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And in today's interviews environment, telling the greatest stories along the greatest CV, training for months and months on leetcode problems and being able to

And in today's interviews environment, telling the greatest stories along the greatest CV, training for months and months on leetcode problems and being able to convincingly act like you never seen them before during the interview, generally bending over backwards and taking it into your ^H^H^H or what else, all that that will dramatically raise your chances of getting hired from 0.1 to 0.2%.

Benjammer 6y ago
Also it will have zero bearing on your starting place among the organization you’re joining. No matter how well you excel at the interview or how applicable your past experience is, you’ll be dumped on one of the fringe, “new features” teams with a first time EM, and a PM right out of college or MBA with no relevant experience.
asimpletune 6y ago
I think if you actually did all that then you’d almost certainly get the job. I wonder why there’s that disconnect?
- lowiqengineer 6y ago
  I've done all of that, and the best job I got was Amazon :/ It seems like this industry only works if you're just naturally intelligent (or lucky)
  - boyobo 6y ago
    What are you aiming for instead of Amazon? (I am an outsider to the industry and I am curious).
  - ABeeSea 6y ago
    “The only job I got is one of the statistically highest-paying companies for engineers in the country that can be leveraged to move to any company I want in a couple years.” It’s hard not to cringe at the amount of entitlement in being upset that your only job was Amazon.
    - deleted 6y ago
      [deleted]
    - TomMarius 6y ago
      They surely must have meant in the warehouse?
      - lowiqengineer 6y ago
        No I’m an SWE
    - Apocryphon 6y ago
      Don't they have a notoriously austere work environment compared to the other tech giants?
  - NikolaNovak 6y ago
    I... I just can't tell if that's sarcasm. I mean, don't want to sound harsh or overly preachy / guilting, but cracker on a stick, that looks like a profound lack of awareness and perspective. What higher result and reward for a good interview do you expect than a job at one of the highest paying most respected companies in the software world? I will spare all the stereotype of people who'd kill to get it; presumably you are talented, worked hard, and deserve it. Good on ya. Sad to see it go to someone who doesn't appreciate it though :-/
    - lowiqengineer 6y ago
      To be clear, the answer is a company that requires the hard work I put in to get in. For most people out of college Amazon is their “safety” company because you can get an offer with 1 coding challenge. Unfortunately, because of this people assume I’m lazy and inherently unintelligent because I joined out of undergrad.
      - rubiquity 6y ago
        A company isn’t better just because their interview process has more coding. The “best” tech company depends on your goals, but if one of those goals is to have the opportunity to work with some pretty brilliant people and rapidly grow as an engineer, you can certainly accomplish that at Amazon. It’s an interesting phenomenon how young people create pecking orders of which companies are the best to work at while at the same time having very little experience to make such conclusions. Disclaimer: I work at Amazon.
        gen220 6y ago
