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Facebook senior software engineer interview

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Re: Facebook senior software engineer interview

#481

Post by rglullis »

themacguffinman wrote: post #416
rglullis wrote: post #344

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To your last point: the issue here is that Facebook is not interested in making users happy. They are interested in keeping them engaged so that they can sell ads. No studies are needed to show that if users' happiness or well-being gets them in the way of selling more ads, fuck the users. It is no different than Big Tobacco putting all kinds of additives and carcigenic substances on cigarettes to get people more add…

No company on earth is interested in making their users happy, they're just interested in making money. This is some silly moral purity test where a company has to have pure intentions in order to do good. Our society works because people have the space & incentive to do good regardless of their intentions, and many Facebook users seem happy to use the service and find value in it regardless of whatever sinister inte…

Though not direct, there should be alignment between what a business creates and offers and consumers' (society's) satisfaction.

"Users seem happy", the same can be said about smokers and tobacco. The issue is not even with the smoking per se. If tobacco companies were simply processing the plant and giving users what people have done for hundreds (thousands?) of years, it would be fine by me. The problem of Big Tobacco is in developing the mechanisms where they stopped satisfying consumer demand and artificially creating it.

Facebook (not just them, you can include actually all of Big Media) is doing the same thing to people. I'd be ashamed to work on FB, or Fox or CNN just the same way I would if I were working on Philip & Morris

Re: Facebook senior software engineer interview

#482

Post by tqvsgbd737 »

LandR wrote: post #420
quicfufhrt wrote: post #237

Earlier quoted context omitted.

True but I am tired of seeing a free pass for the leaders, legislators, board, share holders etc. but bring out moral pitch forks for engineers who perhaps have the least amount of decision making powers in a company as massive as FB/FAANG. I am willing to bet that even the ones here that are in disbelief about how one can work in such a company, I bet uses their products and/or is invested directly or indirectly wit…

> least amount of decision making powers in a company as massive as FB/FAANG They have the power to choose not to work there.

So one can use FB products to stay in touch with their family or engage with the customers of their business but one should be ashamed to work there.

Is one held to this standard if they are a facebook engineer? What about a FB bus driver? house keeping staff? kitchen or security staff, content moderators? contractors? Just trying to gauge the paycheck $ value at which the conscience should awaken.

It's like asking the frycook to quit his job because the CxOs lead the company to make very tasty but unhealthy food, it's so good it's almost addictive. Surely the frycook has a conscience, no? Soon all the frycooks in the world will refuse to work there and we would have solved the problem!

Re: Facebook senior software engineer interview

#483

Post by tqvsgbd737 »

deeeeplearning wrote: post #276
xR63cRyqrL wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Turns out you got to pay bills even if you are on a moral high horse. Besides if one has to have a clear conscience to match everyone's standard here, one should stop working at FAANG, stop using FAANG products, maybe stop using big oil products, stop using big pharma products, is it ok to pay taxes to a govt if you don't agree with something they did or should one pick up and move too? what else did I miss? HN is so…

>Turns out you got to pay bills I'm sorry but if working for a FAANG is the only way for you to pay your bills you need to learn how to budget... How absurd.

FAANG aren't the only jobs that can pay bills but they certainly are one of them and as good as any.

Re: Facebook senior software engineer interview

#484

Post by rglullis »

igorstellar wrote: post #457
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…

Do knife manufacturers make more money by making more lethal knives, the same way that Facebook make more money by getting more eye balls and manipulating more of people's perception of and interactions with society?

Re: Facebook senior software engineer interview

#485

Post by rglullis »

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?

Is the best defense for Facebook that they don't have a body count?

RIAA/MPAA does not have a body count. Patent trolls do not have a body count. Ballmer's Microsoft did not have a body count.

"Not having a body count" is quite a low bar for a moral compass, don't you think?

Re: Facebook senior software engineer interview

#486

Post by simoncarter »

lrvick wrote: post #66
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.

I know multiple people that have taken jobs at Facebook in recent years that feel it is a net negative in the world but could not resist the paycheck and justify it by committing to either by work hard as user advocates from the inside, or just finding open source work that doesn't directly exploit users to drain their resources on. I for one have taken interviews at Facebook with 0 intention of working for them just…

How is Facebook inherently evil?

Re: Facebook senior software engineer interview

#487

Post by simoncarter »

permille42 wrote: post #443

Been there. Done that. Fuck Facebook. They focused way too much on "college mentality" skills and zero on long term knowledge or experience with developing software in the field. They also didn't ask jack shit about my past experiences. Basically Facebook doesn't care about hiring specialists. They just want generic robots who will do their bidding.

But how can they do in a way that scales?

Certain people seem to be annoyed that they don't just ask questions that can't be verified and take the candidates word at it.

Re: Facebook senior software engineer interview

#488

Post by themacguffinman »

rglullis wrote: post #481
themacguffinman wrote: post #416

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No company on earth is interested in making their users happy, they're just interested in making money. This is some silly moral purity test where a company has to have pure intentions in order to do good. Our society works because people have the space & incentive to do good regardless of their intentions, and many Facebook users seem happy to use the service and find value in it regardless of whatever sinister inte…

Though not direct, there should be alignment between what a business creates and offers and consumers' (society's) satisfaction. "Users seem happy", the same can be said about smokers and tobacco. The issue is not even with the smoking per se. If tobacco companies were simply processing the plant and giving users what people have done for hundreds (thousands?) of years, it would be fine by me. The problem of Big Toba…

I have to disagree that they're the same. You're right in saying that "user's seem happy" is not the only metric, but it's quite a stretch to go from "Facebook doesn't optimize for holistic well-being" to "Facebook is as addictive & harmful as Big Tobacco". It's certainly something I believe reasonable people can disagree on and I don't think it's appropriate to shame people for working at Facebook.

It's a little off-topic but honestly the idea that Facebook is somehow the the cause of all these modern problems is pretty tenuous to me. Most Facebook users don't go crazy & belligerent from use, the effects are not at all like the consistent & universal harm of nicotine and cigarette smoke. It suggests to me that Facebook might exacerbate existing problems, but it is not the straightforwardly harmful product that people claim it is.

Re: Facebook senior software engineer interview

#489

Post by pseudalopex »

cratermoon wrote: post #471
AnimalMuppet wrote: post #390

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He made an incision that was needed for a successful delivery. I don't want a random person off the street doing that, no.

Funny how humans were somehow able to reproduce just fine for millions of years before surgical deliveries. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_YruT2ROEUc

Many women died giving birth.

Re: Facebook senior software engineer interview

#490

Post by pseudalopex »

kenhwang wrote: post #411
wanderer2323 wrote: post #309

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is this weird meme that using Python is beneficial during interviewing -- you mention it, the OP mentions it, I have experienced it myself and seen friends mention it. I don't know how or why this meme infects people; in my interview experience (MSFT, Google, Oracle, FB, Amazon, other smaller places) nobody ever batted an eyelid on me using C#. My advice would be to only use a language you know best, as long as…

Python is beneficial in that everyone understands or can learn to understand basic Python in the time it takes to do an interview. However, due to the whiteboard and performance focused aspect of the typical coding interview, Python is actually kinda an awful language to interview with. Plus, if you want to be terse with Python (whiteboard space is limited after all), it quickly becomes alphabet soup. If I had to des…

O(n) is O(n) in any language. And how does Python become alphabet soup?
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