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From my own experience dealing with all kinds of companies. If you aim for C-level companies (IBM, Banks, Oracle, Walmart, etc.) then you don't need to spend ti

From my own experience dealing with all kinds of companies. If you aim for C-level companies (IBM, Banks, Oracle, Walmart, etc.) then you don't need to spend time building side projects. They simply don't care. For B-level companies like Uber, Airbnb, Dropbox and everything in between low and high skilled engineers, it's crucial to have a product of your own out there. They hire mostly young engineers with no professional experience, fresh out of college, so need something to look at. Your app(s) or website(s) will lead you to an interview if you apply. Now, for A-level companies like Google, Apple, FB, etc. it's actually better to do what you do! They prefer a nice github profile rather than an actual app. They're looking for very technical people who teach, mentor, etc. So I'd say, do what you do, update your github profile and apply at google, etc.

luhn 10y ago
How are you categorizing these companies? What's makes one A, B, or C-level?
- bsvalley 10y ago
  This is how recruiters and companies classify engineers in Silicon Valley (and beyond I believe). I'm not a fan of that classification personally, but it makes it easy to trim a pile of 5000 Resumes. What happens is that Google, FB, etc. will most likely attract 'A' engineers, while other companies will have to deal with B's and C's (sometimes A's as well). So to answer your question, an A engineer is someone who can potentially crack a Google interview, or someone who worked for one of the big-5 in the past (FB, amazon, google, apple, microsoft). I let you guess for B and C... same concept.
curiousDog 10y ago
Umm, Airbnb interviews are much harder than FB and Google.
- bsvalley 10y ago
  From what I remember so far at Airbnb it used to be tough when they were small. I don't know today if they still attract a lot of rock stars. But still, all I had to do was to write up a mini-web app and connect to their API in order to pull out some data, in about 2 hours. Then after this interview they had an onsite with classic CS and culture fit. They were very tough on culture fit and you had to meet with the 3 founders. I don't know today if it's still the case. At FB and Google it's all about mathematics, advanced CS, etc. So... They're looking for generalists and it's harder to find because in real life you don't really use this stuff anymore.
  - pmiller2 10y ago
    Interesting. What does "tough on culture fit" mean exactly?
    - bsvalley 10y ago
      Like any other companies they have a list of values, company culture etc. I said tough because you could have easily passed all their interviews and failed at the very end, by talking to one of the founders.
      - pmiller2 10y ago
        That basically applies to any company. What makes Airbnb so tough as to be worth noting?
    - jamesmp98 10y ago
      In Silicon Valley I can imagine it means "over 30"
    - user5994461 10y ago
      Young, cheap, naive, no family to attend to. The magic startup recipe!
    - moosingin3space 10y ago
      There was an interview I did last fall where I was rejected because I had prepared material that was more useful for a team they weren't hiring for at that time. So it can mean many things, and it's really frustrating when they don't explain.
serge2k 10y ago
> Now, for A-level companies like Google, Apple, FB, etc. it's actually better to do what you do! Bull-fucking-shit. Google and Facebook are the poster children for algorithm based interviews. They don't give 2 shits about what you have done because it wasn't done at Google, so it counts for nothing. Now go solve another pointless dynamic programming problem you waste of skin.
- bsvalley 10y ago
  Funny comment :) Looks like someone got rejected a few times. The point here is to land an interview first. I can't name one single engineer who wrote "algorithm and data structure" on his/her Resume. Do you? If you do have a nice github profile it'll help you get into the hiring process. AND THEN we can start talking about the actual interview content. It's all about separating the good from the bad.
  - serge2k 10y ago
    > It's all about separating the good from the bad. No, it's about google being able to continue jerking off to the idea that they only hire the best. I've seen people smarter than me get rejected and people dumber than me get hired. Google's process is shit, and that would just be par for hte course but the company is god damn arrogant about it. Hell, you decided to be a condescending fucking asshole just talking about it on HN.
    - bsvalley 10y ago
      What does it mean?? "Smarter or dumber than me". Are the ultimate reference? Sheesh! Glad to see those google filters are still working pretty well...

luhn 10y ago

How are you categorizing these companies? What's makes one A, B, or C-level?

bsvalley 10y ago
This is how recruiters and companies classify engineers in Silicon Valley (and beyond I believe). I'm not a fan of that classification personally, but it makes it easy to trim a pile of 5000 Resumes. What happens is that Google, FB, etc. will most likely attract 'A' engineers, while other companies will have to deal with B's and C's (sometimes A's as well). So to answer your question, an A engineer is someone who can potentially crack a Google interview, or someone who worked for one of the big-5 in the past (FB, amazon, google, apple, microsoft). I let you guess for B and C... same concept.

curiousDog 10y ago

Umm, Airbnb interviews are much harder than FB and Google.

bsvalley 10y ago
From what I remember so far at Airbnb it used to be tough when they were small. I don't know today if they still attract a lot of rock stars. But still, all I had to do was to write up a mini-web app and connect to their API in order to pull out some data, in about 2 hours. Then after this interview they had an onsite with classic CS and culture fit. They were very tough on culture fit and you had to meet with the 3 founders. I don't know today if it's still the case. At FB and Google it's all about mathematics, advanced CS, etc. So... They're looking for generalists and it's harder to find because in real life you don't really use this stuff anymore.
- pmiller2 10y ago
  Interesting. What does "tough on culture fit" mean exactly?
  - bsvalley 10y ago
    Like any other companies they have a list of values, company culture etc. I said tough because you could have easily passed all their interviews and failed at the very end, by talking to one of the founders.
    - pmiller2 10y ago
      That basically applies to any company. What makes Airbnb so tough as to be worth noting?
  - jamesmp98 10y ago
    In Silicon Valley I can imagine it means "over 30"
  - user5994461 10y ago
    Young, cheap, naive, no family to attend to. The magic startup recipe!
  - moosingin3space 10y ago
    There was an interview I did last fall where I was rejected because I had prepared material that was more useful for a team they weren't hiring for at that time. So it can mean many things, and it's really frustrating when they don't explain.

serge2k 10y ago

> Now, for A-level companies like Google, Apple, FB, etc. it's actually better to do what you do! Bull-fucking-shit. Google and Facebook are the poster children for algorithm based interviews. They don't give 2 shits about what you have done because it wasn't done at Google, so it counts for nothing. Now go solve another pointless dynamic programming problem you waste of skin.

bsvalley 10y ago
Funny comment :) Looks like someone got rejected a few times. The point here is to land an interview first. I can't name one single engineer who wrote "algorithm and data structure" on his/her Resume. Do you? If you do have a nice github profile it'll help you get into the hiring process. AND THEN we can start talking about the actual interview content. It's all about separating the good from the bad.
- serge2k 10y ago
  > It's all about separating the good from the bad. No, it's about google being able to continue jerking off to the idea that they only hire the best. I've seen people smarter than me get rejected and people dumber than me get hired. Google's process is shit, and that would just be par for hte course but the company is god damn arrogant about it. Hell, you decided to be a condescending fucking asshole just talking about it on HN.
  - bsvalley 10y ago
    What does it mean?? "Smarter or dumber than me". Are the ultimate reference? Sheesh! Glad to see those google filters are still working pretty well...