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I was working on a “startup”/kinda just unemployed for two years. I studied leetcode hard, and got hired into a 300k a year job at FAANG. I know nothing about t

I was working on a “startup”/kinda just unemployed for two years. I studied leetcode hard, and got hired into a 300k a year job at FAANG. I know nothing about testing, git, software process, roll outs, dev ops, etc. I barely know how to do software engineering. What an idiotic hiring process.

fspear 6y ago
Can you share some tips on how you achieved this? What did you do if you got stuck on a question you just couldn't solve? Did you look at the answer and memorized it? How many questions did you solve? Were they mostly mediums or hards? What about system design, any specific resources you used?. I keep coming back to leetcode every few months but I always get stuck on mediums so I'd appreciate any tips you can share!.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
sukilot 6y ago
Do you think it's unlikely for you to learn those skills quickly? People who have all those skills earn over $300K at those companies.
- biztos 6y ago
  To be fair, a lot of people who have none of those skills also earn well over $300K at those companies. Just like grinding leetcode can get you in the door, the skills you need for advancement are not necessarily the same ones you need for making good software. I hope the parent makes the best of it and becomes good at the craft, it will make the job a lot more enjoyable even if it may not be the fastest way up the ladder.
  - kudokatz 6y ago
    > the skills you need for advancement are not necessarily the same ones Exactly this. I suggest learning how to fabricate (or at least exaggerate) "impact" to get promoted. It's the fastest way to make money once you're in the door. Show how much of a team player you are to deliver cross-team, impactful results specifically by stepping on bodies to get there--it'll make you rich!
    - mailshanx 6y ago
      Could you elaborate more on that or perhaps give specific illustrative examples of how one may do so? This will benefit a lot of us at FAANG. Thanks!
- logicslave12 6y ago
  It’s been really stressful. I know python, but not really any other languages. I’m able to get work done. But I’m really nearly the same as a fresh grad. But really, I was just bumming around, then studied for four months and destroyed their algorithms questions, so much so that expectations for me are really high. But all I know is leetcode, literally nothing else...
  - thewarrior 6y ago
    Take the same energy and apply it to learning to build testable and understandable code. If you can go from nothing to smoking an algo interview in months you’re a fast learner. You’ll be fine.
    - deleted 6y ago
      [deleted]
    - TheMblabla 6y ago
      I think that's what these leetcode type questions are good at. You're either naturally adept enough to do well, or internally motivated enough to memorize/learn them. Either way, it's a decent signal for a company that needs someone to learn their internal, proprietary techstack
      - thewarrior 6y ago
        I partially agree but this point of view has become very polarizing and controversial and I get the other side of it too. People who have spent ages getting better at their craft feel undervalued. However the two need not be mutually exclusive. One needs to learn to do their job while also navigating the system. That is part of the job just like selling your work is also work. But having worked at both FANG and non FANG you can see the rigor of the interview process reflected in the quality of your colleagues. That’s something that is hard to deny having experienced it.
      - kudokatz 6y ago
        > You're either naturally adept enough to do well, or ... I'm personally very wary of using algorithms questions as a proxy for how "adept" someone is at software engineering. If I were running a business, I'd personally want to make sure people could manage technical debt and build decoupled systems. I have had multiple positions at FAANG companies, and despite being "adept" according to these algorithms questions the systems built by these highly-paid (and, around me, generally experienced) people are pretty awful in terms of quality and maintenance. Learning a proprietary stack also hampers effectiveness in future positions if wanting to opt-out of FAANG later on.
- wdb 6y ago
  My experience of FAANG interviews outside the US is that the salaries they offer are really disappointing compared to the US. Other industries like finance were a better deal compared those companies. If I can get paid £90-110k in the City why bother working for Facebook were they were offering less than £90k? Note, I don't consider bonuses or equity to part of salary.
  - thewarrior 6y ago
    Why would equity or bonuses not be part of the salary ? You are almost certain to receive it and the stocks perform quite well on average. They still pay better than finance all things taken together or am I wrong ?
    - wdb 6y ago
      Bonus is not guaranteed so why take that into account? Stock maybe but you can't pay the bills with that or get a mortgage even can make it more difficult.
      - thewarrior 6y ago
        You sell the stock when it vests and pay your bills ?
      - ummonk 6y ago
        The bonus is pretty formulaic with fixed performance multipliers - if you're doing poorly enough to get substantially less than the target bonus, you're at risk of losing your job and comp is the least of your worries. And you absolutely can pay the bills by selling the stock when it vests. Agreed on the mortgage part though.
        wdb 6y ago
