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In general the Big Tech companies are more interested in hiring for general competence than they are in hiring for specific skills. If you have specific skills they want, then great, otherwise, they'll be happy to mold you into whatever they need. (And this isn't to say that getting hired/rejected by a big tech company is an indicator of competence necessarily; the hiring process is pretty noisy)
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Feb 13, 2018 17:02
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All I know is that I sucked poo poo at the string processing and graph traversal screening questions, to the point where I got discouraged in the middle of it and the interviewer was audibly wincing.
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Feb 13, 2018 18:21
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Good Will Hrunting posted:I rescind my comments. He definitely does. Super positive meeting with near-immediate change happening and if I'm not happy after that, there are a few roles that will be open for a while (multiple roles on multiple teams) that they'd be glad to put me on. galaxy brain: after announcing the new tech lead as the official New Tech Lead for the team the old mana*er is now basically a senior engineer with lots of control and the same title
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Feb 13, 2018 18:46
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Orkiec posted:Blind is a good place to find that the sky is falling down, a month ago everyone was panicking about them bringing stack-ranking back (they haven't). True, but they corroborated the press and that layoffs were only in the low hundreds. It's not like thousands of engineers were suddenly laid off.
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Feb 13, 2018 22:27
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Pollyanna posted:What does Amazon hire for these days, anyway? I can't see a typical fullstack web dev being all that useful to Amazon's AI and robotics-level projects (ask me about failing an Amazon interview). my ex worked in rails web dev and got hired by amazon (being an ex and getting hired by amazon are connected btw, amazon is a really cool company until it steals your girlfriend) to work on silk. she was a bio undergrad and had only worked as a developer for a couple of years but she was really bright and i think that had something to do with the interview going well. Bruegels Fuckbooks fucked around with this message at 10:50 on Feb 15, 2018 |
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Feb 15, 2018 10:00
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Bruegels Fuckbooks posted:my ex worked in rails web dev and got hired by amazon (being an ex and getting hired by amazon are connected btw, amazon is a really cool company until it steals your girlfriend) to work on silk. she was a bio undergrad and had only worked as a developer for a couple of years but she was really bright and i think that had something to do with the interview going well. Luckily I'm single so that's not a concern. I kinda ate poo poo with the Amazon interview because I failed the string processing and graph theory questions. I was completely unprepared for those kinds of questions cause they were something I'd never done before. It seems like those kinds of questions are the screener for Amazon, but I don't quite understand why they ask them. I should review those questions and grind them out (that and graph theory/etc.), but I just don't run into those problems often enough to justify learning them.
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Feb 15, 2018 14:32
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Pollyanna posted:All I know is that I sucked poo poo at the string processing and graph traversal screening questions, to the point where I got discouraged in the middle of it and the interviewer was audibly wincing. What were the questions?
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Feb 15, 2018 15:09
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Munkeymon posted:What were the questions? I remember for the graph traversal question, I needed to get the sibling of any particular node immediately to the right (e.g., parent’s parent’s right sibling’s child’s leftmost child). I had absolutely no idea how to do it and cracked under the pressure. For strings, find the largest unique substring with no character repeats. They’re fairly simple, but I just couldn’t and still can’t do them.
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Feb 15, 2018 15:13
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Pollyanna posted:I remember for the graph traversal question, I needed to get the sibling of any particular node immediately to the right (e.g., parent’s parent’s right sibling’s child’s leftmost child). I had absolutely no idea how to do it and cracked under the pressure. i've seen both those before, and been asked them on interviews https://www.geeksforgeeks.org/find-right-sibling-binary-tree-parent-pointers/ https://www.geeksforgeeks.org/length-of-the-longest-substring-without-repeating-characters/ would i freeze up if the problem were entirely new (or even now without prepping tbh)? yes the reason my ex-girlfriend works at amazon now is she bought a bunch of these books that were filled with these problems, worked through them all in a couple of months, and got lucky in that everything that was asked was something she already studied (although she got better at this bullshit by working through them I imagine) people are not creative when it comes to interview questions and there seems to be a finite set of what people will ask in interviews, but it's not some innate thing that you either have or you don't.
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Feb 15, 2018 15:27
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I've gotten the string one and it's laughably easy once you practice these things or work with strings/arrays long enough. I could figure the tree one out in an interview but it'd take me some time. That said Poly why don't you start... doing practice like this? Then post here (or, I guess the Newbie thread because it'd be more beneficial) about where you're getting stuck. People would be more than happy to help. The one thing that really trips me up in an interview still is problems like n-queens.
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Feb 15, 2018 16:02
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Bruegels Fuckbooks posted:(being an ex and getting hired by amazon are connected btw, amazon is a really cool company until it steals your girlfriend) this is the only story that matters in this thread btw
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Feb 15, 2018 16:27
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FamDav posted:this is the only story that matters in this thread btw did you miss the part where i got shitfaced and hosed a vp level exec at my company's insane drug-filled holiday party literally hours before meeting with the head of HR to discuss how i was't happy with management e; this is not a brag, i regretted the decision immensely at the time and even further after i found out she was engaged Good Will Hrunting fucked around with this message at 16:34 on Feb 15, 2018 |
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Feb 15, 2018 16:32
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Good Will Hrunting posted:I've gotten the string one and it's laughably easy once you practice these things or work with strings/arrays long enough. I could figure the tree one out in an interview but it'd take me some time. That said Poly why don't you start... doing practice like this? Then post here (or, I guess the Newbie thread because it'd be more beneficial) about where you're getting stuck. People would be more than happy to help.
