7 ms·

Sorry but interviews at the big tech companies have become so easy these days, due to their insatiable demand for "talent", that I can't really hear these whini

Sorry but interviews at the big tech companies have become so easy these days, due to their insatiable demand for "talent", that I can't really hear these whinings about difficult interviews anymore. The candidates we usually get are just absolutely inadequate at coding and behavioral questions. This is not something you can overlook. They just lack the very basic skills to express themselves in code even when disregarding the correctness of their solutions. "You can't invert a binary tree". Well doh! Maybe you should go through the effort of at least looking at some of the basic algorithmic concepts again, you know just to show that you even remotely care to be hired by the company. They have a much harder job than you do. They get hundred thousands of applicants per month and need to filter them out. You are one person applying at maybe 2-3 companies a month or week. To me, this sounds like someone who thinks too highly of himself and "he doesn't need to prove himself to a FANNG company". Well think again, writing Homebrew doesn't mean anything. Pretty much anyone at a FANNG company could do that, but not everyone wants to do it. If you want to work at FANNG instead Homebrew, you need to prove yourself to them, not vice versa... Is it really too much to ask to spend a few days solving some programming puzzles on a whiteboard? If few days are not enough, then maybe you really aren't as smart as you think? I think people these days really tend to always put the blame on others. What about starting to look at yourself more critically, think about if you are really a "senior" engineer? I work in tech for years now at FANNG companies and "senior engineers" are in a different league. I think I will get there in one or two years but it has been a long ride. These people are paradigms of programming that can always give you useful insights and advise. They excel at a wide range of soft skills and management too. If you see what most companies (outside of FANNG) consider "senior" you will know why (1) senior engineer means absolutely nothing and (2) why FANNG is not interested whatsoever if you were a senior engineer somewhere else...

PopeDotNinja 7y ago
> "You can't invert a binary tree". Well doh! Maybe you should go through the effort of at least looking at some of the basic algorithmic concepts again, you know just to show that you even remotely care to be hired by the company. Who cares if you can invert a binary tree? Who cares if you can write a binary tree? I know what I've needed to know really well, because when it hit me in the face, I learned it. If I need a self-balancing whatever, chances are I'm gonna grab one off the shelf and call SomeBTree.new(args). The problem with "maybe you should have just learned those simple concepts" is that there are an infinite number of clever questions interviewers try to ask, and close to none of those questions matter. The management that wants to have confidence that applicants can verse a binary tree is also the management that would not let you budget the time to create a binary tree if you actually needed one from scratch... "you shouldn't have to worry about that, just ship it and move on". Most of my job as a dev seems to be cleaning up the messes of someone that cleverly coded everyone else into a slow, unmaintainable mess. How interviewing for that?!
lazyasciiart 7y ago
Ha, I have not had the same experience as you on senior programmers at FANG companies.
GrinningFool 7y ago
> Is it really too much to ask to spend a few days solving some programming puzzles on a whiteboard? Yes. It's not a matter of capability - in over 20 professional years I've yet to run into a problem I couldn't solve when I was motivated to do so - either because my job required it, or just because it was interesting. It's a matter of valuing my time. I do. Companies that want to put me through 12+ hours of interviews and exercises do not. And if they can't value it for interviewing purposes, chances seem very low that they'll value it when I'm an employee.
SketchySeaBeast 7y ago
The answer 10 minutes ago was I can't invert a binary tree - I didn't know what that meant. I just did a google, and now I can. How did I become more valuable of a hire?

PopeDotNinja 7y ago

> "You can't invert a binary tree". Well doh! Maybe you should go through the effort of at least looking at some of the basic algorithmic concepts again, you know just to show that you even remotely care to be hired by the company. Who cares if you can invert a binary tree? Who cares if you can write a binary tree? I know what I've needed to know really well, because when it hit me in the face, I learned it. If I need a self-balancing whatever, chances are I'm gonna grab one off the shelf and call SomeBTree.new(args). The problem with "maybe you should have just learned those simple concepts" is that there are an infinite number of clever questions interviewers try to ask, and close to none of those questions matter. The management that wants to have confidence that applicants can verse a binary tree is also the management that would not let you budget the time to create a binary tree if you actually needed one from scratch... "you shouldn't have to worry about that, just ship it and move on". Most of my job as a dev seems to be cleaning up the messes of someone that cleverly coded everyone else into a slow, unmaintainable mess. How interviewing for that?!

lazyasciiart 7y ago

Ha, I have not had the same experience as you on senior programmers at FANG companies.

GrinningFool 7y ago

> Is it really too much to ask to spend a few days solving some programming puzzles on a whiteboard? Yes. It's not a matter of capability - in over 20 professional years I've yet to run into a problem I couldn't solve when I was motivated to do so - either because my job required it, or just because it was interesting. It's a matter of valuing my time. I do. Companies that want to put me through 12+ hours of interviews and exercises do not. And if they can't value it for interviewing purposes, chances seem very low that they'll value it when I'm an employee.

SketchySeaBeast 7y ago

The answer 10 minutes ago was I can't invert a binary tree - I didn't know what that meant. I just did a google, and now I can. How did I become more valuable of a hire?