        What's the typical vesting schedule? The companies I spoke you would get the equity after four years. Not even a part each year. The offered 0.00[0]5 equity is not great. I think the packages in US are just much better compared to UK/Europe or maybe they just gave me shitty deals. My offer at one of the FAANG in UK was £85k + 50 stock + discretionary bonus (they didn't give details).
mettamage 6y ago
How did you get past the resume screening? Or are you from the US, because then it's much easier to get past the screeming, or so it seems. I have yet to be invited for so much as an HR call when it comes to FAANG (bachelor/master CS from a Dutch university). Maybe I'm not getting past the application tracking system?
- logicslave12 6y ago
  The recruiter just reached out to my LinkedIn profile. My understanding is it’s really easy to get the interview
  - cik2e 6y ago
    Your profile must have been pretty solid to get those interviews though. In my experience, just having some proof of knowing Python scripting is not enough. Would you mind discussing the other pieces of your background that you think may have helped in attracting recruits? I almost wonder if throwing “leetcode” in your skills section would get you interviews at these companies...
- sushshshsh 6y ago
  Most likely you either don't have 5 years of professional experience or they are filtering you based on visa/citizenship status. The industry is very broken.
- vechagup 6y ago
  Having a current employee add your resume to an ATS as a referral is the most efficient route. Around SF at least it's not particularly hard to find someone willing to do that even if they hardly know you. This sort of networking is likely harder elsewhere, but perhaps not by much. Simply uploading your resume to a large tech company's website will rarely get you anywhere, is what I've heard from recruiters.
  - mettamage 6y ago
    Ah, so that's what I've been doing wrong for 18 months. Thanks! I'll be putting this to good use :)
PragmaticPulp 6y ago
Interviews are only partially about testing your body of experience. They're also supposed to test your aptitude and ability to grow in the future. If you were capable of studying Leetcode so hard that you mastered the interview process at one of the most selective software companies in the world in only a few months, it's not much of a stretch to imagine that you could apply that same aptitude, ambition, and ability to learn quickly toward picking up the basics of git, dev ops, and so on. Arguably, this is one of the benefits of Leetcode-style interviews. They focus on core software engineering aptitude, while not arbitrarily excluding people because they didn't use the right VCS at their last job.
- read_if_gay_ 6y ago
  > it's not much of a stretch to imagine that you could apply that same aptitude, ambition, and ability to learn quickly toward picking up the basics of git, dev ops, and so on. But you already have your reward, right? I’m not sure how much ambition is left after you actually get the job.
  - username90 6y ago
    Promotions can double your salary or more from that level so people are plenty motivated.
    - lowiqengineer 6y ago
      That’s definitely not true at companies without incentive systems.
    - read_if_gay_ 6y ago
      So can job hopping. In fact, IIRC staying at the same company earns you less money than finding a new job every two years or so.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- zerr 6y ago
Swizec 6y ago
That’s because at FAANG those problems are already solved. And there’s a team of experts working on each of them. Maybe multiple teams. Your job is to be a clever code monkey. The Process will take care of turning your coding into engineering. Leetcode interviews are great at testing for just that. A high IQ willing to solve arbitrary puzzles just because someone said “solve this”
- sushshshsh 6y ago
  Even at my mid tier company we have processes around the crucial but (to me) boring parts of the software industry, which involve building, deployment, version control, access control, connection drivers, requirements gathering, provisioning of resources, maintenance... The list goes on and on and if someone doesn't do any of these things, the whole operation will grind to a halt. And absolutely none of these procedures involve reversing a linked list or traversing a binary tree inorder (maybe git does but that's an implementation detail hidden from me ^.^)
  - Swizec 6y ago
    Correct. And as far as I can tell, devops folks don’t do leetcode interviews. Most SREs don’t either. At my last interview process (in June) I was being hired into a more seasoned role where experience matters more than code chops. There was an algorithms question but the biggest weight was put on the “Can you design a distributed microservice infrastructure with good tradeoffs and solid relational modeling” Series A company so it’s conceivable that I’ll be involved in all parts of the stack. If I just did well on algorithms (I didn’t) and nothing else, it would be a hard no hire. But they were very impressed when I said “Eh for this load, you don’t need horizontal scaling except for redundancy”
  - username90 6y ago
    But people are taught the basic boring skills required to deliver value in a big org in the first few months and very few fail to learn them in that time, they are by far the easiest skills to teach in software development so it doesn't make much sense to test it when hiring.
techolic 6y ago
Were you not asked to do system design, or leetcode did enough for you on that? Edit: assuming it's not your strong area based on the list of things you claimed not fluent with.
qkhhly 6y ago
Let me ask you this: Do you think you are doing OK, or even great, comparing to your peers at your company? If yes, then I would say the hiring process is more smart than idiotic.

