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How do older programmers deal with coding interviews from companies like facebook / google? i feel like those advantage people who just finished their algorith

How do older programmers deal with coding interviews from companies like facebook / google? i feel like those advantage people who just finished their algorithms class, or have time to practice specifically for it.

1ba9115454 9y ago
I personally wouldn't target those companies. They tend to employ on a permanant basis and the contract market is a bigger payer. Also after a few years in the game you tend to get targetted by recruiters as you may have specialised into certain areas. i.e. finance. So for example, I don't normally look for work, it normally finds me.
- hardwaresofton 9y ago
  Could you give some examples of where you first got your contracts (outside of personal connections)? The contract market seems great (I'm in it right now), but finding decent positions seems pretty difficult without a pre-existing large network. Also, a lot of the sites that feature contract work ask for way too many details, and are basically a race to the bottom on price, sometimes at the expense of quality, and I don't feel panicked enough yet to join that race.
  - jensC 9y ago
    Yep, same here too. Worked as a freelancer for 15 years with one company and now trying to find a new contract (with only a small network) is pretty hard (can only do remote jobs due to a handicap).
tluyben2 9y ago
Don't want to generalize but as far as I have seen; they don't. As a 6th point in his list could be; connections. I (42 y/o) know people; I can get programmers to follow me if I move company which is a plus. But I also know investors, potential clients, C*O's and hiring managers. People recommend you or know you via their network.
- jacquesm 9y ago
  > I can get programmers to follow me if I move company which is a plus. It's at best a 'neutral' because when you inevitably leave again you'll take all those people with you potentially leaving the company floundering.
  - tluyben2 9y ago
    You could read it that way indeed; I meant it like; I know a lot of coders who will join me if they are looking for something new. And unlike a lot of people it seems, I don't really enjoy moving to another company or taking people if they enjoy what they do; it would be that they would ask me first if I have something.
dagw 9y ago
How do older programmers deal with coding interviews from companies like facebook / google? Badly. The unfortunate truth is that if you've hit 40+ without having built up enough expertise and contacts to bypass those types of interviews then finding a programming job is going to be really hard.
- eternalban 9y ago
  > if you've hit 40+ without having built up enough expertise and contacts to bypass those types of interviews then finding a programming job is going to be really hard. This I think is true in most professional fields and doesn't answer the question posed. The interview-fail of the software industry is all about knowledge gaps: - the knowledge gap of most practitioners in this field of the most basic fundamental findings, constructs, etc. of their field; - the knowledge gap of discerning actual skills based on presented CV credentials; - the knowledge gap of the interviewers themselves -- who are of course paid members of the same under-educated industry -- resorting to popular trends as substitute for the ability to distinguish between capable and incapable candidates; When an arts and crafts "industry" [has] pretensions to being "engineering" or "science", this is what you get. Throw in a healthy dose of age discrimination, and voila.
- ryandrake 9y ago
  > bypass those types of interviews Can you elaborate a bit? I hear this all the time (get the job through contacts and networking not by applying and interviewing) but nobody will go into step-by-step detail about how one actually can manage to "bypass" a company's interview process. Company: "Thanks for your interest in working here. Your resume and application are impressive, and you have great references! Obviously you are skilled, so forget about having to interview. How's $180K plus benefits sound, and can you start in a week?" I've been in tech for close to 20 years and that scenario just sounds absurd to me.
  - dagw 9y ago
    step-by-step detail about how one actually can manage to "bypass" a company's interview process. Networks and reputation. Get a former boss/colleague that knows you (and who has ideally ended up in a position some of trust/responsibility) to recommend you to his boss. If someone the boss trust tells him that you have the exact combination of expertise they're looking for and that you're the person they need then everything goes a lot smoother. That's how I got my current job. A former colleague (who'd ended up in a management position) called me out of the blue, invited me out to lunch and straight up asked me if I'd be interested in a new job. I still had to interview, but it felt like much more of a formality. You can also just ask people. Keep a list of people you've work with that you trust/respect and that you believe trust and respect your skills and just keep in touch with them once every 6 month or so. Let them know that you are open to switching jobs if something interesting comes along and ask them to keep you mind. Another way is to become a 'name' in your field. If yours is one of a handful of names that always comes up when people are talking about who in town is really good at X then chances are people will start seeking you out.
tmoertel 9y ago
Counterpoint: Because these companies place so much emphasis on your actual performance at coding during interviews, they can be better for older programmers because they are not hiring based on how you look but on what you can do.
notacoward 9y ago