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Feb 15, 2018 16:32
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Is it strange to have long hours (50+ expected) as a dealbreaker? There’s an opportunity that might be good but they hammered home the “everyone works hard” thing in the interviews and some weird culture stuff came out. I feel like I would burn out quickly on that. What the gently caress Good Will Hrunting posted:I've gotten the string one and it's laughably easy once you practice these things or work with strings/arrays long enough. I could figure the tree one out in an interview but it'd take me some time. That said Poly why don't you start... doing practice like this? Then post here (or, I guess the Newbie thread because it'd be more beneficial) about where you're getting stuck. People would be more than happy to help. Y...yeah I should probably practice now that I know what I’m dealing with  I think I got a book of common interview questions so I can work through that.
Pollyanna fucked around with this message at 16:38 on Feb 15, 2018 |
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Feb 15, 2018 16:35
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Pollyanna posted:Y...yeah I should probably practice now that I know what I’m dealing with Pollyanna posted:Somehow Amazon is at least passingly interested in me (I have no idea why), so they want to set up a phone/online interview to cover "coding, data structures, and operating systems fundamentals, as well as design questions". I have no idea what this will cover and I'm not exactly expecting to pass it, but has anyone done Amazon's phone screens? What do they usually cover? Star War Sex Parrot posted:Amazon's usually not too difficult, at least not for the first round. Basic data structures, basic graph and tree algorithms, threads, etc. -- typical CtCI stuff. Star War Sex Parrot fucked around with this message at 16:47 on Feb 15, 2018 |
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Feb 15, 2018 16:42
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Pollyanna posted:Is it strange to have long hours (50+ expected) as a dealbreaker? No, gently caress that.
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Feb 15, 2018 16:49
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Star War Sex Parrot posted:CtCI isn’t very fun to work through. Respectfully disagree! There's nothing better than feeling like you "get" problems you've been working to get comfortable solving for a while.
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Feb 15, 2018 16:58
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Good Will Hrunting posted:There's nothing better than feeling like you "get" problems you've been working to get comfortable solving for a while.
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Feb 15, 2018 17:02
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Pollyanna posted:What the gently caress Learning Haskell is a mind-altering experience.
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Feb 15, 2018 17:12
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Star War Sex Parrot posted:I’d argue that nailing said problems in an actual interview is a better feeling. Maybe, but, the first part is definitely a dependency 
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Feb 15, 2018 17:13
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I love this post and will re-read it every single time I see it.
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Feb 15, 2018 17:15
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Interviewing is a skill, and solving interview problems is also a skill. They can, and should, be practiced. They're not necessarily very useful skills, except for the bit where they are a huge factor in determining whether or not you get a job. And yes, this does mean that there are highly-skilled devs out there that would be an asset to any team, except they suck at interviewing so they don't get hired. And that's unfortunate.
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Feb 15, 2018 17:36
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50+ hours/week in a vacuum is kind of meaningless outside of "does the person have the stamina for it." Whether or not it's a deal breaker depends on the role, the industry and the compensation, as well as the candidate. I'm older (late 40's) but I'd probably do it for big tech co. level compensation, benefits, and perks, assuming that I had some say in what 50 hours/week I was working as well as a solid termination agreement that made sure I was well taken care of if they let me go. If I had kids or other dependents, then almost certainly not. If the compensation weren't staggeringly high, then definitely not.
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Feb 15, 2018 17:55
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The hard part of CtCI-style prep for me was always replicating the interview environment, not working through the problems. I'd lock up in interviews only to come home and write down the obvious solution in five minutes.Mniot posted:I love this post and will re-read it every single time I see it. It's really delightful but has the side effect of making me feel dumb as hell 
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Feb 15, 2018 17:56
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TooMuchAbstraction posted:Interviewing is a skill, and solving interview problems is also a skill. They can, and should, be practiced. They're not necessarily very useful skills, except for the bit where they are a huge factor in determining whether or not you get a job. Interviewing isn't exactly a useful skill as an end unto itself, but it is a synthesis of many skills that are generally useful in life. Getting better at the underlying skills will make you better at interviewing & will also improve your life in general.
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Feb 15, 2018 17:58
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Skandranon posted:Interviewing isn't exactly a useful skill as an end unto itself, but it is a synthesis of many skills that are generally useful in life. Getting better at the underlying skills will make you better at interviewing & will also improve your life in general. Sure, the reason why companies interview is because they assume that to be good at interviewing, you must be also good at other skills that the company values, like being able to communicate clearly and think through problems. I just meant (and communicated poorly  ) that there's some additional skills that are tested when doing interviews that aren't otherwise usually relevant in your day-to-day. In particular, being able to think quickly on your feet, present a simple answer quickly, and then rapidly refine on that simple answer (to handle new requirements / optimizations). In a normal development environment you generally have at least a few hours to think about this kind of stuff, rather than needing to come up with an answer in a minute or two.I also don't run into graph theory or dynamic programming in my day-to-day very often, but they show up all the time in interviews. But practicing interviewing, and practicing solving interview problems, will absolutely train your communications and problem-solving skills, and those are generally useful.
