6 ms·

As someone who has interviewed with 3 of those 6 companies and gotten offers from all 3, I think the best way to approach these interviews is to not walk in wit

As someone who has interviewed with 3 of those 6 companies and gotten offers from all 3, I think the best way to approach these interviews is to not walk in with the mentality that it's a one sided "test" where you are put on a spot to defend yourself. In reality it's more often than not a role-playing exercise where you are pretending to be coworkers trying to solve problems together. Sure you'd be the one leading the problem solving, but being capable to explain your thought process effectively, having the ability to exchange ideas with the interviewer, and just being able to come across as a good teammate is probably more important than getting that last 5% of optimization. This is especially more true for senior level position interviews where there are more design/architecture problems with relatively open answers. Out of these companies Google felt most impersonal and "test like", which I guess is not a surprise considering they mostly don't hire for any specific teams/positions (and we can debate the pros/cons of that all we want), and they try to eliminate human factors by the way of having hiring committees (which leads to other pros/cons). In the end even though most still comes down to the technical skills, walking in with the right mentality and attitude actually really helps one to emphasize one's strengths. Oh one last thing, showing confidence is also super important. But too many people mistake arrogance for confidence. In my personal experience there is no better way to demonstrate confidence than being comfortable (not to be confused with complacency) with what you don't know, and showing intellectual curiosity/eagerness to learn.

wuunderbar 8y ago
> In reality it's more often than not a role-playing exercise where you are pretending to be coworkers trying to solve problems together. Sure you'd be the one leading the problem solving, but being capable to explain your thought process effectively, having the ability to exchange ideas with the interviewer, and just being able to come across as a good teammate is probably more important than getting that last 5% of optimization. Agreed. A lot of times the interviewer will give you hints in the right direction without holding it against you. They usually want you to succeed.
- deleted 8y ago
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fokinsean 8y ago
> Out of these companies Google felt most impersonal and "test like" I had this same experience too. I went through the 4 technical interviews onsite which were all whiteboard problems. Not once did we actually talk about my past experience or rather anything software engineering related. Unfortunately(?) I didn't receive an offer despite making it to the hiring committee. Two weeks later they called me back and wanted me to fly back out for another full round of interviews for their internal applications team! I was so burned out from studying and had a wedding coming up so I passed. I felt a little insulted I was being asked to go through the gauntlet again when I _just_ interviewed.
- deleted 8y ago
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- Cookingboy 8y ago
  >Not once did we actually talk about my past experience or rather anything software engineering related. I had 5 rounds instead of 4 because I skipped phone screen, but I was pretty sure at least 3 of my interviewers didn't even look at my resume before the interviews haha. I also did a lot of interviews for Google when I was there, and I can totally see why that's the way it is, but at least I tried to see each interviewee as a person with their own unique experience and I made sure to at least read the highlights of their resume beforehand.
  - pradn 8y ago
    I interview at Google and I never look at resumes - to avoid bias. I don't want to be biased by whether you went to Yale or UT Austin. My question is always a standard algo/DS question anyway.
    - Cookingboy 8y ago
      That is a good way to eliminate bias, but in the end, is that a good way to make sure each position is staffed by the best candidate possible? I always pondered about that when I was at Google. We had mostly smart people, but I argue not all of them were the perfect fit for the position/skills needed. Sure some bias are best eliminated such as what school they went to, but if work experience in general should not be discarded completely in my opinion and you can only get so much out of standard algo/DS questions, especially considering these days everyone is studying for those like standardized tests. I literally know some CS students who just did hundreds and hundreds of practice problems and they'd ace most big company algo interviews but that doesn't really tell me if they'd be good engineers in practice at all.
dominotw 8y ago
dude at AirBnb asked me why didn't manage to get into (indian) IIT. Umm..because i am not smart enough?
docker_up 8y ago
Except it's well known that Facebook asks you 2 coding questions in 45 mins and if you don't solve them it's an automatic fail.
- Bahamut 8y ago
  My understanding is this is true for their frontend group, not fullstack.
- Cookingboy 8y ago
  I don't think that's even true, let alone well known. Unless you are talking about phone screens. I've interviewed at FB twice and got offers both time, and I'm pretty sure I've not gotten the final answer to at least a couple questions.
- ehsankia 8y ago
  How is it "well known"? Do you have a source with concrete data? Have you asked both people who were hired and not hired if they completed/not completed their question, over a big enough sample? Obviously, people who can't finish a problem correlate with people who aren't good candidates in general. But that's not necessary. You can have someone who shows very good problem solving and reasoning, but just doesn't make it to the end.
- Lt_Riza_Hawkeye 8y ago
  Thank god. I interviewed with FB, moved through the first question in 15 minutes, and assumed that it was 3 questions with 15 minutes allotted each. When he didn't give me a third one after another 15, I assumed I had spent too much time struggling with the second and he had just given up. I got the job though, just wish I had known then. I start in a few months.

