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“This week marks the beginning of my 4th year at Facebook”

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Re: “This week marks the beginning of my 4th year at Facebook”

#51

Post by zerr »

CGamesPlay wrote: post #32
ojr wrote: post #29

@CGamesPlay how did you get a job at Facebook being a college dropout and why did you drop out of University of Central Florida?

After doing an internship at Facebook in college, I received a full-time offer for after I graduated. I never really felt like college was for me and so I asked if they could extend me an offer immediately rather than waiting until graduation.

Does internship to employment transformation imply easier interview process overall? i.e. rather than apply to full-time position directly.

Another concern - does this also imply the offer with a below average compensation?

Re: “This week marks the beginning of my 4th year at Facebook”

#52

Post by zerr »

anon12345678 wrote: post #49
anonymous592053 wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[Continuing because of HN's length restrictions] > In the code base that you live in, you quickly develop an > understanding of how the components fit together. Use this > knowledge: instead of only fixing a bug you're assigned, consider > how you can prevent that class of bug from ever happening > again. Instead of implementing a new feature, consider how you can > create a common abstraction between the new and old…

I was also fired from an engineering role at Facebook. However, I look at the experience very differently. They seek candidates with strong engineering skills, and only do a little culture fit at interview time (this was my experience at least). The real culture fit test happens during bootcamp, where they try for 6 weeks to break any misfit. Now that isn't going to work for everyone, but their strategy is to go all-…

With all this hackathon bullshit I think that companies try to squeeze out more free time from people for their needs, including advertisement.

Re: “This week marks the beginning of my 4th year at Facebook”

#53

Post by anon12345678 »

zerr wrote: post #52
anon12345678 wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was also fired from an engineering role at Facebook. However, I look at the experience very differently. They seek candidates with strong engineering skills, and only do a little culture fit at interview time (this was my experience at least). The real culture fit test happens during bootcamp, where they try for 6 weeks to break any misfit. Now that isn't going to work for everyone, but their strategy is to go all-…

With all this hackathon bullshit I think that companies try to squeeze out more free time from people for their needs, including advertisement.

I was told that working on those projects was a privilege and that we had to perform at our jobs (minus any output from hackathons) before we could work on the stuff we wanted to. I think it's a sensible strategy. Hackathons do keep engineers on the edge and excited about work, but you want to avoid it distracting from the core focus too much.

Re: “This week marks the beginning of my 4th year at Facebook”

#54

Post by nilkn »

anon12345678 wrote: post #49
anonymous592053 wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[Continuing because of HN's length restrictions] > In the code base that you live in, you quickly develop an > understanding of how the components fit together. Use this > knowledge: instead of only fixing a bug you're assigned, consider > how you can prevent that class of bug from ever happening > again. Instead of implementing a new feature, consider how you can > create a common abstraction between the new and old…

I was also fired from an engineering role at Facebook. However, I look at the experience very differently. They seek candidates with strong engineering skills, and only do a little culture fit at interview time (this was my experience at least). The real culture fit test happens during bootcamp, where they try for 6 weeks to break any misfit. Now that isn't going to work for everyone, but their strategy is to go all-…

Are you suggesting they effectively treat the first six weeks of employment as little more than an "extended interview" and fire anybody who doesn't make their cultural fit in that time frame?

Re: “This week marks the beginning of my 4th year at Facebook”

#55

Post by nilkn »

nvarsj wrote: post #41
anonymous592053 wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[Continuing because of HN's length restrictions] > In the code base that you live in, you quickly develop an > understanding of how the components fit together. Use this > knowledge: instead of only fixing a bug you're assigned, consider > how you can prevent that class of bug from ever happening > again. Instead of implementing a new feature, consider how you can > create a common abstraction between the new and old…

Wow, sounds rough. You seem bitter and hurt by the whole experience still. Let me just tell you: this experience is good for you in the long run. I can tell you as someone who sits on the ASD scale, I've had some painful periods in my early life where my brain locked on and obsessed over similar rejections. And the obsession and bitterness didn't do me an ounce of good. But later on I accepted it and realized the exp…

> always have a money backup!

