6 ms·

I did something similar last year after getting rejected by FAANGs and few more other tech companies. - Google rejected 3 times. - Facebook 2 times. - Amazon

I did something similar last year after getting rejected by FAANGs and few more other tech companies. - Google rejected 3 times. - Facebook 2 times. - Amazon(AWS) 1 times. - Adobe 1 Times. - Twitter, Github, stripe and others won't even consider me good enough for an interview. - Dozens others companies, who do FAANG style interviewing. I fear rejections, no matter how much I "try" to act normal. I was looking forward to working on some new projects and with talented team members, I never got that opportunity and its heart breaking. I been working on solving leetcode problems. But sometimes can't even solve Easy problems and its just so demotivating. Specially, when I get an automated rejection response without any additional feedback. I have realized that maybe I'm not a rockstar coder that can come up with high performance code. I'm ok, I can figure shit out! and I think that's fine. BTW actual feedback from an technical interview, "I would encourage XXX to use some coding challenge practice websites to become comfortable with producing quick working code segments which would help him feel comfortable and produce code quickly in future interviews." Unbelievable!

echelon 6y ago
Not a critique, just an observation. I could be totally wrong. > I would encourage XXX to use some coding challenge practice websites to become comfortable with producing quick working code segments contrasts with > I have realized that maybe I'm not a rockstar coder that can come up with high performance code. What's your analytical process like? Do you take a moment to sit back and just think? Don't dive directly into the code. My most successful candidates spend five to ten minutes thinking about my problem and talking themselves through it before writing any real code. They'll sometimes take notes with class diagrams or ASCII diagrams. You don't have to have an optimal solution first.
- 120bits 6y ago
  Good question. It seems I lack speed implementing an optimal solution. During my initial FAANG interviews, I have had gone totally blank on my thought process and code. After few interviews, I don't actually dive in coding. I spend at least 10minutes about the problem and explain how it can be solved. I have realized that the interviewer is not looking an optimal solution at first. However, they're not satisfied with till the optimal code solution actually works.
  - shawabawa3 6y ago
    In my experience, to be better than the vast majority of candidates you don't need an "optimal" solution, you need to have written something that actually runs within 20mins or so (even if it's incomplete), then work on improving it afterwards
- Aeolun 6y ago
  > You don't have to have an optimal solution first. The problem is that they still want that optimal solution in the 30 minutes given to you. There’s no point in thinking about it unless you already know what they are looking for. Whoever thought up that alghorithm the first time certainly didn’t do it in 30 minutes during an interview.
  - CBLT 6y ago
    > The problem is that they still want that optimal solution in the 30 minutes given to you. This is only half true in my opinion. A lot of the interview questions I've gotten are pretty straightforward, for example given two lists of length M and N, brute force searching their product space is O(M*N), but if you sort one list the complexity reduces to O(NlogN + MlogN). I get the impression that the interviewer did expect me to sort, and writing code to do that was good enough. On the other hand everyone shares stories about the really hard "gotcha" problems with clever optimal solutions. I've only been given one of those[0], and I did not come up with the optimal solution but I still passed the interview. I wrote a halfway solution that was better than bruteforce and I explained why any attempt I'd make to remove terms from the big O expression wouldn't work (obviously I could remove more if I was clever enough or given unlimited time). So I would sum up my experience with they expect you to do better than brute force within 30 minutes, and to give them an intelligent conversation. I don't think this is easy, but it's not as impossible as you make it out to be. [0] https://techdevguide.withgoogle.com/resources/former-interview-question-find-longest-word/ https://techdevguide.withgoogle.com/resources/former-intervi...
    - Aeolun 6y ago
      > I don't think this is easy, but it's not as impossible as you make it out to be. How fast are you going to come up with sorting one or two lists if you don’t already know this is an option? If I ever run into a situation where I need to do it in real life, it takes me all of two seconds to find, so the only thing being tested is if I’ve ever done that before (and still remember).
      - 6y ago
Aeolun 6y ago
You think that’s unbelievable? I’ve literally had a company recruiter tell me that I should probably spend a few hours on leetcode and hackerrank before the interview. That turned out to be predictive, because they rejected me mostly based on my inability to do well on those kinds of tests. I got a life people. Between taking care of my son, wife and work, where am I supposed to find ‘a few hours’ to spend on something that is solely meant to do good on your company interview. It could theoretically have been worth it because of increased compensation, but something in me just screams nooo whenever I consider it.