fspear 6y ago

Can you share some tips on how you achieved this? What did you do if you got stuck on a question you just couldn't solve? Did you look at the answer and memorized it? How many questions did you solve? Were they mostly mediums or hards? What about system design, any specific resources you used?. I keep coming back to leetcode every few months but I always get stuck on mediums so I'd appreciate any tips you can share!.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

sukilot 6y ago

Do you think it's unlikely for you to learn those skills quickly? People who have all those skills earn over $300K at those companies.

biztos 6y ago
To be fair, a lot of people who have none of those skills also earn well over $300K at those companies. Just like grinding leetcode can get you in the door, the skills you need for advancement are not necessarily the same ones you need for making good software. I hope the parent makes the best of it and becomes good at the craft, it will make the job a lot more enjoyable even if it may not be the fastest way up the ladder.
- kudokatz 6y ago
  > the skills you need for advancement are not necessarily the same ones Exactly this. I suggest learning how to fabricate (or at least exaggerate) "impact" to get promoted. It's the fastest way to make money once you're in the door. Show how much of a team player you are to deliver cross-team, impactful results specifically by stepping on bodies to get there--it'll make you rich!
  - mailshanx 6y ago
    Could you elaborate more on that or perhaps give specific illustrative examples of how one may do so? This will benefit a lot of us at FAANG. Thanks!
logicslave12 6y ago
It’s been really stressful. I know python, but not really any other languages. I’m able to get work done. But I’m really nearly the same as a fresh grad. But really, I was just bumming around, then studied for four months and destroyed their algorithms questions, so much so that expectations for me are really high. But all I know is leetcode, literally nothing else...
- thewarrior 6y ago
  Take the same energy and apply it to learning to build testable and understandable code. If you can go from nothing to smoking an algo interview in months you’re a fast learner. You’ll be fine.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  - TheMblabla 6y ago
    I think that's what these leetcode type questions are good at. You're either naturally adept enough to do well, or internally motivated enough to memorize/learn them. Either way, it's a decent signal for a company that needs someone to learn their internal, proprietary techstack
    - thewarrior 6y ago
      I partially agree but this point of view has become very polarizing and controversial and I get the other side of it too. People who have spent ages getting better at their craft feel undervalued. However the two need not be mutually exclusive. One needs to learn to do their job while also navigating the system. That is part of the job just like selling your work is also work. But having worked at both FANG and non FANG you can see the rigor of the interview process reflected in the quality of your colleagues. That’s something that is hard to deny having experienced it.
    - kudokatz 6y ago
      > You're either naturally adept enough to do well, or ... I'm personally very wary of using algorithms questions as a proxy for how "adept" someone is at software engineering. If I were running a business, I'd personally want to make sure people could manage technical debt and build decoupled systems. I have had multiple positions at FAANG companies, and despite being "adept" according to these algorithms questions the systems built by these highly-paid (and, around me, generally experienced) people are pretty awful in terms of quality and maintenance. Learning a proprietary stack also hampers effectiveness in future positions if wanting to opt-out of FAANG later on.
wdb 6y ago
My experience of FAANG interviews outside the US is that the salaries they offer are really disappointing compared to the US. Other industries like finance were a better deal compared those companies. If I can get paid £90-110k in the City why bother working for Facebook were they were offering less than £90k? Note, I don't consider bonuses or equity to part of salary.
- thewarrior 6y ago
  Why would equity or bonuses not be part of the salary ? You are almost certain to receive it and the stocks perform quite well on average. They still pay better than finance all things taken together or am I wrong ?
  - wdb 6y ago
    Bonus is not guaranteed so why take that into account? Stock maybe but you can't pay the bills with that or get a mortgage even can make it more difficult.
    - thewarrior 6y ago
      You sell the stock when it vests and pay your bills ?
    - ummonk 6y ago
      The bonus is pretty formulaic with fixed performance multipliers - if you're doing poorly enough to get substantially less than the target bonus, you're at risk of losing your job and comp is the least of your worries. And you absolutely can pay the bills by selling the stock when it vests. Agreed on the mortgage part though.
      - wdb 6y ago
        What's the typical vesting schedule? The companies I spoke you would get the equity after four years. Not even a part each year. The offered 0.00[0]5 equity is not great. I think the packages in US are just much better compared to UK/Europe or maybe they just gave me shitty deals. My offer at one of the FAANG in UK was £85k + 50 stock + discretionary bonus (they didn't give details).