If it was his first job out of college, he may not have had much of a choice here. Wouldn't his signing bonus have been revoked since he wasn't employed for a full year? (Not a Facebook employee, not sure on their offer details.)

Re: “This week marks the beginning of my 4th year at Facebook”

#56

Post by ericd »

onedev wrote: post #13
GuidMor wrote: post #4

time to quit and do something real.

Your job must be so miserable that you feel the need to make a comment like this. I'm so sorry about that, but some people have exciting, amazing jobs, and that's no reason to get jealous.

Having a miserable job and thinking that Facebook is largely a waste of great engineering talent are orthogonal things. I think a lot of good knowledge on the scaling front comes out of it, but I wouldn't say that it's the most efficient societal use of our best engineers by a long shot. I think it's everyone's right to choose how they spend their time, even if it squanders their potential impact, but we generally shouldn't feel proud when we squander it.

Re: “This week marks the beginning of my 4th year at Facebook”

#57

Post by anonymous592053 »

nilkn wrote: post #54
anon12345678 wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was also fired from an engineering role at Facebook. However, I look at the experience very differently. They seek candidates with strong engineering skills, and only do a little culture fit at interview time (this was my experience at least). The real culture fit test happens during bootcamp, where they try for 6 weeks to break any misfit. Now that isn't going to work for everyone, but their strategy is to go all-…

Are you suggesting they effectively treat the first six weeks of employment as little more than an "extended interview" and fire anybody who doesn't make their cultural fit in that time frame?

Yes.

Re: “This week marks the beginning of my 4th year at Facebook”

#58

Post by anon12345678 »

nilkn wrote: post #55
nvarsj wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wow, sounds rough. You seem bitter and hurt by the whole experience still. Let me just tell you: this experience is good for you in the long run. I can tell you as someone who sits on the ASD scale, I've had some painful periods in my early life where my brain locked on and obsessed over similar rejections. And the obsession and bitterness didn't do me an ounce of good. But later on I accepted it and realized the exp…

> always have a money backup! If it was his first job out of college, he may not have had much of a choice here. Wouldn't his signing bonus have been revoked since he wasn't employed for a full year? (Not a Facebook employee, not sure on their offer details.)

You only lose it if you leave voluntarily, so no.

Re: “This week marks the beginning of my 4th year at Facebook”

#59

Post by webvictim »

anonfbemp wrote: post #40
anonymous592053 wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[Continuing because of HN's length restrictions] > In the code base that you live in, you quickly develop an > understanding of how the components fit together. Use this > knowledge: instead of only fixing a bug you're assigned, consider > how you can prevent that class of bug from ever happening > again. Instead of implementing a new feature, consider how you can > create a common abstraction between the new and old…

I can confirm the same experience as a non-engineer. I worked in a group that was not engineering, and had the same schizophrenic experience with respect to what I was told was the culture, what was expected and what the reality was. The culture of facebook is that of a pretentious enclave of people who think that simply their being at facebook is validation of their any actions or motivations. While the benefits of…

Sounds like you had a truly sucky experience. I'm sorry to hear about that.

Re: “This week marks the beginning of my 4th year at Facebook”

#60

Post by hkmurakami »

Apocryphon wrote: post #50
hkmurakami wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I had the impression that Google was engineer oriented but I wonder if this is still the case with their recent refocus into a small number of key products. With that in light, how would we (to the best of our knowledge) characterize some of the big/promitent software players? (FB, GOOG, AMZN, MSFT, NFLX, RAX, DBOX, etc.)

I wonder why AAPL isn't ever mentioned in these discussions. They may be chiefly hardware focused, but they do plenty of software.

I intentionally left them out since imo their software serves to augment their hardware and the nature of the beast seems to be a bit different from others.
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