A senior engineer's guide to the system design interview

Post by rednerrus » Thu, Mar 02, 2023, 7:45 PM UTC

jstx1 wrote: post #13

rednerrus wrote: post #9

We've gone away from system design interview questions on my team. We ask people to diagram something technical they understand well and the team digs in and asks questions to understand depth and breadth of the candidates understanding. For us it works much better. It's a chance to see how well candidates do in following instructions. It gives you a chance to explore depth and breadth of their knowledge on something…

Still sounds like a system design interview to me, just a bit less structured.

Post by Arainach » Thu, Mar 02, 2023, 7:46 PM UTC

siva7 wrote: post #33

pc86 wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a former (reformed?) non-coding architect, non-coding architects are a scourge on the industry. I know you didn't say "non-coding" but if it's a separate job, they're very likely not spending enough time coding. Seniors should be able to build large, interconnected systems. IMO that's a basic skillset required to reach that level, and part of why I roll my eyes when I see people with 5, 4, 3 years of experience cl…

Architecture and coding are two distinct skillsets. I know that most senior developers haven't touched a book about architecture for a long time if ever but still feel competent about such topics - falling in the "You don't know what you don't know" trap. This is as problematic as the architect with rusty coding skills or who hasn't worked as a professional developer beforehand. Coding should be a small part of the a…

Post by siva7 » Thu, Mar 02, 2023, 7:47 PM UTC

tootie wrote: post #36

I think it's funny how they say you don't need experience to pass one of the interviews. Last time I went in to one of these as an experienced engineer I probably said all sorts of things they didn't want to hear like there's no point building a scalable system until you're sure your product has traction. That and I kept trying to extract imaginary requirements. I still have no idea what they wanted to hear so I just…

Post by siva7 » Thu, Mar 02, 2023, 7:50 PM UTC

debacle wrote: post #15

outworlder wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "You want to be a surgeon but don't have the experience?" Well, what do surgeons have to do beforehand? Study. This is no different. Most of tech doesn't require fine coordination motor skills that need to be trained in practice, so this comparison is way off. Also, like the excerpt you quoted says, "you won't be an expert" after reading the guide. A surgeon is an expert by any definition.

Study, train, shadow, and intern for 11-13 years.

Post by sroussey » Thu, Mar 02, 2023, 7:52 PM UTC

ok_dad wrote: post #38

azornathogron wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I like this... in theory. But I don't think I'm allowed to give you a system diagram and detailed explanation of systems I've worked on, because obviously they're proprietary. That seems like a problem. How do your candidates normally work around this? Does everyone just talk about hobby or open-source systems they've worked on?

The only really important details to keep secret are business-specific algorithms, so talking about the overall architecture of a system is usually okay, without those details. If you're building very special architectures where that actually is the business detail, then I suppose you need to figure out how to talk about something else similar or something. I just talk about the systems I worked on in generalities, s…