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Feb 15, 2018 18:04
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raminasi posted:The hard part of CtCI-style prep for me was always replicating the interview environment, not working through the problems. I'd lock up in interviews only to come home and write down the obvious solution in five minutes. I bought a whiteboard and would solve problems on that while explaining to my wife what I was doing. She had no idea what I was talking about but it got me used to explaining my thought process.
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Feb 15, 2018 18:08
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Skandranon posted:Interviewing isn't exactly a useful skill as an end unto itself, but it is a synthesis of many skills that are generally useful in life. Getting better at the underlying skills will make you better at interviewing & will also improve your life in general. Public speaking, listening, problem solving, and adapting to novel conditions quickly are just a few of those things, yeah, and all of them are tremendously helpful to be able to do. Re: CtCl: Anyone have tips on keeping yourself motivated while working through it? I recently looked at the "entry level" questions for the Google interviewing process and, despite having had a pretty good career in dev so far, came away with an acute case of impostor syndrome.
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Feb 15, 2018 18:09
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metztli posted:Re: CtCl: Anyone have tips on keeping yourself motivated while working through it? 
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Feb 15, 2018 18:10
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The problem with interviewing isn't algorithm questions anymore, in my opinion. Nor is it take-home assignments. It's arbitrary "system design" interviews that are insanely easy to grade subjectively. This is not to say they're an issue everywhere, but a lot of places (places I've worked included) are not as forgiving as others*. *Want their answers and nothing else. Are you an expert who designed Instagram? gently caress no bitch otherwise you wouldn't be interviewing someone.
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Feb 15, 2018 18:14
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Pollyanna posted:It seems like those kinds of questions are the screener for Amazon, but I don't quite understand why they ask them. The reason big mega-companies interview like this is because they hire for general "problem solving skills" (or at least believe they do) and so don't care if you know a specific technology or domain. They expect you to work there for a while and think it will pay off to just invest in training you on the job whatever you need to learn. But they still need a common language with the candidate to build their questions on and have settled on graphs/trees/strings/etc. Probably because they can expect most college hires to have some background there from their education (which is definitely unfair to those coming to the industry from a different background). Google is the best about communicating this fact to candidates. They are very upfront about the exact set of data structures and algorithms you should know and fine with giving you a few weeks to study up on them before the interview. But it's just as true at Amazon and Microsoft: you have to go into the interview comfortable with all the topics in CtCI. And the only way to get there is to study.
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Feb 15, 2018 18:45
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Good Will Hrunting posted:did you miss the part where i got shitfaced and hosed a vp level exec at my company's insane drug-filled holiday party literally hours before meeting with the head of HR to discuss how i was't happy with management How big is the company?
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Feb 15, 2018 20:26
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return0 posted:How big is the company? 69 peopple
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Feb 15, 2018 21:16
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Good Will Hrunting posted:69 peopple good
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Feb 15, 2018 21:17
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nice
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Feb 15, 2018 21:23
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Good Will Hrunting posted:did you miss the part where i got shitfaced and hosed a vp level exec at my company's insane drug-filled holiday party literally hours before meeting with the head of HR to discuss how i was't happy with management The hero we deserve 
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Feb 15, 2018 22:09
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Good Will Hrunting posted:69 peopple I ask because the bigger the company, the more interesting an event this is. I mean, 69, Nice!
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Feb 15, 2018 23:14
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Jose Valasquez posted:I bought a whiteboard and would solve problems on that while explaining to my wife what I was doing. She had no idea what I was talking about but it got me used to explaining my thought process. I can explain my thought process fine. (Or at least, trying to do it didn't bother me.) It's the pressure that got to me. I suspect that if I hadn't been in desperate need of a job at the time it would have been much easier. (So much job hunting advice only applies if "no new job" is an acceptable outcome for you.)
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Feb 16, 2018 00:06
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Good Will Hrunting posted:did you miss the part where i got shitfaced and hosed a vp level exec at my company's insane drug-filled holiday party literally hours before meeting with the head of HR to discuss how i was't happy with management I did something similar when I started my first job. She wasn't VP, but she was a senior resource manager (think supply chain for people and projects around the country). This was during training for which the company brought in people from several offices to Boston for a week to get all the HR poo poo out of the way. Everyone was drunk and high the entire time. We didn't realize we were in the same office until the last day. That's when she told me she was married. When we started everyone in the office already what had happened. We denied everything, but continued; she would send me to other offices with the cool projects that lasted weeks at a time, then found a reason to be there as well). Ahhh the dot com days. 
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Feb 16, 2018 00:59
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Thoughts on places with unlimited vacation? I'm aware of the risk and culture that can lead to people taking hardly any, looking for first hand experience (either way)?
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Feb 16, 2018 04:19
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