Consistent use of indefinite "they" is jarring and unnatural. It's one person, so use he/his or she/her.
Interviewing a software engineer who prepared with AI
501–510 of 731 posts
Re: Interviewing a software engineer who prepared with AI
#502On the topic of interview prep - is it weird that I’ve never been able to bring myself to do it? I can’t be the only one, right? As best as I can tell it’s never really hurt me (okay, there was a Google interview I failed where grinding a few leetcodes might have helped…).
If you never prepared for the interview then you probably never really wanted/needed the job and so the requisite motivation wasn't there for you. Nothing wrong with that - nice position to be in actually.
Or they might simply have some ADHD/autistic traits which make these things require additional effort.
I have a list of past projects I'm comfortable talking about. I can go to great lengths talking about any of them in detail if prompted. I'm also comfortable talking about technical topics including those I'm not intimately familiar with - that's part of my job after all. But most importantly, I'm confident enough that I can say "I don't know what that is, can you elaborate?" and "I'd need to look into that and get back to you".
I've you're going to leetcode me, I'm going to underperform. I've never had to do leetcode for a job. I also don't typically apply to the kind of companies that think leetcode is a good filter. Why should I waste their time and mine to apply to a job at a company I'm probably going to hate working for?
Re: Interviewing a software engineer who prepared with AI
#503Earlier quoted context omitted.
> They say they "use AI to match the keywords in job description". If recruiters only pick up your resumes based on keyword matching themselves, what is one to do, if not adapt their resumes to said keywords so they can at least try to get to a human interview? Not talking about India specifically, but in general. Hiring is broken, so everyone tries to fix it in their own ways to maximize their chances.
> what is one to do Find roles where your skills match the required skills ?
There are many recruiters out there that will flat out reject someone if they aren't a perfect match for every single skill listed. I don't have a problem with lying to get past that gauntlet.
Re: Interviewing a software engineer who prepared with AI
#504On the topic of interview prep - is it weird that I’ve never been able to bring myself to do it? I can’t be the only one, right? As best as I can tell it’s never really hurt me (okay, there was a Google interview I failed where grinding a few leetcodes might have helped…).
That's exactly what they want: to filter out anyone who lacks time to prep. Such as those older candidates who have families and things to do outside of work.
Re: Interviewing a software engineer who prepared with AI
#505Earlier quoted context omitted.
If they're young it can also be because that's what they've been told to do, if they're from a different culture (even an American one) it may be shockingly weird not to wear a suit to an interview, and there are even people who wear suits all the time because a well-made suit is very comfortable, with no more showing off involved than dressing up any other way. An interview is not a regular work day, best not to sum…
> If they're young.... if they're from a different culture... These are just instances of my point (a): not having a clue about SV work culture. > there are even people who wear suits all the time Not in silicon valley tech. I mean, sure, maybe there's one guy and the number is not zero.
My point is that even knowing the work culture of SV does not mean that people necessarily believe it applies to interviews too, or that a suit will be a negative point, rather than good or neutral. There is a strong culture of looking smart at interviews that overrides knowledge of day-to-day attire. If you really care about people being in casual clothes, mention it in the invite, rather than looking down on them for doing what has been ingrained to be appropriate.
Re: Interviewing a software engineer who prepared with AI
#506We get a few thousand fresh grads applying to us each year. It’s practically impossible to interview every one of them. At the same time, any sort of coding assignment we give is easily defeated by AI—so that’s not useful either and there are very few signals there. What we do instead is send out a test - something like a mental ability test - with hundreds of somewhat randomized questions. Many of these are highly v…
You could also sort by SAT / ACT score. It will yield roughly the same results as your IQ test.
Re: Interviewing a software engineer who prepared with AI
#507On the topic of interview prep - is it weird that I’ve never been able to bring myself to do it? I can’t be the only one, right? As best as I can tell it’s never really hurt me (okay, there was a Google interview I failed where grinding a few leetcodes might have helped…).
If you are trying to advance your career, I feel prepping for interviews is probably the number one most important thing you can do, unless you are freakishly gifted at acing interviews with no prep.
I agree with you but only for junior engineers. You have to distinguish yourself. A senior should be expected to show competency in something already on their resume, and be able to learn whatever is thrown at them. The bigger priority with interviewing a senior is making sure they aren't bullshitting.
Re: Interviewing a software engineer who prepared with AI
#508Earlier quoted context omitted.
> what is one to do Find roles where your skills match the required skills ?
There are many recruiters out there that will flat out reject someone if they aren't a perfect match for every single skill listed. I don't have a problem with lying to get past that gauntlet.
Just don't be surprised when you're passed over because someone else lied harder, and be aware that, like them, you're harming honest applicants by lying. After all, it's the same game.
That said, it's not surprising that humans are still okay with harming others to personally get ahead. A few thousand years doesn't cover a lot of evolution away from "fark you, I got mine".
Re: Interviewing a software engineer who prepared with AI
#509Earlier quoted context omitted.
>If you studied and worked with the tech in your free time, you can say so, and show your work. Recruiters or HR who check your resume never cared about what you do in your free time as counting as professional experience, they only do keyword matching on languages or stacks with "year of on the job experience". So white lies are the only way to pass through that initial filter and get to a technical person who will…
> Switching to a tech stack is not the same as switching to brain surgery. SW engineering is a critical component of both medicine and rocket science, and doing it wrong can kill people. Beyond that, you'd be harming others by taking the job from someone who put in the work to actually be qualified, and harming your future coworkers by deceiving them. > Recruiters or HR who check your resume never cared about what yo…
Not all jobs are created equal. I know the quality control for software written for Web is very very different than the software written for cloud.
You're arguing that the standards for medical device firmware should be the same for Pinterest which is honestly just a waste of and effort.
I can see both sides of this specific discussion but treating SW engineering generally as rocket science is lying to yourself ;)
Re: Interviewing a software engineer who prepared with AI
#510Earlier quoted context omitted.
There are many recruiters out there that will flat out reject someone if they aren't a perfect match for every single skill listed. I don't have a problem with lying to get past that gauntlet.
Just don't be surprised when you're passed over because someone else lied harder, and be aware that, like them, you're harming honest applicants by lying. After all, it's the same game. That said, it's not surprising that humans are still okay with harming others to personally get ahead. A few thousand years doesn't cover a lot of evolution away from "fark you, I got mine" .
> it's not surprising that humans are still okay with harming others to personally get ahead.
Recruiters are harming me by taking a cut of my salary and offering nothing of value other than screening some calls and adding my resume to a spam listing and robodialer. Do you think I care about harming them