Well enough, apparently. I had to go through this at Facebook pretty recently. I was 51 at the time, and there were a half dozen guys of similar age in my subsequent bootcamp class. (It's interesting that my age cohort was all guys even though the class overall seemed pretty balanced, but that's another topic.) Two things definitely helped with this. (1) I've always been a bit of an algorithms guy. I've met many people who were better at debugging, a few who were better at systems design or straight-out coding, but if you need someone to pick the exact right algorithm and tweak it a bit to suit a particular situation then I'm all over it. (2) The interviewers were obviously well trained. The problems were well chosen and presented, and I was allowed to think through things my own way at my own pace. The followup questions clearly indicated that the interviewers were looking at more than just whether I could solve this particular problem - how I broke it down and handled edge cases, how I handled changing requirements, testability, communication, and so on. Having written before about how such interviews are usually an exercise in ego and a total waste of time (or worse), I was pleasantly surprised. I think a lot of older programmers do avoid such interviews. They'd never admit fear is a factor, but it is. I'll admit I hesitated before going through it myself, but then I realized that even if I "failed" it didn't diminish me. It just meant there was a difference of opinion about what mattered or made someone a good fit for a job. I can live with that.
francisofascii 9y ago
Older programmers can do just fine in those algorithm tests, if they have been programming recently at their day jobs, and not PM/managerial work. Years of 8 hours of programming per day is actually good practice. They might have to brush up on Big O notation. :)
quickben 9y ago
We do awesome (36 here). 1. Because I've had many interviews where people ask one of perhaps 200 questions over and over (reverse a double linked list, serialize a tree). 2. I do complicated stuff, daily. Multithreaded communications patterns. Cross platform code. Memory / performance optimizations. Etc. All syntax from plain C to C++14 plus extensions. When I have to do a basic data structure operation, on a single thread, it's actually relaxing. 3. If anything, to tackle your question more directly. The advantage is on my side. Heck, out of university, I was very green. Now, I feel sorry for all the youngling in the interviews with me or anybody older. Experience matters heavily. The mastery of the data structures domain (language independent), is very real.
- kzisme 9y ago
  Have you always had a job solving more complex problems, or is it just your current position that allows you to solve such problems?
  - quickben 9y ago
    It sort of build up to this. Each job more complicated than the previous one. Then again, I actually really love what I'm doing. So that helps.
- sotojuan 9y ago
  > I do complicated stuff, daily. Multithreaded communications patterns. Cross platform code. Memory / performance optimizations. Etc. All syntax from plain C to C++14 plus extensions. When I have to do a basic data structure operation, on a single thread, it's actually relaxing. What about those who don't? Plenty of programming jobs don't require this kind of stuff, at least not everyday. These kind of jobs that keep your mind fresh are the most desirable as you get older, but they're limited.
  - quickben 9y ago
    I agree. But you have to keep pushing you know. I had a 9 months hole early in my career (personal reasons). I started coding a game from scratch. I never finished it, but learned a ton and it's actually a great talking point in interviews. I had a government job at one point. Turned out to be different than advertised. No brains required ( except people being nasty to each other it seemed). Most poisonous place I've seen. I left that. It helps that I'm in Toronto and there are job offers around, but it still takes me a week and 400-500 resumes sent when I hunt for a new job. Bottom line: one has to keep pushing to get where he wants to be.
drewg123 9y ago
Better and worse. Worse in that we're 25 years removed from Algorithms classes. Better in that we're used to explaining ideas to colleagues and management, and generally much better at expressing ourselves than we were when we first graduated from college.
jcadam 9y ago
> i feel like those advantage people who just finished their algorithms class, or have time to practice specifically for it. That's the entire point. These sorts of interviews are an easy, legal way to filter out the "olds." And you're old in this industry by the time you amass 10 years of experience. If there were really a shortage of programmers, ageism would not be an issue. As it is, there is an extreme glut of talented programmers and it's definitely a buyer's market.
Clubber 9y ago
I have no desire to work for either Facebook or google. I like small / medium companies where I can cover a lot of ground and make my own design decisions. Unfortunately the small / medium companies I work for tend to get acquired by large companies and I'm forced to work for a large company for a couple of years due to inertia. It doesn't take me long to yearn for a smaller company.
pacaro 9y ago
Lots of people think that the answer is "badly", but we don't really know. My personal experience (I'm 44) is that I've been offered every job I've interviewed for, passed every phone screen etc. Many older developers of my acquaintance are happy where they are, they just don't move very often. With newcomers to the industry we see a reasonable cross section, but with more experience, the sample becomes confounded by many other factors.
- concede_pluto 9y ago
  This. At 47 I'm 13-2 in interviewing, where one of the rejections was mutual (a recruiter added bullshit to my resume and sent me for an obviously bad fit) and the other was Palantir years ago (coding didn't go badly, I think it was culture fit). I've never practiced for interviewing and I'm pretty suspicious that you only need to if you've spent your career gluing together code you don't understand. I've been worried about ageism but it hasn't kicked in yet.

