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Facebook senior software engineer interview

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Re: Facebook senior software engineer interview

#451

Post by Hydraulix989 »

spoonjim wrote: post #401
driverdan wrote: post #395

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Other than Wonderlic everything you listed is directly related to athletic ability and are things athletes do on a regular basis. You're supporting my point. I'm saying testing should be directly related to the position. If someone doesn't need to do binary math or write complex sorting algos from scratch you don't test those, just like how you wouldn't ask an athlete the mundane questions I posted above. You might a…

But the engineers at FB do need to be able to write sorting algorithms from scratch rather than just have knowledge of sorting. The reason is that the engineers have to be reasonably fungible so that they can be easily moved between projects as projects are started and stopped. So they could easily be tomorrow thrown into an environment where a sorting algorithm is needed, they are the ones responsible (so they'll ne…

Yes, if you aren't dealing with CS fundamentals directly in your work, you aren't working on the kinds of challenging engineering problems we face on a day-to-day basis. For example, a coworker applied some arcane number theory to one of our hashing algorithms, saving the company millions and was just recently awarded a patent for it. You can find many other, more specific examples in our Engineering blog. We're a mature product operating at scale so small, but meaningful statistically-significant % metrics gains are actually quite large when it comes to real business impact, and so chasing these gains actually requires a serious academic toolbox.

Re: Facebook senior software engineer interview

#452

Post by Retric »

barnacled wrote: post #407
onion2k wrote: post #377

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But as it stands I've interviewed many engineers with years of experience who couldn't competently program, and I'm talking about maybe a tad above FizzBuzz level proficiency. I've interviewed close to 400 developers over the past couple of decades, and I've not met many who can't code. Some are great, and some are clearly at the bottom end of the distribution, but most are just OK. They can get the job done, they ca…

I am not sure whether you have an incredibly good filtering system or have got incredibly lucky. I have interviewed similar numbers and have been repeatedly complimented on my ability to put people at ease, but have encountered exactly what the grandparent comment says. It really opened my eyes seeing so many with many years on their CV but struggling with (literal) fizzbuzz. This experience accords with most I have…

It really is about interviewing skills. I noticed a strong trend over time that the people I interviewed kept doing better. You need to engage with people without letting things get confrontational.

The best advice I can give is look at how entertainers get random audience members to relax and engage in front of huge audiences. Many people lock up in such situations and can barely say their own name, yet with the right approach it’s a non issue.

Compare that to the rapid fire technical questions I have watched people get into and it’s obvious what’s going on. Someone fumbles something and then gets flustered and shuts down. But, pepper the exact same questions into a larger conversation, perhaps going so far as to occasionally complement them, and shockingly they do better on the exact same problems.

Re: Facebook senior software engineer interview

#453

Post by ummonk »

musicale wrote: post #449
onion2k wrote: post #2

There are two interesting things in this post. The first is that a senior developer at Facebook believes every single senior developer looking for a role at Facebook can revise the same things. Clearly the author believes that Facebook are looking for programmers who fit a very specific mould, to the point that they're willing to go out in public and state exactly that. I'd argue that points to a massive monoculture…

> Secondly, the author believes that senior developers, who likely have 10+ years under their belt if they're senior, need to spend a solid month revising in order to be successful landing a role there As others have noted, the same seems to be true of a number of other computing companies: the "technical interview" is a sort of qualifying examination (largely focused on undergraduate algorithms/algorithm puzzles/lee…

When conducting interviews, I like to ask questions that are similar to coding problems I've actually faced.

That said though, in general the coding interview doesn't need to be directly related to work to be useful signal - in fact, to the extent that it's not similar to the interviewee's day to day work, it successfully measures the interviewee's ability to quickly pick up and excel at a new tech / framework / skill.

Re: Facebook senior software engineer interview

#454

Post by anshumankmr »

nefitty wrote: post #393
rglullis wrote: post #337

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I really wonder what good they have done. All of their initiatives are self-serving. And at the end of the day, no amount of good they do will ever make up for all the damage they cause to their users. I am not even talking about the American politics, just the amount of psyops tricks to get people engaged and addicted to the platform, manipulation of one's sense of wellbeing, the social anxiety they cause. They make…

Cigarette smoking causes about 480,000 deaths per year in the US alone. Does Facebook have a body count?

Yes, when you consider the people killed by its spreading of fake news, anti vax etc. For example, https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/pranavdixit/whatsapp-de....

