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Interviewing in Silicon Valley

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Re: Interviewing in Silicon Valley

#91

Post by recursive »

ecspike wrote: post #25
nilkn wrote: post #22

I personally would quite like an interview where I work with the interviewer to solve a problem or puzzle that he himself has not solved--as opposed to the traditional setup where the interviewer acts as the all-knowing oracle who happens to withhold the solution to this one problem. This could be difficult to set up on a regular basis, though. I actually had an interview somewhat like that recently. The team was abo…

I think all take-home projects should pay market rate.

I suppose that cuts you out of the applicant pool for those positions then.

Re: Interviewing in Silicon Valley

#92

Post by lutorm »

Schwolop wrote: post #44

The whole interviewing process is ass-backwards for smart people. I have little interest in working for a company where I'm going to struggle to do the job. I'm not going to apply for a job where I'd be out of my depth for any more than a month or so, because that sort of "if I don't get better at this soon I'm going to be fired" sort of stress is horrible. I want to find a job where I can succeed right off the bat,…

I know before I even get to the interview that I'm perfectly well suited for the company and can do the job - if I wasn't, I wouldn't have applied.

You do realize that just because you think you are perfectly well suited for the job, that doesn't mean that the prospective employer has any way of knowing that or that it's even true, right?

Sure, the company needs to show that they are a place you want to work at, but you should realize that you also need to show the company that you are someone they want to work with.

Re: Interviewing in Silicon Valley

#93

Post by bcoates »

VexXtreme wrote: post #89
spaghetti wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I like to partition companies with products that gain traction into two groups. In the first group are technically mediodcre founders who cobbled together a product that's almost unmaintainable. The second group consists of relatively experienced founders who cobbled together a product that's maintainable. The two groups use distinct interview styles. Since the group with nearly unmaintainable code has many more memb…

> The quality to seek in employees is perseverance and obedience. And this familiar interview style tests for just that. I know some actual interviewers who ask these types of CS heavy, puzzle based, brainteaser type of questions. They say that their rationale for asking questions like this is to gauge the candidate's attitude and to see how they behaviorally respond when presented with this kind of problems. In many…

If the bar for "absolute obedience" is not storming out of the room when asked a dumb question, then yay for absolute obedience.

Someone who really was the superstar candidate who shouldn't be bothered to answer pointless riddles would surely have the communication skills to tactfully change the subject to how they're the best candidate for the job.

Re: Interviewing in Silicon Valley

#94

Post by defen »

reikonomusha wrote: post #28
estebank wrote: post #27

> I emailed them back asking if they had any feedback from > my interviews, but I’ve failed to receive a response. I've been bothered by this as well, because we want to improve ourselves, and the best way to do so is through feedback. At the same time, you have to understand that not everybody is like us, and enough people that where given that feedback in the past have used that opportunity to "argue" that they rea…

> Well, that's one problem right there. [...] Of course it depends. Getting the ball rolling is probably not best done by giving an NP-complete problem (subset sum) as a first exercise. When presented with an interview question, I usually say "well, it can be solved by doing $NAIVE_SOLUTION, just to get that out there, and I know you're looking for a better one." By doing this, I've established that there is a naive…

> Of course it depends. Getting the ball rolling is probably not best done by giving an NP-complete problem (subset sum) as a first exercise.

2 things:

1) Being asked to solve an NP-complete problem would actually be very simple for a person with CS knowledge - just brute force it! Your solution will be reasonably close to the best-known algorithm for arbitrary input.

2) That isn't actually the subset-sum problem since they are specifying that the subset must be of size n.

Re: Interviewing in Silicon Valley

#95

Post by 300bps »

bane wrote: post #51

I agree with this article that communication with companies is getting absurdly poor. With all these communications channels available, why is it so hard to send a quick email? Don't have time because of too many candidates? Maybe you shouldn't have more candidates than you have time to handle. I've reached a point in my career where I'm not interested in engineering positions anymore (a great motivator has been to a…

>I simply make too much money these days.

This is why I don't respond to any solicitations anymore. It's apparently against the laws of the universe for a job candidate to initiate the discussion about money, but there are a lot of inexperienced hiring managers that don't know that people might be already making more than the position could possibly pay.

One interview in particular, I got past the phone screen, got past the technical interview and got past the interview with the CIO. He starts talking about when I can start, setting up my PC, etc. He says, "oh, oh, what do you make now?" I told him and his smile literally melted away and he said, "Well thanks for coming in."

Re: Interviewing in Silicon Valley

#96

Post by lutorm »

krat0sprakhar wrote: post #5

> In most interviews I’ve had, engineers and recruiters I speak to spend a great deal of time gloating about their product, almost as if they are trying to sell me their product. The fact of the matter is, I am not interested in being spoken to as if I would be a potential consumer of your product. I want to be spoken to as if I would be a potential employee working on your product. Spot on!

Why would you want to work there if you didn't think the purpose was important?

Re: Interviewing in Silicon Valley

#97

Post by lutorm »

tptacek wrote: post #60
rm999 wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree with you that a lot of SE interviews are frustratingly pointless, but I disagree that coding challenges alone are adequate. A very important aspect of being on a team of engineers is collaboration, which often comes down to solving tough problems as a team at the whiteboard. I spend maybe 5% of my work time doing this, yet it's some of the most efficient use of my time - the hour I spend fleshing through an i…

Interviews are not collaborative. They're intensely hostile experiences, even when interviewers are trying hard to be nice (many don't). It's silly to suggest that a job interview is a venue to evaluate how a candidate collaborates.

Admittedly, I don't have a huge interview experience (on either side), but that hasn't been my experience. Apart from the implicit pressure of the fact that you are being evaluated, most of the interviews have given me the impression that the opposite party are really trying to learn about me, not putting me through a hazing experience.

Re: Interviewing in Silicon Valley

#98

Post by Luyt »

wowoc wrote: post #19
ultimoo wrote: post #12

I am in grad school and live with roommates in the SV. Amongst the six of us, we have interviewed at a cumulative of 20 big SV names in the last month and of course we discuss the interviews frequently with one another. Companies like Broadcom, Cisco, Juniper, Anritsu, Apple etc. solely rely on the programming problems the OP talked about. HP focuses on riddles and puzzles to a point where it is ridiculous and mind-n…

What's SoMA?

May I toot the horn of http://somafm.com/ here? An excellent SoMA-based internet radio station. I'm especially fond on the GrooveSalad channel, http://somafm.com/groovesalad/

Re: Interviewing in Silicon Valley

#99

Post by ttrreeww »

woodchuck64 wrote: post #13

> [ Lots of coding puzzles and vague about that "very difficult problem" they're working on that requires expertise in 20 different technologies ] I get it now. Silicon Valley job interviewing is white-collar gang initiation: you have to show you can bear the pain and humiliation of getting metaphorically beaten up and humiliated. It's not about getting the questions right anymore than taking a fist in the face quali…

It's been like that for awhile now...

Re: Interviewing in Silicon Valley

#100

Post by dionidium »

bane wrote: post #71
dionidium wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That could happen, but most companies probably use the same terrible interview for everyone but their friends, which, while unethical, is lawful. Wait, why is it unethical? It's frustrating and inconvenient and sucks for everyone but their friends. But, unethical? On what grounds? I don't have an obligation to give strangers the same favors I give my friends, do I?

You have an obligation not to waste people's time, especially if you are putting up the facade that they might actually be in the running. The modern interview process can take weeks or even months to get through. If you're just going to hire your friends, can you give the other candidates those weeks or months of their lives back?

Your reply and the one below assume that the choices are mutually exclusive. That was not implied and is an unnecessary assumption.
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