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Haven’t worked at fb but same experience at other big co. Also I question authors experience interviewing people - I’ve done literally hundreds coding sessions

Haven’t worked at fb but same experience at other big co. Also I question authors experience interviewing people - I’ve done literally hundreds coding sessions and there’re surprisingly large number of folks who claim 5-10 years of experience and several companies under their belt but aren’t able to code a simple for-loop in their language of choice

tomcat27 6y ago
A simple for-loop? that's ridiculous. If that's really the case I wonder the screening abilities of recruiters more than candidates.
- dilyevsky 6y ago
  Literally a scan of string with some basic logic and three cases inside. People would take 30 mins+ and create a giant mess. This was easily 50%+ cases during phone screen and resumes all looked good so not recruiters fault (most of the time).
  - tomcat27 6y ago
    Hard to believe. Actually I am surprised companies even asks such a simple question anymore. When was that? I have done several LC easy and mediums, have done internships and published papers and didn't even make it to phone screen at every FAANG or other companies whose names carry some weight in future interview opportunities.
    - dilyevsky 6y ago
      5-10 years ago. If you ask questions not from LC you have to make them easy or no one would make progress. My goal was to have at least something coded up so that candidate wouldn’t feel like they totally bombed, then I would calibrate my score based on quality of solution - basically secondary traits. Not everyone used this strategy =) > have done internships and published papers and didn't even make it to phone screen at every FAANG I recommend finding someone who works there through your network, conferences or open source projects and asking for a referral.
    - abiogenesis 6y ago
      You'd be surprised. That's basically why FizzBuzz test [1] usually works. [1] https://blog.codinghorror.com/why-cant-programmers-program/ https://blog.codinghorror.com/why-cant-programmers-program/
    - koonsolo 6y ago
      That is exactly my experience too as someone who does a lot of interviews. Basically our job is to weed out the candidates that haven't made it to "newbie programmer" yet, and probably never will.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  - SamuelAdams 6y ago
    So basically a FizzBuzz, Jeff Attwood discusses it here. This article was really eye-opening to me. Problem: Write a program that prints the numbers from 1 to 100. But for multiples of three print "Fizz" instead of the number and for the multiples of five print "Buzz". For numbers which are multiples of both three and five print "FizzBuzz". https://blog.codinghorror.com/why-cant-programmers-program/ https://blog.codinghorror.com/why-cant-programmers-program/
    - dilyevsky 6y ago
      A bit harder than fizzbuzz but along the same lines. No textbook algo bs or anything like that...
- bsder 6y ago
  > A simple for-loop? that's ridiculous. It's not. People STILL fail FizzBuzz. Every day.
jariel 6y ago
This is fair comment - there are definitely experienced devs who really are not up to scratch. But - there are tons who are great devs, unwilling to 'play the leetcode game'. So both those things can be true at the same time.
jjav 6y ago
> there’re surprisingly large number of folks who claim 5-10 years of experience and several companies under their belt but aren’t able to code a simple for-loop in their language of choice No. This indicates a failure in the interview technique.
- username90 6y ago
  Many software jobs barely involve programming. Just look around in this thread, you will find people who argue that the job barely requires writing any code at all and mostly involves talking to customers or managers. That kind of experience doesn't make you a better coder, it makes you a better product manager, so technical interviews filtering them out is intended.
- dilyevsky 6y ago
  Not really - these companies try to cast a very wide net deliberately so it’s natural there will be large number of rejections. Smaller companies do a lot more prescreening so it’s less common there

tomcat27 6y ago

A simple for-loop? that's ridiculous. If that's really the case I wonder the screening abilities of recruiters more than candidates.

dilyevsky 6y ago
Literally a scan of string with some basic logic and three cases inside. People would take 30 mins+ and create a giant mess. This was easily 50%+ cases during phone screen and resumes all looked good so not recruiters fault (most of the time).
- tomcat27 6y ago
  Hard to believe. Actually I am surprised companies even asks such a simple question anymore. When was that? I have done several LC easy and mediums, have done internships and published papers and didn't even make it to phone screen at every FAANG or other companies whose names carry some weight in future interview opportunities.
  - dilyevsky 6y ago
    5-10 years ago. If you ask questions not from LC you have to make them easy or no one would make progress. My goal was to have at least something coded up so that candidate wouldn’t feel like they totally bombed, then I would calibrate my score based on quality of solution - basically secondary traits. Not everyone used this strategy =) > have done internships and published papers and didn't even make it to phone screen at every FAANG I recommend finding someone who works there through your network, conferences or open source projects and asking for a referral.
  - abiogenesis 6y ago
    You'd be surprised. That's basically why FizzBuzz test [1] usually works. [1] https://blog.codinghorror.com/why-cant-programmers-program/ https://blog.codinghorror.com/why-cant-programmers-program/
  - koonsolo 6y ago
    That is exactly my experience too as someone who does a lot of interviews. Basically our job is to weed out the candidates that haven't made it to "newbie programmer" yet, and probably never will.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- SamuelAdams 6y ago
  So basically a FizzBuzz, Jeff Attwood discusses it here. This article was really eye-opening to me. Problem: Write a program that prints the numbers from 1 to 100. But for multiples of three print "Fizz" instead of the number and for the multiples of five print "Buzz". For numbers which are multiples of both three and five print "FizzBuzz". https://blog.codinghorror.com/why-cant-programmers-program/ https://blog.codinghorror.com/why-cant-programmers-program/
  - dilyevsky 6y ago
    A bit harder than fizzbuzz but along the same lines. No textbook algo bs or anything like that...
bsder 6y ago
> A simple for-loop? that's ridiculous. It's not. People STILL fail FizzBuzz. Every day.

jariel 6y ago

This is fair comment - there are definitely experienced devs who really are not up to scratch. But - there are tons who are great devs, unwilling to 'play the leetcode game'. So both those things can be true at the same time.

jjav 6y ago

> there’re surprisingly large number of folks who claim 5-10 years of experience and several companies under their belt but aren’t able to code a simple for-loop in their language of choice No. This indicates a failure in the interview technique.

username90 6y ago
Many software jobs barely involve programming. Just look around in this thread, you will find people who argue that the job barely requires writing any code at all and mostly involves talking to customers or managers. That kind of experience doesn't make you a better coder, it makes you a better product manager, so technical interviews filtering them out is intended.
dilyevsky 6y ago
Not really - these companies try to cast a very wide net deliberately so it’s natural there will be large number of rejections. Smaller companies do a lot more prescreening so it’s less common there