1ba9115454 9y ago

I personally wouldn't target those companies. They tend to employ on a permanant basis and the contract market is a bigger payer. Also after a few years in the game you tend to get targetted by recruiters as you may have specialised into certain areas. i.e. finance. So for example, I don't normally look for work, it normally finds me.

hardwaresofton 9y ago
Could you give some examples of where you first got your contracts (outside of personal connections)? The contract market seems great (I'm in it right now), but finding decent positions seems pretty difficult without a pre-existing large network. Also, a lot of the sites that feature contract work ask for way too many details, and are basically a race to the bottom on price, sometimes at the expense of quality, and I don't feel panicked enough yet to join that race.
- jensC 9y ago
  Yep, same here too. Worked as a freelancer for 15 years with one company and now trying to find a new contract (with only a small network) is pretty hard (can only do remote jobs due to a handicap).

tluyben2 9y ago

Don't want to generalize but as far as I have seen; they don't. As a 6th point in his list could be; connections. I (42 y/o) know people; I can get programmers to follow me if I move company which is a plus. But I also know investors, potential clients, C*O's and hiring managers. People recommend you or know you via their network.

jacquesm 9y ago
> I can get programmers to follow me if I move company which is a plus. It's at best a 'neutral' because when you inevitably leave again you'll take all those people with you potentially leaving the company floundering.
- tluyben2 9y ago
  You could read it that way indeed; I meant it like; I know a lot of coders who will join me if they are looking for something new. And unlike a lot of people it seems, I don't really enjoy moving to another company or taking people if they enjoy what they do; it would be that they would ask me first if I have something.

dagw 9y ago

How do older programmers deal with coding interviews from companies like facebook / google? Badly. The unfortunate truth is that if you've hit 40+ without having built up enough expertise and contacts to bypass those types of interviews then finding a programming job is going to be really hard.

eternalban 9y ago
> if you've hit 40+ without having built up enough expertise and contacts to bypass those types of interviews then finding a programming job is going to be really hard. This I think is true in most professional fields and doesn't answer the question posed. The interview-fail of the software industry is all about knowledge gaps: - the knowledge gap of most practitioners in this field of the most basic fundamental findings, constructs, etc. of their field; - the knowledge gap of discerning actual skills based on presented CV credentials; - the knowledge gap of the interviewers themselves -- who are of course paid members of the same under-educated industry -- resorting to popular trends as substitute for the ability to distinguish between capable and incapable candidates; When an arts and crafts "industry" [has] pretensions to being "engineering" or "science", this is what you get. Throw in a healthy dose of age discrimination, and voila.
ryandrake 9y ago
> bypass those types of interviews Can you elaborate a bit? I hear this all the time (get the job through contacts and networking not by applying and interviewing) but nobody will go into step-by-step detail about how one actually can manage to "bypass" a company's interview process. Company: "Thanks for your interest in working here. Your resume and application are impressive, and you have great references! Obviously you are skilled, so forget about having to interview. How's $180K plus benefits sound, and can you start in a week?" I've been in tech for close to 20 years and that scenario just sounds absurd to me.
- dagw 9y ago
  step-by-step detail about how one actually can manage to "bypass" a company's interview process. Networks and reputation. Get a former boss/colleague that knows you (and who has ideally ended up in a position some of trust/responsibility) to recommend you to his boss. If someone the boss trust tells him that you have the exact combination of expertise they're looking for and that you're the person they need then everything goes a lot smoother. That's how I got my current job. A former colleague (who'd ended up in a management position) called me out of the blue, invited me out to lunch and straight up asked me if I'd be interested in a new job. I still had to interview, but it felt like much more of a formality. You can also just ask people. Keep a list of people you've work with that you trust/respect and that you believe trust and respect your skills and just keep in touch with them once every 6 month or so. Let them know that you are open to switching jobs if something interesting comes along and ask them to keep you mind. Another way is to become a 'name' in your field. If yours is one of a handful of names that always comes up when people are talking about who in town is really good at X then chances are people will start seeking you out.

tmoertel 9y ago

Counterpoint: Because these companies place so much emphasis on your actual performance at coding during interviews, they can be better for older programmers because they are not hiring based on how you look but on what you can do.