        I’m only a few years out of college, but this always seemed strange to me, on both sides. It’s more surreal on the employer side, because the real world is so different from the game the cohort you describe is playing. In high school, I thought it was insane how some of the smartest people I knew pinned their entire future on getting into MIT or whatever. The ones that did get into “ivy leagues“ are working junior roles at consulting firms, which seems like a very predatory line of work to me, but whatever. In college, I thought it was insane that second years were resume hacking and leetcoding, only to apply to FAANG companies. When they didn’t get in, they basically gave up it was FAANG or bust (!). Many of them graduated with no internship experiences to speak of, at companies big or small. Those that “got in” got a lot of street cred amongst friends, but seemingly have no idea what to do with their lives. My hypothesis is that their houses are not free-standing. I think they genuinely do not know what they want out of their lives or careers, so they autopilot in to chasing after some vague sense of prestige. The longest line at the career fair must be the best, and I want to be the best, so there shall I go. Some will say they want to work at Google, so that they can “work anywhere”. OK, then what? crickets, or something something change the world. I don’t know how you can structure your career or life around something so ephemeral, but maybe I’m the weird one. If there are any ex members of this cult reading this, can you shed some light for me, on how this works out?
  - rb808 6y ago
    Amazon is my dream company. FB/Google are social media & ad nonsense. They rejected me though.
- 1ris 6y ago
  I'm currently doing way less and got multiple offers. No FANGA salaries, tho, but still fine for a uni drop out.
- vkou 6y ago
  If you actually did all that and applied to four of the FANGMA firms, you'd almost certainly get a job in at least one of them, probably two or three. Source: I have both ran interviews, and worked on hiring committee for one of them. Someone who actually did those things would be an obvious hire. Actually, someone who just grinded leetcode for two months would be an obvious hire, regardless of what their CV says, or what their life story was.
khalilravanna 6y ago
If you’re doing all of these things I think the reason for not getting hired is because of the pretty negative attitude encapsulated in this comment. I wouldn’t strongly advocate for a candidate who views interviewing as a fabricated system with the deck stacked against them. Nevermind someone who would lie about being exposed to problems they’ve seen before. Interviews should be a collaborative, albeit stressful, experience. The interviewers would be much happier to hire someone than to say No and have to interview another 10 people or whatever. My advice to any candidate: stay positive, focus on what you can control, and try to have fun with it if possible. Any negativity you bring into an interview will be picked up by interviewers. But the opposite is also true! If you go in with a smile, ready to meet some new people, and ready for a challenge, interviewers will take notice and appreciate it.
- hellisothers 6y ago
  I think this is a nice theoretical fiction. In my experience and colleagues I’ve talked to about it, those that go into it knowing the system to be a nonsensical game and train defensively for it interview at 10 places and get 9 offers. Those that approach it organically, casually, get no offers and eventually after months go back and train aggressively and try again. Interviewing isn’t fun, if you find it fun then you probably find casually engaging in leetcode competitions fun, which is totally fine, great even that you enjoy that. But let’s not pretend that it’s not a game with particular rules.
  - khalilravanna 6y ago
    To be clear, I'm not saying one shouldn't prepare for these interviews and that there aren't very clear things that interviewers are evaluating on. There is an optimal solution and you should prepare for it. What I'm saying is that your mindset is another differentiator. If you go in with the mindset that the interview is a waste of time and that your interviewer is trying to trip you up, you've walked into an interview with a toxic mindset. I'd be willing to guarantee no one anywhere wants to hire someone with a toxic mindset.

