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Then, don't. I want to move from my 2000 USD a month (this is a good salary already) in a 3rd world country to a FAANG that pays 20k USD per month. I'm willin

Then, don't. I want to move from my 2000 USD a month (this is a good salary already) in a 3rd world country to a FAANG that pays 20k USD per month. I'm willing to go through any challenge because the reward is superb for me. Not to mention, without objective interview questions, an introverted non-native English speaker (who doesn't speak latin-germanic-based language) like me would fail most of these subjective questions (e.g. bad culture fit, can't articulate as well as a native speaker). I like coding challenges. Please do more.

geebee 6y ago
That's why people do it, no doubt. Keep in mind, a lot of these questions are asked by vastly less desirable companies that ape the hiring practices of FAANG, even though they pay much less. And these companies complain bitterly about a shortage of good developers to hire. So... I'm all onboard with your statement, but I think you only said half of it. Nobody owes me a job, and if I don't like it, I'm free to not get hired. Nobody owes a company an employee either, and if candidates don't don't like it, the company is free to not hire. Zero sympathy for companies that do this and complain about a shortage of candidates.
- bdcravens 6y ago
  > a lot of these questions are asked by vastly less desirable companies that ape the hiring practices of FAANG, even though they pay much less I was asked to do a coding exercise for a tiny ($2500 if memory is correct) freelance project.
- luckylion 6y ago
  Do only those companies complain about a shortage of candidates? Because in the tech centers I know, the market is just empty. Lots of large companies are competing for talent, and if you can't pay bank salaries, you're going to have a hard time. You make it sound like there's plenty of talent around but companies are being snobbish. That's not my experience at all in Germany.
  - geebee 6y ago
    In San Francisco, there's plenty of tech talent available at 500k a year. There's remarkably little available at minimum wage, though. Complaining to congress that there is a shortage of IT talent is so common in American politics that it has become its own unique form of performance art. For instance, during the magic section of the act, companies make a labor shortage magically appear without any mention of wages, while also magically making the laws of supply and demand disappear.
    - shajznnckfke 6y ago
      “Shortage” is an economic term of art, so I won’t use it here. But it’s likely true that there is lot of valuable, economic-growth-producing work that could be profitable if a software engineer costs $100k/year instead of $500k/year. Businesses that lie on the margin of profitability are likely to feel that it’s hard to find good talent. Of course, it’s bad for us existing software engineers if the supply increases and the price goes down. It’s likely good for society overall though, if it enables a bunch of other businesses to exist. This is true in the same way that more trucks, more warehouses, and more conveyor belts would increase economic output, even if they were already available for the right price.
      - geebee 6y ago
        You just said that there's lots of valuable work that could be done, but your example of work that could be done is work isn't valuable enough to do unless software engineers get paid (in the SF Bay Area) notably less than a dental hygienist. I like having clean teeth. If someone can make more as a dental hygienist, why on earth would it be valuable to society if they instead worked as a software engineer for less money? If people won't work for 100k/yr as a software engineer, that means people capable of doing this work have found higher value things to do elsewhere. The higher salary elsewhere reflects the higher value produced doing something else. This is one of many reasons why I'm so bewildered when people talk about a "shortage" of software engineers without considering the options available in other fields (fields that, perhaps, pay better and don't require taking bizarro whiteboard exams every time you change jobs).
frequentnapper 6y ago
I don't know of any software company that would hire an introverted person who can't articulate themselves for 20k a month. This is how micro-service architected fully optimized solutions that solve the wrong problem happen. Do you really think the high value of a developer just comes from being able to pass coding challenges when there's millions of them out there?
- fractionalhare 6y ago
  Eh, each of FAANG will do exactly that (as will other tech companies!). To be charitable to the parent commenter's point, they probably mean articulate in two senses: 1. Speaking perfect English, both fluently and without a heavy accent. 2. Talking about technical topics or other shibboleths with the same cultural affect an American would, as opposed to a foreigner. For example, many Indians will call a phone screen a "telephonic interview", and I've personally seen Americans react poorly to that. I know lots of developers who are very well paid and very effective in their jobs, but they don't speak English as well as an American and would stumble at certain cultural nuances.
  - ergocoder 6y ago
    Thank you for being charitable. I speak English well enough to fare in FAANG as senior engineer. But I always notice how a native English speaker almost always speak perfect English. They pick the right word to use and many other small things that make their English superb.
    - fractionalhare 6y ago
      No worries :) You speak English well enough that I agree you shouldn't have any problems communicating in a technical discussion. Personally I find thick accents to be a bigger obstacle to communication than stumbles in grammar. But realistically most engineers will be professional and charitable enough to work around either issue as long as you're earnest.
    - frequentnapper 6y ago
spamizbad 6y ago
As someone who had administered dozens of "objective" coding challenges to non-native english speakers... I can guarantee you your language skills will negatively impact your performance. So those tests aren't as objective as you think. It comes up with questions that are as simple as "Create a function that deduplicates an array of integers"
- cheonic729 6y ago
  > I can guarantee you your language skills will negatively impact your performance. As it should. If someone is a poor English speaker, at an English-speaking company, they absolutely should be penalized. Not everyone is equal, was equal, nor will be. Some people are born blind too. Shouldn't we adjust our hiring practices for them too?
  - lol768 6y ago
    > Some people are born blind too. Shouldn't we adjust our hiring practices for them too? Not only should we adjust our hiring practices for blind applicants, there's a legal obligation to make "reasonable adjustments" for these candidates under the Equality Act! * * Laws may vary in less developed jurisdictions.
- ergocoder 6y ago
  Well, it's more objective than asking a subjective question.
scubbo 6y ago
> 20k USD per month As someone who's been in a FAANG for nearly 8 years and is making 2/5 of that...where the hell did you find that position!? EDIT: oh wait. I was comparing my take-home salary. You're probably describing gross total comp? In which case - yeah, that makes sense. Good luck!
- ergocoder 6y ago
  20k/month is only 240k a year. It's a take home TC for an average senior engineer in Bay Area.
- bradlys 6y ago
  Dude - you're not even making $180k/yr (gross) at FAANG and you've been there for 8 years? What is your position...? I earn about $9k/month (net) at $170k/yr (gross) in CA as a software engineer. So, I'm already past the 2/5 mark and I'm just at a startup that doesn't even pay well! On top of that - you should be getting stock that translates directly into a good chunk of cash - not just a salary component. (Unless Netflix I guess) Check out https://www.levels.fyi/ https://www.levels.fyi/
  - scubbo 6y ago
    Check my edit! I was talking about my actual takehome salary (post-tax, not counting RSUs). Total gross comp is just north of $300k, which is pretty much in line with levels.fyi's average for that position (a little below - which tracks. I've only been promoted into that position just under a year ago, so I'm probably under-average across the whole population, despite being in the Bay Area so I'd hope to accelerate past that average soon).