However that being said, if I got an opportunity to work at FB, I would.

Re: Facebook senior software engineer interview

#455

Post by ummonk »

wojciii wrote: post #58
collyw wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

These days I honestly think that a developer who is marginally above average but plays well as part of the team is much more valuable than someone super smart who isn't a team player. We rarely need to solve complex algorithmic problems these days, just plug some components together and work out why they aren't working.

I have not seen any interview problems where you have to debug an issue having limited information as often is the case in embedded systems. You have a set of logs and the source code to look at. The description of the problem is "X doesn't work" where X is some protocol or procedure. This is something that took me a lot of time to become good at (to not freak out, but to be systematic).

I saw it once, I think it might have been in an interview with Scale API?

Re: Facebook senior software engineer interview

#456

Post by jokethrowaway »

logicchains wrote: post #17
hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I couldn't disagree more with your post. The author is basically just putting out a detailed study plan for passing an exam. If a doctor posted a plan for passing the medical boards would your first thought be "Wow, look at that massive medical monoculture problem!" That seems like a ridiculous stretch in my opinion. To your second point, I hear this all the time in threads about tech interviewing: "Tech interviews a…

>in most cases doctors have many, many thousands of hours under their belt in training before still needing to study a ton to pass their boards The difference is that what the doctors put so much time into learning can actually be quite useful for their job. The vast majority of competitive coding stuff isn't. Interview procedures based around it completely fail to assess some of the most important abilities in softw…

I always wondered why every OSS software project done by / blessed by Google or FB ends up having a terrible API and developer experience (think Angular, React, Go, Tensorflow, Kubernetes), while delivering great functionality (heck, I used all of these and endured the pain for it).

I was going for people scratching their own itch during their OSS-at-work time and wanting to show off - but this could very well be a better explanation.

Re: Facebook senior software engineer interview

#457

Post by igorstellar »

LandR wrote: post #30

How can anyone work at Facebooks nowadays and have a clear conscience. Is it just the salary? It is, isn't it? Just money. How depressing.

Got offers from almost every FAANG last year. Decided to join FB, and it was not about money (in fact it depends on your negotiation skills). The reason I joined was the culture and people who work there as well as growth opportunities. One might say PSC are stressful but that depends on personality. I don't know why I should not have clear conscience. Should kitchen knife company be also upset about people are being killed by it?

Re: Facebook senior software engineer interview

#458

Post by jokethrowaway »

pc86 wrote: post #272
redisman wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If a doctor posted a plan for passing the medical boards would your first thought be "Wow, look at that massive medical monoculture problem!" That seems like a ridiculous stretch in my opinion. This analogy doesn't work. It's basically the final part of your education in that field (and others). If every hospital / medical center made you quit for a few months to study for their interviews when you switch jobs it w…

If every hospital felt the need to interview doctors assuming they didn't know how to practice medicine , doctors would definitely take time off between to study. But they don't, because they know everyone has a base level of knowledge. On the flip side I've interviewed people who simply cannot do basic coding tasks.

I'm not sure in which universe you live but I've met plenty of incompetent and ignorant doctors who gave advice which didn't make any sense.

Same with lawyers and accountants (accountants have so many certifications it borders the ridiculous).

More than the knowledge you've proven to have once, it's important to evaluate ongoing performance and care on the job.

That's something you can hardly prove during an interview.

A market based model of work with a system of reviews would be an improvement in my book

Re: Facebook senior software engineer interview

#459

Post by balls187 »

sagarm wrote: post #241
driverdan wrote: post #217

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Only if the role you're hiring for requires directly applying those algos. A high level understanding is good but implementation knowledge isn't. I've been in this industry for almost 15 years. I've never once had to write a low level algo implementation. On the few occasions I had to dig that deep into code I looked up what I'd forgotten. If someone asked me to whiteboard bubble sort I'd choke. There's no need to kn…

You rarely need to write your own sort or hashmap, but you should absolutely understand at a high level how those algorithms work, how to analyze them, and the key concepts that go into their design. The point of the undergrad CS syllabus is not to teach you specific algorithms, but to give you a toolkit for solving problems. The goal of a SWE interview should be to test your ability to apply that toolkit to a "new"…

Amazon asked me to implement a hashtable and email the interviewer the solution by the next morning.

I politely declined; was heading off to Spain for a long weekend.

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