On Leaving Facebook • Hacker News Board

Re: On Leaving Facebook

#41

Post by pkdpic » Sat, Jan 22, 2022, 2:47 AM UTC

mercutio2 wrote: post #34

throwaway3137 wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

(throwaway account for the obvious reason) I've been at Meta for 3+ years. I'm also interviewing. I have somewhere between 4 and 8 offers right now (not a humblebrag, just the facts). Not a single interviewer (from junior engineers to directors and VPs of engineering) asked me anything remotely like "Why are you still at an awful company like Facebook?" The plural of anecdote is not "fact", but that's my experience:…

Well of course we won’t say that to your face! But it’s certainly a factor when I’m reviewing resumes.

Counterpoint appreciated. Any chance someone could expand on this? Not sure how serious the commenter was.

Re: On Leaving Facebook

#42

Post by tmule » Sat, Jan 22, 2022, 2:47 AM UTC

mercutio2 wrote: post #34

throwaway3137 wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

(throwaway account for the obvious reason) I've been at Meta for 3+ years. I'm also interviewing. I have somewhere between 4 and 8 offers right now (not a humblebrag, just the facts). Not a single interviewer (from junior engineers to directors and VPs of engineering) asked me anything remotely like "Why are you still at an awful company like Facebook?" The plural of anecdote is not "fact", but that's my experience:…

Well of course we won’t say that to your face! But it’s certainly a factor when I’m reviewing resumes.

Make sure you’re not violating your company’s guidelines. If I were at a company and I knew of signals based on subjective morality being used for filtering, I’d summarily fire the offending employee.

Re: On Leaving Facebook

#43

Post by CapmCrackaWaka » Sat, Jan 22, 2022, 2:48 AM UTC

donsupreme wrote: post #13

"everyday life it’s still very prestigious place to be working at. Getting a mortgage or a car loan is easy, saying you work for Facebook gets you on the fast line." I once felt that way but after leaving FAANG years later, I realized how snobby something like this would sound.

I’m not sure what this means. Getting a mortgage and a car loan was easy, a car loan approval took no time at all. Does working at FAANG speed this process up somehow?

Re: On Leaving Facebook

#44

Post by [deleted] » Sat, Jan 22, 2022, 2:48 AM UTC

vanusa wrote: post #12

I opened up Leetcode and started chipping away at the problems in the “Hard” section. It took me days to solve some and I felt miserable. Self-doubt crept in, and I started to lose motivation. I hopped on 2 phone screens and failed both. It was humiliating and I felt like shit. As in, the same very same tests your company now expects new candidates to "solve" (pretending they haven't seen it before) in about 30 minut…

[deleted]

Re: On Leaving Facebook

#45

Post by Spooky23 » Sat, Jan 22, 2022, 2:49 AM UTC

dahdum wrote: post #22

I didn’t see retirement addressed, that would be among my top priorities personally. Unless he’s already financially independent and can retire at will, taking a 30% paycut off FB’s top 5% comp could mean delaying retirement by many years. Given fixed living costs, retirement savings could easily drop by much more than 30%. I’m not disagreeing with his choice, it’s a personal one and he may not want early retirement,…

I work at a place with a defined benefit pension that is sweet.

But, I’ve watched colleagues who get and stay miserable because they just need another 15/10/5/3 years. Misery is tough and I’ve seen people really destroy themselves chasing the end goal.

Point is, find your happiness first.

Re: On Leaving Facebook

#46

Post by grp000 » Sat, Jan 22, 2022, 2:49 AM UTC

float4 wrote: post #27

vanusa wrote: post #12

I opened up Leetcode and started chipping away at the problems in the “Hard” section. It took me days to solve some and I felt miserable. Self-doubt crept in, and I started to lose motivation. I hopped on 2 phone screens and failed both. It was humiliating and I felt like shit. As in, the same very same tests your company now expects new candidates to "solve" (pretending they haven't seen it before) in about 30 minut…

Are questions of the hard type really that common? Thought it was mainly medium.

When my mentor was going through MANAMANA interviews a several months back for senior/staff DS/MLE positions, he was getting mostly mediums and a handful of hards.

Re: On Leaving Facebook

#47

Post by localcrisis » Sat, Jan 22, 2022, 2:49 AM UTC

> I also talked to a few fintech companies. I entered the discussions with pre-existing biases that these places are stressfull, not innovative but well paying. The conversations confirmed these biases (except the salaries, which were lower than I expected).

That's interesting. I wonder which companies these are?

Re: On Leaving Facebook

#48

Post by kccqzy » Sat, Jan 22, 2022, 2:49 AM UTC

jackblemming wrote: post #8

This man had 8+ years at Facebook and they still made him do programming questions? What is wrong with our industry?

I've seen enough experienced people who are great at system design and expect to be tech leads, but who are absolutely bad at coding. Do you want to hire someone for their ability to program or for their ability to think about the big picture only?

Re: On Leaving Facebook

#49

Post by [deleted] » Sat, Jan 22, 2022, 2:50 AM UTC

dahdum wrote: post #22

I didn’t see retirement addressed, that would be among my top priorities personally. Unless he’s already financially independent and can retire at will, taking a 30% paycut off FB’s top 5% comp could mean delaying retirement by many years. Given fixed living costs, retirement savings could easily drop by much more than 30%. I’m not disagreeing with his choice, it’s a personal one and he may not want early retirement,…

[deleted]

Re: On Leaving Facebook

#50

Post by psyc » Sat, Jan 22, 2022, 2:50 AM UTC

float4 wrote: post #27

vanusa wrote: post #12

I opened up Leetcode and started chipping away at the problems in the “Hard” section. It took me days to solve some and I felt miserable. Self-doubt crept in, and I started to lose motivation. I hopped on 2 phone screens and failed both. It was humiliating and I felt like shit. As in, the same very same tests your company now expects new candidates to "solve" (pretending they haven't seen it before) in about 30 minut…

Are questions of the hard type really that common? Thought it was mainly medium.

With a few exceptions, I generally can't solve hard leetcode problems. It never even occurred to me to feel bad about it! I've been a working programmer for 25 years, including many years at Microsoft and Facebook. I'm certain I've never encountered a problem at work that needed a 'hard' style solution, and if I hypothetically had, I don't even know how it would pass code review.

I've solved almost all of the easy and mediums, though.