mettamage 6y ago

How did you get past the resume screening? Or are you from the US, because then it's much easier to get past the screeming, or so it seems. I have yet to be invited for so much as an HR call when it comes to FAANG (bachelor/master CS from a Dutch university). Maybe I'm not getting past the application tracking system?

logicslave12 6y ago
The recruiter just reached out to my LinkedIn profile. My understanding is it’s really easy to get the interview
- cik2e 6y ago
  Your profile must have been pretty solid to get those interviews though. In my experience, just having some proof of knowing Python scripting is not enough. Would you mind discussing the other pieces of your background that you think may have helped in attracting recruits? I almost wonder if throwing “leetcode” in your skills section would get you interviews at these companies...
sushshshsh 6y ago
Most likely you either don't have 5 years of professional experience or they are filtering you based on visa/citizenship status. The industry is very broken.
vechagup 6y ago
Having a current employee add your resume to an ATS as a referral is the most efficient route. Around SF at least it's not particularly hard to find someone willing to do that even if they hardly know you. This sort of networking is likely harder elsewhere, but perhaps not by much. Simply uploading your resume to a large tech company's website will rarely get you anywhere, is what I've heard from recruiters.
- mettamage 6y ago
  Ah, so that's what I've been doing wrong for 18 months. Thanks! I'll be putting this to good use :)

PragmaticPulp 6y ago

Interviews are only partially about testing your body of experience. They're also supposed to test your aptitude and ability to grow in the future. If you were capable of studying Leetcode so hard that you mastered the interview process at one of the most selective software companies in the world in only a few months, it's not much of a stretch to imagine that you could apply that same aptitude, ambition, and ability to learn quickly toward picking up the basics of git, dev ops, and so on. Arguably, this is one of the benefits of Leetcode-style interviews. They focus on core software engineering aptitude, while not arbitrarily excluding people because they didn't use the right VCS at their last job.

read_if_gay_ 6y ago
> it's not much of a stretch to imagine that you could apply that same aptitude, ambition, and ability to learn quickly toward picking up the basics of git, dev ops, and so on. But you already have your reward, right? I’m not sure how much ambition is left after you actually get the job.
- username90 6y ago
  Promotions can double your salary or more from that level so people are plenty motivated.
  - lowiqengineer 6y ago
    That’s definitely not true at companies without incentive systems.
  - read_if_gay_ 6y ago
    So can job hopping. In fact, IIRC staying at the same company earns you less money than finding a new job every two years or so.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
zerr 6y ago

Swizec 6y ago

That’s because at FAANG those problems are already solved. And there’s a team of experts working on each of them. Maybe multiple teams. Your job is to be a clever code monkey. The Process will take care of turning your coding into engineering. Leetcode interviews are great at testing for just that. A high IQ willing to solve arbitrary puzzles just because someone said “solve this”

sushshshsh 6y ago
Even at my mid tier company we have processes around the crucial but (to me) boring parts of the software industry, which involve building, deployment, version control, access control, connection drivers, requirements gathering, provisioning of resources, maintenance... The list goes on and on and if someone doesn't do any of these things, the whole operation will grind to a halt. And absolutely none of these procedures involve reversing a linked list or traversing a binary tree inorder (maybe git does but that's an implementation detail hidden from me ^.^)
- Swizec 6y ago
  Correct. And as far as I can tell, devops folks don’t do leetcode interviews. Most SREs don’t either. At my last interview process (in June) I was being hired into a more seasoned role where experience matters more than code chops. There was an algorithms question but the biggest weight was put on the “Can you design a distributed microservice infrastructure with good tradeoffs and solid relational modeling” Series A company so it’s conceivable that I’ll be involved in all parts of the stack. If I just did well on algorithms (I didn’t) and nothing else, it would be a hard no hire. But they were very impressed when I said “Eh for this load, you don’t need horizontal scaling except for redundancy”
- username90 6y ago
  But people are taught the basic boring skills required to deliver value in a big org in the first few months and very few fail to learn them in that time, they are by far the easiest skills to teach in software development so it doesn't make much sense to test it when hiring.

techolic 6y ago

Were you not asked to do system design, or leetcode did enough for you on that? Edit: assuming it's not your strong area based on the list of things you claimed not fluent with.

qkhhly 6y ago

Let me ask you this: Do you think you are doing OK, or even great, comparing to your peers at your company? If yes, then I would say the hiring process is more smart than idiotic.