geebee 6y ago

That's why people do it, no doubt. Keep in mind, a lot of these questions are asked by vastly less desirable companies that ape the hiring practices of FAANG, even though they pay much less. And these companies complain bitterly about a shortage of good developers to hire. So... I'm all onboard with your statement, but I think you only said half of it. Nobody owes me a job, and if I don't like it, I'm free to not get hired. Nobody owes a company an employee either, and if candidates don't don't like it, the company is free to not hire. Zero sympathy for companies that do this and complain about a shortage of candidates.

bdcravens 6y ago
> a lot of these questions are asked by vastly less desirable companies that ape the hiring practices of FAANG, even though they pay much less I was asked to do a coding exercise for a tiny ($2500 if memory is correct) freelance project.
luckylion 6y ago
Do only those companies complain about a shortage of candidates? Because in the tech centers I know, the market is just empty. Lots of large companies are competing for talent, and if you can't pay bank salaries, you're going to have a hard time. You make it sound like there's plenty of talent around but companies are being snobbish. That's not my experience at all in Germany.
- geebee 6y ago
  In San Francisco, there's plenty of tech talent available at 500k a year. There's remarkably little available at minimum wage, though. Complaining to congress that there is a shortage of IT talent is so common in American politics that it has become its own unique form of performance art. For instance, during the magic section of the act, companies make a labor shortage magically appear without any mention of wages, while also magically making the laws of supply and demand disappear.
  - shajznnckfke 6y ago
    “Shortage” is an economic term of art, so I won’t use it here. But it’s likely true that there is lot of valuable, economic-growth-producing work that could be profitable if a software engineer costs $100k/year instead of $500k/year. Businesses that lie on the margin of profitability are likely to feel that it’s hard to find good talent. Of course, it’s bad for us existing software engineers if the supply increases and the price goes down. It’s likely good for society overall though, if it enables a bunch of other businesses to exist. This is true in the same way that more trucks, more warehouses, and more conveyor belts would increase economic output, even if they were already available for the right price.
    - geebee 6y ago
      You just said that there's lots of valuable work that could be done, but your example of work that could be done is work isn't valuable enough to do unless software engineers get paid (in the SF Bay Area) notably less than a dental hygienist. I like having clean teeth. If someone can make more as a dental hygienist, why on earth would it be valuable to society if they instead worked as a software engineer for less money? If people won't work for 100k/yr as a software engineer, that means people capable of doing this work have found higher value things to do elsewhere. The higher salary elsewhere reflects the higher value produced doing something else. This is one of many reasons why I'm so bewildered when people talk about a "shortage" of software engineers without considering the options available in other fields (fields that, perhaps, pay better and don't require taking bizarro whiteboard exams every time you change jobs).

