The rise of never-ending job interviews • Hacker News Board

Re: The rise of never-ending job interviews

#701

Post by amznbyebyebye » Mon, Aug 02, 2021, 1:36 PM UTC

buro9 wrote: post #593

Ah Amazon... 14 interviews, an additional 5 hour technical test, spanning a total of 3+ months. Only to be informed at the end that I was too technical for the role they had in mind but they were offering me a Senior Principal SDE role instead. By the time we got to the end of the process I'd already concluded that the hiring process was a reflection of their internal decision making and that this was not a company (…

Sr principal is like L8 so you’re easily taking close to 1M/year salary.. 14 interviews is still a bit much, but you’re basically one step away from distinguished engineer which is pretty much end of the road for the engineering track at amazon

Re: The rise of never-ending job interviews

#702

Post by w0mbat » Mon, Aug 02, 2021, 1:37 PM UTC

michaelt wrote: post #448

trinovantes wrote: post #313

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It was for a junior c# position so I doubt it's applicable considering Visual Studio will point out the problems. But I'm curious what position would this question make sense?

> I'm curious what position would this question make sense? I was once asked a similar but better posed question: I was given some code and asked what I'd point out if asked to do a code review on it. And the code had loads of things wrong with it, from bad variable names and incorrect comments, through unit tests that didn't have any assertions and loops that weren't actually loops, all the way to choosing a non-sec…

Citrix gave me a page of code which had a lot of tricky obfuscated syntax problems. Code that looked live but was actually commented out, nested comments that were not terminated properly, code formatted in a very deceptive way, strings that were not quoted correctly so they would not end where expected on the page. It was all very contrived stuff that was deliberately deceptive, not like real broken code, and the errors would have shown up with syntax highlighting. I caught most but not all of the tricks. This is also the only interview I have ever had where a panel of engineers stood behind a desk and all barked questions at me. I did not get the job.

At a different interview, this one with Microsoft, the lead engineer showed me a page of actual code from their app and asked me what I thought. Luckily the bug instantly leaped off the page to me, although many people would not see it. That was a good way of proving that I have a useful ability, and a better use of time than whiteboard coding or quizzes. I got the job and they were glad they hired me.

Re: The rise of never-ending job interviews

#703

Post by FinanceAnon » Mon, Aug 02, 2021, 1:39 PM UTC

theshadowknows wrote: post #670

I work at Big Ass Corporation, Inc. in the US (there’s a very strong chance you use one or more of our services). Hiring is fucking awful. First of all it’s nearly impossible to get approval for a req in the first place. I’m actively looking to leave just because of that…but that’s a different rant than this one. Once a req is approved then it goes out to the team to disperse as well as hr. Some roles get handed off…

It sounds like you do what you can. Unfortunately, people like you leave as they can't put up with it any longer and the company is just left with people who are happy with the status quo.

Re: The rise of never-ending job interviews

#704

Post by wly_cdgr » Mon, Aug 02, 2021, 1:40 PM UTC

IMO, for new grads and career changers in particular, it would make good sense for Google and other companies that have to interview vast quantities of candidates to develop and publish some rigorous MOOC sequences that candidates can complete on their own schedule to develop and demonstrate relevant competencies in a way the companies can trust more than they trust 3rd party degrees. Candidates who complete the MOOC sequences successfully could be fast-tracked into an expedited interview process. Plus they get a marketable, public credential out of it, rather than just going through a super long interview process with nothing to show the world / other companies for it

Google is already kinda doing this with Grow With Google, so I am just thinking of an even more extensive and rigorous version of this

And/or just ask people about their best Factorio factories and EXAPUNKS solutions :)

Re: The rise of never-ending job interviews

#705

Post by bcrosby95 » Mon, Aug 02, 2021, 1:41 PM UTC

pawelwentpawel wrote: post #496

AJRF wrote: post #469

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Geohotz had a good rant about this once - the kind of people who need to cram leetcodes and memorize algorithms are not the kinds of people who Google wants to pass these interviews. Makes a lot of sense, you could solve all these questions without knowing specific algorithms as long as you are good at problem solving - which is, I assume, the intent of the process. Obviously it doesn't always work like that.

I went through a marathon of interviews for one FAANG company (8 in total - coding screen, 4x in first round, 3x in second round). I did enough preparation to remember quite a couple of the Leetcode solutions by heart. I was pretty much a code printer if I got one of those, not much thinking involved anymore. I reckon it was clearly visible that I've seen a similar question before which is unavoidable if you've done…

You need to act and pretend to think it through. Then you seem like a brilliant programmer they want to hire rather than someone that recently worked on the problem.