notacoward 9y ago

Well enough, apparently. I had to go through this at Facebook pretty recently. I was 51 at the time, and there were a half dozen guys of similar age in my subsequent bootcamp class. (It's interesting that my age cohort was all guys even though the class overall seemed pretty balanced, but that's another topic.) Two things definitely helped with this. (1) I've always been a bit of an algorithms guy. I've met many people who were better at debugging, a few who were better at systems design or straight-out coding, but if you need someone to pick the exact right algorithm and tweak it a bit to suit a particular situation then I'm all over it. (2) The interviewers were obviously well trained. The problems were well chosen and presented, and I was allowed to think through things my own way at my own pace. The followup questions clearly indicated that the interviewers were looking at more than just whether I could solve this particular problem - how I broke it down and handled edge cases, how I handled changing requirements, testability, communication, and so on. Having written before about how such interviews are usually an exercise in ego and a total waste of time (or worse), I was pleasantly surprised. I think a lot of older programmers do avoid such interviews. They'd never admit fear is a factor, but it is. I'll admit I hesitated before going through it myself, but then I realized that even if I "failed" it didn't diminish me. It just meant there was a difference of opinion about what mattered or made someone a good fit for a job. I can live with that.

francisofascii 9y ago

Older programmers can do just fine in those algorithm tests, if they have been programming recently at their day jobs, and not PM/managerial work. Years of 8 hours of programming per day is actually good practice. They might have to brush up on Big O notation. :)

quickben 9y ago

We do awesome (36 here). 1. Because I've had many interviews where people ask one of perhaps 200 questions over and over (reverse a double linked list, serialize a tree). 2. I do complicated stuff, daily. Multithreaded communications patterns. Cross platform code. Memory / performance optimizations. Etc. All syntax from plain C to C++14 plus extensions. When I have to do a basic data structure operation, on a single thread, it's actually relaxing. 3. If anything, to tackle your question more directly. The advantage is on my side. Heck, out of university, I was very green. Now, I feel sorry for all the youngling in the interviews with me or anybody older. Experience matters heavily. The mastery of the data structures domain (language independent), is very real.

kzisme 9y ago
Have you always had a job solving more complex problems, or is it just your current position that allows you to solve such problems?
- quickben 9y ago
  It sort of build up to this. Each job more complicated than the previous one. Then again, I actually really love what I'm doing. So that helps.
sotojuan 9y ago
> I do complicated stuff, daily. Multithreaded communications patterns. Cross platform code. Memory / performance optimizations. Etc. All syntax from plain C to C++14 plus extensions. When I have to do a basic data structure operation, on a single thread, it's actually relaxing. What about those who don't? Plenty of programming jobs don't require this kind of stuff, at least not everyday. These kind of jobs that keep your mind fresh are the most desirable as you get older, but they're limited.
- quickben 9y ago
  I agree. But you have to keep pushing you know. I had a 9 months hole early in my career (personal reasons). I started coding a game from scratch. I never finished it, but learned a ton and it's actually a great talking point in interviews. I had a government job at one point. Turned out to be different than advertised. No brains required ( except people being nasty to each other it seemed). Most poisonous place I've seen. I left that. It helps that I'm in Toronto and there are job offers around, but it still takes me a week and 400-500 resumes sent when I hunt for a new job. Bottom line: one has to keep pushing to get where he wants to be.

drewg123 9y ago

Better and worse. Worse in that we're 25 years removed from Algorithms classes. Better in that we're used to explaining ideas to colleagues and management, and generally much better at expressing ourselves than we were when we first graduated from college.

jcadam 9y ago

> i feel like those advantage people who just finished their algorithms class, or have time to practice specifically for it. That's the entire point. These sorts of interviews are an easy, legal way to filter out the "olds." And you're old in this industry by the time you amass 10 years of experience. If there were really a shortage of programmers, ageism would not be an issue. As it is, there is an extreme glut of talented programmers and it's definitely a buyer's market.

Clubber 9y ago

I have no desire to work for either Facebook or google. I like small / medium companies where I can cover a lot of ground and make my own design decisions. Unfortunately the small / medium companies I work for tend to get acquired by large companies and I'm forced to work for a large company for a couple of years due to inertia. It doesn't take me long to yearn for a smaller company.

pacaro 9y ago

Lots of people think that the answer is "badly", but we don't really know. My personal experience (I'm 44) is that I've been offered every job I've interviewed for, passed every phone screen etc. Many older developers of my acquaintance are happy where they are, they just don't move very often. With newcomers to the industry we see a reasonable cross section, but with more experience, the sample becomes confounded by many other factors.

concede_pluto 9y ago
This. At 47 I'm 13-2 in interviewing, where one of the rejections was mutual (a recruiter added bullshit to my resume and sent me for an obviously bad fit) and the other was Palantir years ago (coding didn't go badly, I think it was culture fit). I've never practiced for interviewing and I'm pretty suspicious that you only need to if you've spent your career gluing together code you don't understand. I've been worried about ageism but it hasn't kicked in yet.