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I interviewed at six top companies in Silicon Valley in six days

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Re: I interviewed at six top companies in Silicon Valley in six days

#51

Post by ryandvm »

azhenley wrote: post #21
ForrestN wrote: post #10

I find it shocking that Facebook would still be considered as a peer to these other companies in terms of desirability as an employer. I would only accept a position at Facebook, which seems to be building a fundamentally destructive product while going out of its way to behave unethically in many dimensions, if it was an absolutely last resort to pay the medical bills of some dying loved one or something. Why would…

They have some really interesting projects going on. For example, they have recruited some top researchers in program analysis and compilers (among many other areas).

I think his point wasn't that Facebook isn't doing neat stuff, just that at the end of the day, the result of everything they do is objectively horrifying. It boils down to:

"Give people just the right amount of dopamine and fiddle with their psyche in all the right ways in order to maximize the amount of time they spend staring at their phones."

Re: I interviewed at six top companies in Silicon Valley in six days

#52

Post by commonsense1234 »

cheez wrote: post #20
guessmyname wrote: post #9

> If it’s of any use: I was interviewing for my second job out of college with about two and a half years of experience without any particularly notable internships or employers on my resume; I went to a very small school that had zero known software companies at their “career fair”; I started preparing in late April and started applying in June/July; and, lastly, a few months in, my job is everything I could have po…

It's because you're old, come on.

its an open forum. you can get away with whatever shit you come up with.

Re: I interviewed at six top companies in Silicon Valley in six days

#53

Post by apo »

Implied but not explicitly stated in the post is the idea that these interviews are mainly about solving puzzles given during interviews.

How depressing. A big part of software development is knowing how to get things done with people you don't agree with or like. A good chunk of the rest is about communication. You know, organizing thoughts into something coherent and actionable, speaking, writing, and most of all listening.

Is big tech hiring that broken that a person's past history of shipping quality software under severe business constraints matters so little?

Or is it perhaps that too few people at large tech companies are capable of evaluating candidates on any other basis than cooked-up on-the-spot brain teasers?

Re: I interviewed at six top companies in Silicon Valley in six days

#54

Post by la6470 »

ForrestN wrote: post #10

I find it shocking that Facebook would still be considered as a peer to these other companies in terms of desirability as an employer. I would only accept a position at Facebook, which seems to be building a fundamentally destructive product while going out of its way to behave unethically in many dimensions, if it was an absolutely last resort to pay the medical bills of some dying loved one or something. Why would…

[dead]

Re: I interviewed at six top companies in Silicon Valley in six days

#55

Post by zerohp »

guessmyname wrote: post #9

> If it’s of any use: I was interviewing for my second job out of college with about two and a half years of experience without any particularly notable internships or employers on my resume; I went to a very small school that had zero known software companies at their “career fair”; I started preparing in late April and started applying in June/July; and, lastly, a few months in, my job is everything I could have po…

I was a programmer for 10+ years and I couldn't pass the technical interviews for these companies either. I started down the path of trying to self-learn Computer Science but reading books wasn't enough for me so I wen't back to school for it. Around the end of my CS bachelors I pivoted to hardware and stuck around for a masters in ECE. Now I work at one of the companies mentioned. It is much harder to learn CS on your own than it is in a structured environment.

Your experience allowed you to move toward doing work that excites you. Even though you didn't meet your goal, you still had great success.

Re: I interviewed at six top companies in Silicon Valley in six days

#56

Post by TheHegemon »

markdoubleyou wrote: post #12

"After about a month of consistently practicing problems each day (maybe 2–3 hours/day, more on weekends)..." I'm reading this as a guy with a wife, kids, full-time job, and rusty whiteboarding skills. My inability to make this kind of time investment makes me feel trapped at my current position.

I have a wife, three boys (one who doesn't sleep through the night), and a full-time job as well. Usually I just practice after putting the kids to bed. It's possible you just need to carve out some time even if it's an hour or two a night.

Re: I interviewed at six top companies in Silicon Valley in six days

#58

Post by gok »

hunter23 wrote: post #37

The candidate's experience shows how flawed Bay Area recruiting is. This candidate was clearly strong, as they had a 100% offer rate on companies that they interviewed at and almost all of those companies are top tier(Apple, LinkedIn, Amazon, Facebook, Google). Yet 70% of the companies didn't even give the candidate a chance to interview. It's incredibly sad that a candidate that is able to get offers at Google, Face…

It's possible the candidate was overqualified and some of those 70% knew it wasn't worth their time if there was a 99% chance they were going to Google or similar.

Re: I interviewed at six top companies in Silicon Valley in six days

#59

Post by SamReidHughes »

ForrestN wrote: post #10

I find it shocking that Facebook would still be considered as a peer to these other companies in terms of desirability as an employer. I would only accept a position at Facebook, which seems to be building a fundamentally destructive product while going out of its way to behave unethically in many dimensions, if it was an absolutely last resort to pay the medical bills of some dying loved one or something. Why would…

Because Facebook makes one of the most useful pieces of software for everyday people. It's not a "destructive" product.
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