviewer wants you to fail. In fact, they want to help yo…

And yet, virtually all boot camps allocate time to interview questions now. Hell, there are boot camps devoted entirely to whiteboarding interviews. Surely this cottage industry, similar to those for gaming standardized tests (SAT/GRE/LSATs/MCATs), is a red flag that the industry has fallen into a pit of Goodhart's law?

Hmm, perhaps. But interviewing has become big businesses for prep and passing. There are companies that will ghost interview for a candidate, even through actual onsite interviews. It’s a real problem.

Tangentially, candidates should read “Programming Interviews Exposed: Secrets to Landing Your Next Job” for prep. It was recommended to me a long time ago and it was enough.

Re: The dystopian world of software engineering interviews

#48

Post by anthonysarkis »

Re: 'Time limits are detrimental and discriminatory' the short answer is that it's really testing if you already know the answer - some of these original algorithms took decades to discovery the first time. My interview process if a bit different but still very tough. I talk about some of my opinions on that here https://medium.com/@anthony_sarkis/software-engineering-path...

Re: The dystopian world of software engineering interviews

#49

Post by berdon »

caiobegotti wrote: post #39
berdon wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That most people have a hard time viewing the world from different lenses. The article presents a picture of a guy “studying up” for a career and his adventures in interviewing. As someone who’s interviewed hundreds of candidates I noticed red flags right away. For instance, if someone asks you to design a micro service - you don’t say “I can’t”. No FAANGco interviewer wants you to fail. In fact, they want to help yo…

There are N other separations I could think of besides the ones you pointed out: - someone who gets anxious and blanks out given hardcore requirements these kind of interviews have, smart people can also go bad at tests - someone who's having a tough day and would fare better taking the challenge home with quiet relaxing time like they would expect to have at work if they need to code complex algorithms - no interest…

False negatives waste far less time (dollars) than false positives. It’s unfair but worth it to not force a team to have to work with an unqualified candidate for a year or maybe more.

Re: The dystopian world of software engineering interviews

#50

Post by AnimalMuppet »

paulie_a wrote: post #41
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…

Personally I'd call off the interview and let them know they need to rethink their hiring practices. If that's how they interview the company probably is horrible to work for anyways.

> If that's how they interview the company probably is horrible to work for anyways.

If the hiring process seems designed to find the very best people who are willing to put up with being abused, yeah, it seems pretty likely that it's a horrible place to work.

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