61–70 of 731 posts
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…
A rather tired conversation in my opinion. Everybody likes to complain about interviews, but every single alternative I've heard is even worse: Take-homes are biased toward those willing to work hours for free, a "track record" is biased toward those who inflate their resume, a casual conversation is biased toward the likable and native english speakers, high-level whiteboarding is biased towards people who are good…
What if there were a certification authority that could claim that professionals are, indeed, competent in X, Y, Z within software? And, of course, that authority would need to be recognized by A, B, C companies. That'd certainly skip the endless, often mind-numbing, repetitiveness of technical interviews (especially for those with many years of experience) and can jump straight to culture/team/behavior fit. This is…
But like with AMA, they would (and does) gatekeep. What kind of policy can the organization be instituted with so that gatekeeping is impossible?
Doctors _should_ be a dime a dozen. They should not cost so much - because their services are valuable and therefore, more of them should be produced to make medical costs lower.
Software engineers, if they followed the AMA model, would cost $500k in student loans to train, and there's be barely any graduates to fill the demand.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
What's your endgame ?
To me, the "best" endgame is to obtain enough saved capital to found your own (small?) business to which you can generate and capture value directly.
A rather tired conversation in my opinion. Everybody likes to complain about interviews, but every single alternative I've heard is even worse: Take-homes are biased toward those willing to work hours for free, a "track record" is biased toward those who inflate their resume, a casual conversation is biased toward the likable and native english speakers, high-level whiteboarding is biased towards people who are good…
What if there were a certification authority that could claim that professionals are, indeed, competent in X, Y, Z within software? And, of course, that authority would need to be recognized by A, B, C companies. That'd certainly skip the endless, often mind-numbing, repetitiveness of technical interviews (especially for those with many years of experience) and can jump straight to culture/team/behavior fit. This is…
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 totally see the logic. But the problem with this is on day 1 of the new job where you've moved up a level by successfully completing Leetcode-style interviews, you're now expected to do more and know more. And that's hard if you've only invested the bare minimum in your previous job and haven't maximized your learning.
So now you need to not only give more than the bare minimum at your current job, you need to also constantly keep your Leetcode skills up to date.
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…
Early this year I got good at these problems and the ones I would actually encounter, above the average (based on time to solve, efficiency), as well as the system design interviews and I honestly think the behavioral interviews too, but decision makers just do not want to pay me over $180k. Whether thats salary at a Series B, C or midsize company or big tech companies whose total comp would be closer to $400k alongside a slightly lower cash comp
I questioned my competency, how I come across and everything. I subsequently let recruiters push me at the $125k range and I got a lot of offers. It was like a totally different and endearing experience, just like I had seen earlier in my career at those and lower comp ranges
So instead I created and sold some digital currencies for 7 figures
I think I would still like the validation of doing a year or two in the big tech circuit, especially because I could earn the shares and write calls on them without risking my prior capital, while being less likely to incur liability or bring attention to myself like in entrepreneurial endeavors
But I really hate that people are not able to value my contributions accurately. In fact I dont think they are valuing that at all, it felt like people were expecting a different kind of person: more stereotypical unsociable programmer at the higher comp and experience ranges. But regarding experience I also did a resume variation with less years of experience.
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…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
To me, the "best" endgame is to obtain enough saved capital to found your own (small?) business to which you can generate and capture value directly.
I did that and found that I hated it. There's a lot of bullshit that you have to deal with in a small business: incorporation papers, taxes, staying away from the zillions of people who try to scam or extort small business owners, sales, finances, etc. If you're wealthy enough that you don't really need revenue and can pay people for that, you'll likely find that being wealthy just exposes how money won't make you ha…
Generally, I'm more likely to hire someone with interesting hobbies than someone who has completed HackerRank tests. I don't find it compelling to see that a candidate has accomplished standardized metrics; but I am swayed by non-computing hobbies. Synthesizers, painting, rock climbing, volunteering, and so on are indicators of a curious mind that's happy to apply itself.
But do they still have to pass a bunch of HackerRank-style interview questions? The best interview question in my life, a few years ago, was one where they gave me an open-ended question, a laptop, and the whole afternoon with occasional checkins to see how I handled it. The evaluation was completely subjective. That's hard to standardize at an industrial scale, I understand why FAANG can't do that, but smaller shops…