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> They also assume collaborative interviewer, which has never happened in my experience. As a FAANG interviewer myself, this is very sad to me. System design i

by ayberk 6y ago

> They also assume collaborative interviewer, which has never happened in my experience. As a FAANG interviewer myself, this is very sad to me. System design interviews are inherently collaborative and they can provide a pretty good signal on "do I want to work with this person". I thoroughly enjoy conducting system design interviews -- It's always a joy to talk through the problem with the candidate and sometimes I even get to learn something new myself! We really need to fix the tech interviews.

gaogao 6y ago
FAANG design interviewer gang represent. In my personal opinion the biggest trap I see is other interviewers falling into a rut: they've asked their question hundreds of time and already know what they want, robbing it of that vital collaborative aspect. Make sure to cycle what you ask, so that you can continue to be pleasantly surprised in interviews and remember that it's a 2-way street. Design interviews are so much more pleasant (and imo higher signal) than coding interviews. I remember the sobering moment I interviewed with another company and was asked a question I myself had asked before 60 times before, having believed it falsely to be unique and clever. It's turtles all the way down.
fatnoah 6y ago
>I thoroughly enjoy conducting system design interviews As a seasoned vet in the area, I thoroughly enjoy participating in system design interviews. In 2019, I interviewed at Google, FB, and Microsoft. Each featured multiple System Design rounds and only one of two at FB was not very good. While the others were very interesting and interactive, the not so good one at FB was run by someone fairly junior who clearly didn't have much practical experience in designing complete systems, so it felt very one-sided and me constantly feeling like I was being patronizing since the lack of feedback really felt like lack of understanding.

by ayberk 6y ago

gaogao 6y ago

FAANG design interviewer gang represent. In my personal opinion the biggest trap I see is other interviewers falling into a rut: they've asked their question hundreds of time and already know what they want, robbing it of that vital collaborative aspect. Make sure to cycle what you ask, so that you can continue to be pleasantly surprised in interviews and remember that it's a 2-way street. Design interviews are so much more pleasant (and imo higher signal) than coding interviews. I remember the sobering moment I interviewed with another company and was asked a question I myself had asked before 60 times before, having believed it falsely to be unique and clever. It's turtles all the way down.

fatnoah 6y ago

>I thoroughly enjoy conducting system design interviews As a seasoned vet in the area, I thoroughly enjoy participating in system design interviews. In 2019, I interviewed at Google, FB, and Microsoft. Each featured multiple System Design rounds and only one of two at FB was not very good. While the others were very interesting and interactive, the not so good one at FB was run by someone fairly junior who clearly didn't have much practical experience in designing complete systems, so it felt very one-sided and me constantly feeling like I was being patronizing since the lack of feedback really felt like lack of understanding.