Re: The rise of never-ending job interviews

#706

Post by Verdex » Mon, Aug 02, 2021, 1:41 PM UTC

ljm wrote: post #550

trinovantes wrote: post #301

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I once had an in-person interview where they gave me a sheet of printed code and asked me to point out the syntax errors. Some interviewers are absolutely insane.

I had to review someone's PR for one interview. Ultimately I failed it because me feedback focussed solely on implementation details and asking if there are better ways to solve the problem (with some suggestions as a nudge). Apparently, that was fantastic and showed all the qualities of good coaching...but they expected me to point out all of the instances of poor indentation and other aesthetic things. My justifica…

Based on your description ... that wasn't a failure. Success is not working at places like that.

Re: The rise of never-ending job interviews

#707

Post by wildrhythms » Mon, Aug 02, 2021, 1:41 PM UTC

virgilp wrote: post #202

hardwaregeek wrote: post #10

If your application process starts with a human being—even better a technical human being—reaching out to me, followed by 2-3 interviews, followed by an offer, I am already on your side. If your application process starts with a HackerRank, followed by 2 phone interviews followed by on-site, followed by team matching, I will not be on your side. Oh and if there's random month long gaps in between stages, I will espec…

Is HackerRank so bad? If one does "whiteboard problems", HackerRank says, "boo, whiteboard interviews, just let me code and be able to search on Google, whiteboard is unrealistic!". Now if the company starts with a HackerRank test, that's also bad? I don't get it. Look, a lot of people have good-looking CVs and can't code shit. I don't know about you but my experience was that one really can't hire based on CV alone.…

There is so much more information gained about a candidate by an engineer interviewing another engineer than by a "pass" or "fail" score from a robot.

Re: The rise of never-ending job interviews

#708

Post by themulticaster » Mon, Aug 02, 2021, 1:43 PM UTC

the_only_law wrote: post #647

throwaway9191aa wrote: post #601

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'll just +1 this as a datapoint. I am not looking externally until I'm sure I'm done at AWS. I've done 80+ interviews here, and I'm consistently amazed by what drives people to say "The candidate wasn't up to the coding bar". As far as I can tell, you are almost never up to the coding bar. I think we interview so many people just to remind ourselves that if we leave, we aren't getting back in. Just to head off the "…

I remember seeing a comment about Amazon once claiming in order to be seriously considered for a role, you have to be better than 50% of the existing team you’d be coming onto.

To be fair, that would mean that your ability level is the median ability of the team you'd be joining, which doesn't sound all that far-fetched to me. If the skill level of new hires is always close to the median, the overall team ability should stay the same in the long run. This line of thought obviously depends on the assumption that you can measure the exact ability using just a single quantity.

Re: The rise of never-ending job interviews

#709

Post by zschuessler » Mon, Aug 02, 2021, 1:44 PM UTC

I was semi-actively hunting for a role a year ago.

The worst offender was a company I had five meetings with, 3 of which were identical code reviews for the same code test. None of the reviewers realized I already had the code review with their peers. None knew what the next step was.

Most companies just didn't have an organized funnel for candidates.

The one that did I quickly took the job offer at. Here's what they did right:

1. The recruiter prepped me for each interview as if they were a good friend looking out for me. They told me who I was talking with and what hobbies they had so I could relate to them.

2. I knew of each meeting and its format in advance. It's weird I'm calling this out as it seems simple, but here we are :-)

3. The code review was paid. And actually quite fun. The previous company code review was unpaid and 20 hours of 'implement a REST API'

4. The engineering team was actually trained on recruiting. Each one had read my resume and asked detailed questions about my hobbies, experiences, etc. Engineers elsewhere hadn't read my resume at all.

5. I always had quick feedback on technical meetings and didn't have more than three.

The most important difference I noticed is that most companies were ambivalent seeing me fail.. a select few even seemed to crave that.

Re: The rise of never-ending job interviews

#710

Post by nextlevelwizard » Mon, Aug 02, 2021, 1:46 PM UTC

valdiorn wrote: post #587

nextlevelwizard wrote: post #408

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We have too good employee laws. As long as you are trying your best it is really hard to fire anyone. There needs to be evidence that they aren't capable and even then they need to be given multiple chances over multiple months to correct this problem. Only way to fire someone on the spot is if they are breaking law or refusing to do the work

this is 100% your companys fault. If this person is literally not producing anything useful, then set them a basic piece of work and tell them to complete it. If they can't give them a warning, tell them to upskill. Repeat after a month. And again a month after that. If they still can't do it then you have plenty of evidence to justify firing them, anywhere in the world.

Not that easy with our labor laws