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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”

#601

Post by pb7 »

jolux wrote: post #237
_9omd wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, it's extremely tired. FAANG companies are not dumb, they hire at scale and know how to find talented engineers using a rigorous/repeatable interview process. I think most of the complaints come from people who fail these interviews (I used to be one), and don't want to admit that maybe they're not good enough.

It takes a talented bullshitter to convince themselves that a 30 minute whiteboarding session can determine anything of worth about a person’s first month at a company, let alone year or two. “We only hire the best” is just marketing.

Well, that's why the standard interview loop consists of at least 5-6 45 minute sessions that intentionally do not overlap in subject matter done by separate people. If the signal is not strong enough, then more interviews are done. Works pretty well I think.

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

#602

Post by neverminder »

decafninja wrote: post #533
dnautics wrote: post #516

Earlier quoted context omitted.

well there is the story of when Google acquired youtube at the all-hands meeting the CTO addressed the engineering department and asked them how many of them had been rejected by google, and half of the people there shot their hands up. Probably they had a better windfall, and "Google could have saved more than a few billion"

On a similar vein, I recall a story that said most Googlers thought they probably wouldn't pass the technical interview if they had to go through it again. Does match with what my friends who made it into FAANG say as well - none of them are confident they'd be able to do it again with any certainty.

There's a story, mentioned many times here on HN, where Google (I think) hiring team were given their own anonymized CVs and they rejected all of them. It's a perfect example to describe the staggering level of hypocrisy at those companies.

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

#603

Post by draw_down »

jmchuster wrote: post #600

How much would people prefer a more practical 1-hour exam? My company has a takehome to build a basic CRUD api app. But my impression is that most people aren't even comfortable enough with their tools to whip up a simple webapp from scratch. Given the choice, they'd actually prefer to implement a hackerrank function. https://github.com/FarmWise/takehome-backend

Can't do that, it discriminates against people with less free time. Basically if you offer a take-home test you hate parents.

There is no silver bullet, every approach has some group who hates it and hates you for using it. Pick your poison.

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

#604

Post by draw_down »

neverminder wrote: post #477
vsareto wrote: post #441

Earlier quoted context omitted.

NGL, I'd jump through hoops for 250k + other compensation Part of why this has stuck around for so long is that so many people are willing to do that because it's a life-altering amount of money

Well, there are also counter-examples to your thinking. Brian Acton was rejected by Facebook, then went on founding WhatsApp and eventually selling it to the same Facebook for $19B. "Life altering amount of money", wouldn't you agree? Probably one of the most expensive rejections in history.

Haha! Yes, if you think you're about to build the next Whatsapp, you definitely should not waste your time studying for tech job interviews.

We're all temporarily-embarrassed rockstar founders here at HN.

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

#605

Post by pseudalopex »

hiq wrote: post #328
ornornor wrote: post #326

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t know about you but I suck the most when coding in a HTML element instead of my editor and with a gun to my head.

I think the problem can be solved if the interviewer gives enough information so that the interviewee can have their IDE working correctly by the time they get started. The pressure problem can be solved by giving more time than what would be expected in a work setting. If you expect a task to be completed in 1h, just give 2h. Of course that implies that you don't give a task which would take an expected 6h to comple…

Giving twice as long doesn't solve stage fright.

Interview pressures and job pressures are completely different.

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

#606

Post by tinkertamper »

svrb wrote: post #176
tinkertamper wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Recently I started trying something new for our interviews. I start with a phone interview that is more about discussing their background, expertise, what they need to feel productive, and explain the role. If I think they’d be a good culture and expertise fit, I send them something like this (I’ve made a few): https://gist.github.com/tywalch/cf60e4c942ab6a80e481f4ba6754... . It’s a small “api service” that represent…

TL;DR: you're testing for likability and other emotional response.

I can understand this concern though I can assure you when I say "culture fit" I'm considering it a two way street.

A good example: I had an interview earlier this week for a full-stack role and the inteviewee had recently come off a two year project that was heavy on react. The project he'd be on has a jquery frontend. I told him candidly that the project would likely never make a "modern" refactor a priority, and asked him if he could still be happy in a role that used jquery.

Our full-time team is small and ensuring we can all collaborate and work together is very important for us to be effective. On the flip side we try to be transparent about what our team looks like too and give you a chance to decide if you could be locked in a room, hashing out which circle talks to which on a whiteboard, with us.

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

#607

Post by everdrive »

tonyedgecombe wrote: post #260
trimbo wrote: post #213

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a truly remarkable take I've never heard before. I honestly wonder if it's true. If it's actually true--and if poor quality of work and reputation mean nothing, just leetcode--it seems like that is just a side effect of extremely rapid expansion and/or churn. Because no employer would willingly hire people like that. That'd be absurd. So the only reason that would be possible if the hiring manager never got w…

It does sound distopian. However if it's really true then employers only have themselves to blame. Potential employees are reacting to the incentives in front of them.

In my narrow experience, I have not seen much proof that my employer can:

1) Interview with any sort of success

2) Judge merit after getting the position

I think a lot more people may be operating on intuition than you realize.

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

#608

Post by jolux »

pb7 wrote: post #601
jolux wrote: post #237

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It takes a talented bullshitter to convince themselves that a 30 minute whiteboarding session can determine anything of worth about a person’s first month at a company, let alone year or two. “We only hire the best” is just marketing.

Well, that's why the standard interview loop consists of at least 5-6 45 minute sessions that intentionally do not overlap in subject matter done by separate people. If the signal is not strong enough, then more interviews are done. Works pretty well I think.

Do you have any empirical data demonstrating that this “works well” or are you just assuming? What is your definition of “works well?” Low false positive? Low false negative?

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

#609

Post by snerbles »

121789 wrote: post #454
astrea wrote: post #426

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your comment inspired me to ask a question I've had for a while. My background is not CS, it's computer engineering. So I didn't have any education in the fancy algorithms that you'll find in these interviews. Is that expected or did I miss something?

I have the same background and I think you either missed something, or your degree was much more EE focused. I had the required data structures + algorithms classes as part of my computer engineering curriculum

A lot of CE degrees are EE with just the barest veneer of software to meet ABET requirements.

Mine had data structures and software engineering as CE-specific requirements (along with a dash of microarchitecture and HDL/FPGA stuff), the CS algorithms course was an elective that obviously gave priority to CS majors.

Beyond that, we had a department head that really only cared about shoving as many EEs as possible into the PG&E hiring pipeline.

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

#610

Post by war1025 »

rorykoehler wrote: post #362
noir_lord wrote: post #293

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean - desktop processor sales an insanely strong, AMD can't make enough. Gamers will buy every RTX3xxx card that hits the shelf and every heavy duty programmer I know has at least a fast desktop and often server racks. I don't think we need to worry about the future of the desktop just yet.

What is a heavy duty programmer?

Someone with an expensive desktop and possibly even server racks.
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