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This was pretty interesting. It would have never occurred to me that XCode, Git, etc. couldn't handle as much as you throw at it, but it kind of makes sense how

This was pretty interesting. It would have never occurred to me that XCode, Git, etc. couldn't handle as much as you throw at it, but it kind of makes sense how they explain it here. Still, I don't think I would like to actually work in that environment where the codebase changed so much so often and had so much dead and redundant code, so I guess I'm glad my interview with them didn't go terribly well (got asked questions by non tech-type person who was looking for keywords to obscure concepts as answers and didn't understand my conceptual but keyword-less responses).

manmal 11y ago
I've worked with clients that had all their code in one repo at Github, and it took me 5 tries to even pull it down initially. You need not operate at Facebook scale to overwhelm git :)
ch8230 11y ago
What keywords do you think the interviewer was looking for? Was it along the lines of "disruptive", "game-changing", "innovative", etc.?
- cableshaft 11y ago
  I don't remember what all of them were, but I specifically remember one of them had the words "Toll Booth" in it, like "Toll Booth Blah", where blah is the key word I can't remember. It's some networking/communication concept, I think. The phone interview person had a fairly difficult accent too so I don't think I even heard the whole answer. I've only ever encountered the term once online since. I just tried to Google for it again and I can't find the write combo of terms to find it ("toll booth networking? no.... toll booth computer science? no.....") So I tried to answer that question with what happens on a concept level, and the person on the line said "No. The answer is 'Toll Booth Blah'. 'Toll Booh Blah'" and moved on to the next question. Like she was Alex Trebek and there was only one way to answer the question. Meanwhile Google thought I was good enough to fly over for an in-person interview at around the same time, so I just wrote Facebook off as being terrible at hiring and moved on. To date it's still the worst phone interview experience I've had, and I've had some awful ones.
  - therealwill 11y ago
    Is it Toll-Free Bridging?
    - cableshaft 11y ago
      Yep, that was it. Man, I really misremembered that. It's an Objective-C thing, which makes sense, because it was for an iOS position. I knew the idea behind it, but I had never encountered the term. I do remember I ran into it again while preparing for interviews again a year ago. I'm deep in .NET territory for work and Python for fun right now, so my iOS knowledge has atrophied a bit.
      - mixmastamyk 11y ago
        Yep, I lost an interview about ten years ago in part because I had not encountered the magic term "duck typing" yet. Never mind that I had be making file-like and string-io objects in Python for years by that time. Don't get me started, tech interviewers are so bad...
jonknee 11y ago
Apple uses XCode to make iOS (and OS X and even XCode!), so it obviously can handle more than Facebook.app, but it doesn't fit their culture. Same with Git frankly.
- gorena 11y ago
  Or they could just modularize into frameworks and use Carthage? But, whatever, rewrite Xcode I guess.
btmiller 11y ago
> got asked questions by non tech-type person who was looking for keywords to obscure concepts as answers and didn't understand my conceptual but keyword-less responses Simple fact of the matter is that you're going to run into those type of questions by non-technical people at any big software company with which you interview. It's on you to be able to smell out what they want and answer with something that demonstrates your abilities and gives them what they're looking for.

manmal 11y ago

I've worked with clients that had all their code in one repo at Github, and it took me 5 tries to even pull it down initially. You need not operate at Facebook scale to overwhelm git :)

ch8230 11y ago

What keywords do you think the interviewer was looking for? Was it along the lines of "disruptive", "game-changing", "innovative", etc.?

cableshaft 11y ago
I don't remember what all of them were, but I specifically remember one of them had the words "Toll Booth" in it, like "Toll Booth Blah", where blah is the key word I can't remember. It's some networking/communication concept, I think. The phone interview person had a fairly difficult accent too so I don't think I even heard the whole answer. I've only ever encountered the term once online since. I just tried to Google for it again and I can't find the write combo of terms to find it ("toll booth networking? no.... toll booth computer science? no.....") So I tried to answer that question with what happens on a concept level, and the person on the line said "No. The answer is 'Toll Booth Blah'. 'Toll Booh Blah'" and moved on to the next question. Like she was Alex Trebek and there was only one way to answer the question. Meanwhile Google thought I was good enough to fly over for an in-person interview at around the same time, so I just wrote Facebook off as being terrible at hiring and moved on. To date it's still the worst phone interview experience I've had, and I've had some awful ones.
- therealwill 11y ago
  Is it Toll-Free Bridging?
  - cableshaft 11y ago
    Yep, that was it. Man, I really misremembered that. It's an Objective-C thing, which makes sense, because it was for an iOS position. I knew the idea behind it, but I had never encountered the term. I do remember I ran into it again while preparing for interviews again a year ago. I'm deep in .NET territory for work and Python for fun right now, so my iOS knowledge has atrophied a bit.
    - mixmastamyk 11y ago
      Yep, I lost an interview about ten years ago in part because I had not encountered the magic term "duck typing" yet. Never mind that I had be making file-like and string-io objects in Python for years by that time. Don't get me started, tech interviewers are so bad...

jonknee 11y ago

Apple uses XCode to make iOS (and OS X and even XCode!), so it obviously can handle more than Facebook.app, but it doesn't fit their culture. Same with Git frankly.

gorena 11y ago
Or they could just modularize into frameworks and use Carthage? But, whatever, rewrite Xcode I guess.

btmiller 11y ago

> got asked questions by non tech-type person who was looking for keywords to obscure concepts as answers and didn't understand my conceptual but keyword-less responses Simple fact of the matter is that you're going to run into those type of questions by non-technical people at any big software company with which you interview. It's on you to be able to smell out what they want and answer with something that demonstrates your abilities and gives them what they're looking for.