Benjammer 6y ago

Also it will have zero bearing on your starting place among the organization you’re joining. No matter how well you excel at the interview or how applicable your past experience is, you’ll be dumped on one of the fringe, “new features” teams with a first time EM, and a PM right out of college or MBA with no relevant experience.

asimpletune 6y ago

I think if you actually did all that then you’d almost certainly get the job. I wonder why there’s that disconnect?

lowiqengineer 6y ago
I've done all of that, and the best job I got was Amazon :/ It seems like this industry only works if you're just naturally intelligent (or lucky)
- boyobo 6y ago
  What are you aiming for instead of Amazon? (I am an outsider to the industry and I am curious).
- ABeeSea 6y ago
  “The only job I got is one of the statistically highest-paying companies for engineers in the country that can be leveraged to move to any company I want in a couple years.” It’s hard not to cringe at the amount of entitlement in being upset that your only job was Amazon.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  - TomMarius 6y ago
    They surely must have meant in the warehouse?
    - lowiqengineer 6y ago
      No I’m an SWE
  - Apocryphon 6y ago
    Don't they have a notoriously austere work environment compared to the other tech giants?
- NikolaNovak 6y ago
  I... I just can't tell if that's sarcasm. I mean, don't want to sound harsh or overly preachy / guilting, but cracker on a stick, that looks like a profound lack of awareness and perspective. What higher result and reward for a good interview do you expect than a job at one of the highest paying most respected companies in the software world? I will spare all the stereotype of people who'd kill to get it; presumably you are talented, worked hard, and deserve it. Good on ya. Sad to see it go to someone who doesn't appreciate it though :-/
  - lowiqengineer 6y ago
    To be clear, the answer is a company that requires the hard work I put in to get in. For most people out of college Amazon is their “safety” company because you can get an offer with 1 coding challenge. Unfortunately, because of this people assume I’m lazy and inherently unintelligent because I joined out of undergrad.
    - rubiquity 6y ago
      A company isn’t better just because their interview process has more coding. The “best” tech company depends on your goals, but if one of those goals is to have the opportunity to work with some pretty brilliant people and rapidly grow as an engineer, you can certainly accomplish that at Amazon. It’s an interesting phenomenon how young people create pecking orders of which companies are the best to work at while at the same time having very little experience to make such conclusions. Disclaimer: I work at Amazon.
      - gen220 6y ago
        I’m only a few years out of college, but this always seemed strange to me, on both sides. It’s more surreal on the employer side, because the real world is so different from the game the cohort you describe is playing. In high school, I thought it was insane how some of the smartest people I knew pinned their entire future on getting into MIT or whatever. The ones that did get into “ivy leagues“ are working junior roles at consulting firms, which seems like a very predatory line of work to me, but whatever. In college, I thought it was insane that second years were resume hacking and leetcoding, only to apply to FAANG companies. When they didn’t get in, they basically gave up it was FAANG or bust (!). Many of them graduated with no internship experiences to speak of, at companies big or small. Those that “got in” got a lot of street cred amongst friends, but seemingly have no idea what to do with their lives. My hypothesis is that their houses are not free-standing. I think they genuinely do not know what they want out of their lives or careers, so they autopilot in to chasing after some vague sense of prestige. The longest line at the career fair must be the best, and I want to be the best, so there shall I go. Some will say they want to work at Google, so that they can “work anywhere”. OK, then what? crickets, or something something change the world. I don’t know how you can structure your career or life around something so ephemeral, but maybe I’m the weird one. If there are any ex members of this cult reading this, can you shed some light for me, on how this works out?
- rb808 6y ago
  Amazon is my dream company. FB/Google are social media & ad nonsense. They rejected me though.
1ris 6y ago
I'm currently doing way less and got multiple offers. No FANGA salaries, tho, but still fine for a uni drop out.
vkou 6y ago
If you actually did all that and applied to four of the FANGMA firms, you'd almost certainly get a job in at least one of them, probably two or three. Source: I have both ran interviews, and worked on hiring committee for one of them. Someone who actually did those things would be an obvious hire. Actually, someone who just grinded leetcode for two months would be an obvious hire, regardless of what their CV says, or what their life story was.

khalilravanna 6y ago

If you’re doing all of these things I think the reason for not getting hired is because of the pretty negative attitude encapsulated in this comment. I wouldn’t strongly advocate for a candidate who views interviewing as a fabricated system with the deck stacked against them. Nevermind someone who would lie about being exposed to problems they’ve seen before. Interviews should be a collaborative, albeit stressful, experience. The interviewers would be much happier to hire someone than to say No and have to interview another 10 people or whatever. My advice to any candidate: stay positive, focus on what you can control, and try to have fun with it if possible. Any negativity you bring into an interview will be picked up by interviewers. But the opposite is also true! If you go in with a smile, ready to meet some new people, and ready for a challenge, interviewers will take notice and appreciate it.

hellisothers 6y ago
I think this is a nice theoretical fiction. In my experience and colleagues I’ve talked to about it, those that go into it knowing the system to be a nonsensical game and train defensively for it interview at 10 places and get 9 offers. Those that approach it organically, casually, get no offers and eventually after months go back and train aggressively and try again. Interviewing isn’t fun, if you find it fun then you probably find casually engaging in leetcode competitions fun, which is totally fine, great even that you enjoy that. But let’s not pretend that it’s not a game with particular rules.
- khalilravanna 6y ago
  To be clear, I'm not saying one shouldn't prepare for these interviews and that there aren't very clear things that interviewers are evaluating on. There is an optimal solution and you should prepare for it. What I'm saying is that your mindset is another differentiator. If you go in with the mindset that the interview is a waste of time and that your interviewer is trying to trip you up, you've walked into an interview with a toxic mindset. I'd be willing to guarantee no one anywhere wants to hire someone with a toxic mindset.