wuunderbar 8y ago

> In reality it's more often than not a role-playing exercise where you are pretending to be coworkers trying to solve problems together. Sure you'd be the one leading the problem solving, but being capable to explain your thought process effectively, having the ability to exchange ideas with the interviewer, and just being able to come across as a good teammate is probably more important than getting that last 5% of optimization. Agreed. A lot of times the interviewer will give you hints in the right direction without holding it against you. They usually want you to succeed.

deleted 8y ago
[deleted]

fokinsean 8y ago

> Out of these companies Google felt most impersonal and "test like" I had this same experience too. I went through the 4 technical interviews onsite which were all whiteboard problems. Not once did we actually talk about my past experience or rather anything software engineering related. Unfortunately(?) I didn't receive an offer despite making it to the hiring committee. Two weeks later they called me back and wanted me to fly back out for another full round of interviews for their internal applications team! I was so burned out from studying and had a wedding coming up so I passed. I felt a little insulted I was being asked to go through the gauntlet again when I _just_ interviewed.

deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
Cookingboy 8y ago
>Not once did we actually talk about my past experience or rather anything software engineering related. I had 5 rounds instead of 4 because I skipped phone screen, but I was pretty sure at least 3 of my interviewers didn't even look at my resume before the interviews haha. I also did a lot of interviews for Google when I was there, and I can totally see why that's the way it is, but at least I tried to see each interviewee as a person with their own unique experience and I made sure to at least read the highlights of their resume beforehand.
- pradn 8y ago
  I interview at Google and I never look at resumes - to avoid bias. I don't want to be biased by whether you went to Yale or UT Austin. My question is always a standard algo/DS question anyway.
  - Cookingboy 8y ago
    That is a good way to eliminate bias, but in the end, is that a good way to make sure each position is staffed by the best candidate possible? I always pondered about that when I was at Google. We had mostly smart people, but I argue not all of them were the perfect fit for the position/skills needed. Sure some bias are best eliminated such as what school they went to, but if work experience in general should not be discarded completely in my opinion and you can only get so much out of standard algo/DS questions, especially considering these days everyone is studying for those like standardized tests. I literally know some CS students who just did hundreds and hundreds of practice problems and they'd ace most big company algo interviews but that doesn't really tell me if they'd be good engineers in practice at all.

dominotw 8y ago

dude at AirBnb asked me why didn't manage to get into (indian) IIT. Umm..because i am not smart enough?

docker_up 8y ago

Except it's well known that Facebook asks you 2 coding questions in 45 mins and if you don't solve them it's an automatic fail.

Bahamut 8y ago
My understanding is this is true for their frontend group, not fullstack.
Cookingboy 8y ago
I don't think that's even true, let alone well known. Unless you are talking about phone screens. I've interviewed at FB twice and got offers both time, and I'm pretty sure I've not gotten the final answer to at least a couple questions.
ehsankia 8y ago
How is it "well known"? Do you have a source with concrete data? Have you asked both people who were hired and not hired if they completed/not completed their question, over a big enough sample? Obviously, people who can't finish a problem correlate with people who aren't good candidates in general. But that's not necessary. You can have someone who shows very good problem solving and reasoning, but just doesn't make it to the end.
Lt_Riza_Hawkeye 8y ago
Thank god. I interviewed with FB, moved through the first question in 15 minutes, and assumed that it was 3 questions with 15 minutes allotted each. When he didn't give me a third one after another 15, I assumed I had spent too much time struggling with the second and he had just given up. I got the job though, just wish I had known then. I start in a few months.