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“I've had to relearn coding to get through the new interviews”

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Re: “I've had to relearn coding to get through the new interviews”

#501

Post by landtuna »

edumucelli wrote: post #315
landtuna wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's nonsense. I've got 20 YoE, an elite college degree, tons of experience in Python and C++, have single-handedly put together mission critical software systems, and I can't get my foot in the door outside my small area of expertise. The teams I've worked on are tiny, so I have no career network to draw from. I'm missing machine learning and cloud experience, and my resume gets no hits because of it. Age 44, and…

Have you tried the "Who wants to be hired section?" in HN, e.g., https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25266287

Thanks - done!

Re: “I've had to relearn coding to get through the new interviews”

#502

Post by palerdot »

chapium wrote: post #468
robviren wrote: post #361

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's because the business people got interested and are increasingly taking leadership roles. As an engineer who has shifted over to the product management side I can safely say business people suck fun out of stuff for a living. Margins, cost savings, metrics to manage, each and every slow step of creating a new, less fun, normal erodes a culture built on making "Something cool" or "Just for fun". Worse yet is when…

Whats driving business types to think leetcode is a good test? This should be an easy conversation with HR. I think software engineers want this arbitrary barrier.

Leetcoding involves preparation for known problems and churning out solutions in least possible time. Most of the business have problems along the same lines (think of CRUD, authentication, authorization, UI animations etc ...) and they think people who excel in the former might do well in latter.

Edit: better sentence formation.

Re: “I've had to relearn coding to get through the new interviews”

#503

Post by _benj »

decafninja wrote: post #140
kmonsen wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think so at all. I have worked hard, and had a lot of fun at now two of the FAANG's. Sure the reward has not been like winning the startup lottery, but if you told myself 20 years ago I would have this impact and earn this much money I would not have believed it. I totally suck at politics, and have seen others rise quicker, but doing good work does get rewarded in my experience.

I would think FAANG would be considered as "endgame company" for many. Including myself.

I think endgame is considered differently by different people, i.e. endgame for me is financial independence through micro-ventures thus FAANG, which I'm considering right now would just be to pay the bills and create a comfortable financial buffer until I can leave them taking with me the ex-google/facebook/netflix badge and cash on hand.

Re: “I've had to relearn coding to get through the new interviews”

#504

Post by mtnGoat »

decafninja wrote: post #12

Unless you've made it to your "endgame" company that you're happy to stay at for a while, I feel investing anything more than the bare minimum to get your assigned work done is worth less than just grinding leetcode and otherwise studying for interviews. Doing an actual good job, above and beyond, is not going to be worth much when you're looking for your next job. Thus we're now seeing the rise of Professional Inter…

I dont know if I like this advice. I feel like you will never find a home at any company if you are always looking for the next one.

It's like a relationship, you'll never truly love the one you are with, if you keep dating or looking at others.

Plus, just a general poor moral value, IMHO.

Re: “I've had to relearn coding to get through the new interviews”

#505

Post by heurist »

voodootrucker wrote: post #164
andrew_ wrote: post #88

Tech hiring is severely broken. 22 years in and it's only gotten worse. We still tolerate PhD Comp Sci algorithm questions for frontend developer gigs, endless series of array shuffling and sorting, canned problems intended to "measure your problem solving ability," ridiculous hypotheticals (e.g. whiteboard how you would build Slack), and a litany of other tactics that recruiters or old school management thinks are r…

Thank you, this is brilliant advice. Despite decades of experience I was nervous due to this trend and spent way too much time on hackerank. The company I ended up with didn't ask any of that crap (despite being founded by a PhD), and we couldn't be a better fit.

Of all the companies I have interviewed with, the only ones I ever joined had sane, non-leetcode interview processes. I have actually reached a point where I see companies asking those questions as churn factories to be avoided rather than schools of practice. If/when I find myself interviewing again I will be declining leetcode interviews.