frequentnapper 6y ago

I don't know of any software company that would hire an introverted person who can't articulate themselves for 20k a month. This is how micro-service architected fully optimized solutions that solve the wrong problem happen. Do you really think the high value of a developer just comes from being able to pass coding challenges when there's millions of them out there?

fractionalhare 6y ago
Eh, each of FAANG will do exactly that (as will other tech companies!). To be charitable to the parent commenter's point, they probably mean articulate in two senses: 1. Speaking perfect English, both fluently and without a heavy accent. 2. Talking about technical topics or other shibboleths with the same cultural affect an American would, as opposed to a foreigner. For example, many Indians will call a phone screen a "telephonic interview", and I've personally seen Americans react poorly to that. I know lots of developers who are very well paid and very effective in their jobs, but they don't speak English as well as an American and would stumble at certain cultural nuances.
- ergocoder 6y ago
  Thank you for being charitable. I speak English well enough to fare in FAANG as senior engineer. But I always notice how a native English speaker almost always speak perfect English. They pick the right word to use and many other small things that make their English superb.
  - fractionalhare 6y ago
    No worries :) You speak English well enough that I agree you shouldn't have any problems communicating in a technical discussion. Personally I find thick accents to be a bigger obstacle to communication than stumbles in grammar. But realistically most engineers will be professional and charitable enough to work around either issue as long as you're earnest.
  - frequentnapper 6y ago

spamizbad 6y ago

As someone who had administered dozens of "objective" coding challenges to non-native english speakers... I can guarantee you your language skills will negatively impact your performance. So those tests aren't as objective as you think. It comes up with questions that are as simple as "Create a function that deduplicates an array of integers"

cheonic729 6y ago
> I can guarantee you your language skills will negatively impact your performance. As it should. If someone is a poor English speaker, at an English-speaking company, they absolutely should be penalized. Not everyone is equal, was equal, nor will be. Some people are born blind too. Shouldn't we adjust our hiring practices for them too?
- lol768 6y ago
  > Some people are born blind too. Shouldn't we adjust our hiring practices for them too? Not only should we adjust our hiring practices for blind applicants, there's a legal obligation to make "reasonable adjustments" for these candidates under the Equality Act! * * Laws may vary in less developed jurisdictions.
ergocoder 6y ago
Well, it's more objective than asking a subjective question.

scubbo 6y ago

> 20k USD per month As someone who's been in a FAANG for nearly 8 years and is making 2/5 of that...where the hell did you find that position!? EDIT: oh wait. I was comparing my take-home salary. You're probably describing gross total comp? In which case - yeah, that makes sense. Good luck!

ergocoder 6y ago
20k/month is only 240k a year. It's a take home TC for an average senior engineer in Bay Area.
bradlys 6y ago
Dude - you're not even making $180k/yr (gross) at FAANG and you've been there for 8 years? What is your position...? I earn about $9k/month (net) at $170k/yr (gross) in CA as a software engineer. So, I'm already past the 2/5 mark and I'm just at a startup that doesn't even pay well! On top of that - you should be getting stock that translates directly into a good chunk of cash - not just a salary component. (Unless Netflix I guess) Check out https://www.levels.fyi/ https://www.levels.fyi/
- scubbo 6y ago
  Check my edit! I was talking about my actual takehome salary (post-tax, not counting RSUs). Total gross comp is just north of $300k, which is pretty much in line with levels.fyi's average for that position (a little below - which tracks. I've only been promoted into that position just under a year ago, so I'm probably under-average across the whole population, despite being in the Bay Area so I'd hope to accelerate past that average soon).