Re: “I've had to relearn coding to get through the new interviews”

#506

Post by krebs_liebhaber »

echelon wrote: post #55
decafninja wrote: post #12

Unless you've made it to your "endgame" company that you're happy to stay at for a while, I feel investing anything more than the bare minimum to get your assigned work done is worth less than just grinding leetcode and otherwise studying for interviews. Doing an actual good job, above and beyond, is not going to be worth much when you're looking for your next job. Thus we're now seeing the rise of Professional Inter…

Our industry feels like it's in the decline of the Roman Empire right now. Our craft is becoming arcane: Microsoft is building VSCode for the cloud. Few people own desktop computers anymore. Apple is locking down MacOS to signed binaries. Soon we'll all have thin clients and will write software in the cloud for the cloud. Few will be able to learn how to engineer at home anymore - you'll have to go to a university or…

> Employees aren't excited by what they do: People job hop for promos, raises, and resume fodder, not because there's an actual interest in the product.

Welcome to the other 99% of humanity. Work sucks, but someone has to do it.

Re: “I've had to relearn coding to get through the new interviews”

#507

Post by throw1234651234 »

dvtrn wrote: post #440
yodsanklai wrote: post #425

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is also one of my concern. Most of the interviewers were in their 20/30s and so is everybody on their "career" web pages and presentation documents. However, in the team I'll join, at least two people are about my age or older. What I can tell is that never in the recruiting process did I feel discriminated against. Once you're in the loop, their main concern seems to be how well you perform in the interviews. I…

EDIT: not sure why you're down-voted. Ageism is a thing and a legitimate source of concern. There’s some folks here who REALLY don’t like talking about true ways our industry can fail and in some cases has failed at being decent and fair and ethical to people of protected classes, or just in general.

I think it's generally what he said. We age in one or two ways - get old and decrepit, or get overwhelming experience/skill which is tremendously useful. The first scares people and a lot do assume it's just the first part - maybe they think I am unaware of the second.

Thanks for your reply! For full context, I am older too, that's why I asked.

Re: “I've had to relearn coding to get through the new interviews”

#508

Post by mtberatwork »

landtuna wrote: post #392
mtberatwork wrote: post #371

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the niche is defense contracting That's not exactly a small niche. Edit: Just saw your LinkedIn profile below, have you applied to DC area companies? I think you would have much more success in the DMV metro area.

No, I know more defense would be easy. I'd love to try other stuff, though. There's so much out there to learn, and it's more fun to do things that push me.

I hear you. There's lots of non-defensive tech companies in the DC area these days too. The workforce isn't just made up of young college grads either.

Re: “I've had to relearn coding to get through the new interviews”

#509

Post by davidjnelson »

pickledcods wrote: post #346
echelon wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Our industry feels like it's in the decline of the Roman Empire right now. Our craft is becoming arcane: Microsoft is building VSCode for the cloud. Few people own desktop computers anymore. Apple is locking down MacOS to signed binaries. Soon we'll all have thin clients and will write software in the cloud for the cloud. Few will be able to learn how to engineer at home anymore - you'll have to go to a university or…

And then age... I'm an eighties whizz-kid, educated hardware and software background with borderline epiphanic understanding of computer technology. From firmware to systems where peoples lives literally depend on. In 2000 jumped on a plane to Taiwan to develop the first Arduino/RaspberryPi class devices. Still up to date and currently busy polishing a ShowHN which will blow you off your socks. Everything nowadays is…

Talk to people you know. Should help find a job without the inane interviews. Blessings to you friend.

Re: “I've had to relearn coding to get through the new interviews”

#510

Post by decafninja »

mtnGoat wrote: post #504
decafninja wrote: post #12

Unless you've made it to your "endgame" company that you're happy to stay at for a while, I feel investing anything more than the bare minimum to get your assigned work done is worth less than just grinding leetcode and otherwise studying for interviews. Doing an actual good job, above and beyond, is not going to be worth much when you're looking for your next job. Thus we're now seeing the rise of Professional Inter…

I dont know if I like this advice. I feel like you will never find a home at any company if you are always looking for the next one. It's like a relationship, you'll never truly love the one you are with, if you keep dating or looking at others. Plus, just a general poor moral value, IMHO.

It used to be that staying at one company a long time was considered a good thing.

Nowadays, at least in tech, quite a few people consider it a red flag. The world we now live in.

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