- PunchTornado 6y ago
  why do you expect to pass an interview without preparing for the interview?
  - Ma8ee 6y ago
    Maybe in the hope that the interview would reflect the actual work that needs to be done, which my education and previous work experience have prepared me very well for. Then I'm happy to prepare for the interview in the sense that I try to learn as much as possible about the company and the people I'm going to meet.
    - karolist 6y ago
      Copying this response from my older comment: The rampup at FAANG can be brutal and you'd be doing lots of learning even after getting in. The leetcode style interviews are designed to select people capable of studying and materialising broad problems in depth and scope under time constraints. They are also objective and can't really be faked nor you can talk your way in like in most banking/finance IT jobs. I was of similar opinion at some point but these realisations made me change my mind and I've come to like leetcode interviews. But I also think they only make sense in FAANG scoped companies where all the stack is proprietary. Small companies or companies using opensource tools don't really have this rampup and are doing such interviews mostly because others (FAANG) do it.
danjac 6y ago
Small startup doing FAANG style interviews is like a small startup adopting microservices for their 3-developer team. More red flags than a Soviet May Day parade.
- joelbluminator 6y ago
  Yeah I never got it. Don't they at least wanna make sure the candidate knows their current tech stack? many of them don't seem to care. The ones that care are usually very small companies where every hire is super critical. The bigger the team, the less important the hire is, the less they care about the actual work that needs to be done.
  - danjac 6y ago
    The thing is, when I've seen code written in startups that have a "leetcode" process, it's ... not great. Lots of premature optimization and code review bikeshedding and not-invented-here, while having big issues around perhaps more important things like security, API design and database performance.
    - joelbluminator 6y ago
      Yeah I agree. A lot of it is coming from CTO's, tech leads. It feels like that for them to justify their salaries they will push for "cutting edge" solutions like graphql, micro service architecture and stuff like that. Many times completely unneeded.
joelbluminator 6y ago
Do u feel u improve or just get less confident after a failed interview? I sometimes actually improve after a bad technical interview but if the interviewer is impatient/nasty it can really decimate my confidence and hurt the chances I'll try again soon.
arwhatever 6y ago
I'm trying to kickstart a job search website that allows you to find jobs with an interviewing style which you are comfortable with (in addition to a commute distance that you are comfortable with, seating arrangement, pay rate, work hours expectation, automated productivity monitoring, etc.) My hope is to get enough developers to create (free) profiles that the website can put some backpressure on the industry, however small, to curtail some practices that engineers dislike. There is so much demand for software engineering labor, after all. I'm sure this won't make a dent in the large software companies that have their own internally-hosted job board + cachet, but any difference in a positive direction would be good. The website is here: https://sievejobs.com https://sievejobs.com FWIW, just from loads of recent experience, there are still quite a few teams that will hire you based on your demonstration of some real-world software development ability. And I'll also add, that I really like your simple phrase "FAANG-style interviewing." It's more succinct than any I have been able to come up with: "Whiteboard + algorithms?" "Non-real-world Leetcode puzzles?" etc.

echelon 6y ago

Not a critique, just an observation. I could be totally wrong. > I would encourage XXX to use some coding challenge practice websites to become comfortable with producing quick working code segments contrasts with > I have realized that maybe I'm not a rockstar coder that can come up with high performance code. What's your analytical process like? Do you take a moment to sit back and just think? Don't dive directly into the code. My most successful candidates spend five to ten minutes thinking about my problem and talking themselves through it before writing any real code. They'll sometimes take notes with class diagrams or ASCII diagrams. You don't have to have an optimal solution first.

120bits 6y ago
Good question. It seems I lack speed implementing an optimal solution. During my initial FAANG interviews, I have had gone totally blank on my thought process and code. After few interviews, I don't actually dive in coding. I spend at least 10minutes about the problem and explain how it can be solved. I have realized that the interviewer is not looking an optimal solution at first. However, they're not satisfied with till the optimal code solution actually works.
- shawabawa3 6y ago
  In my experience, to be better than the vast majority of candidates you don't need an "optimal" solution, you need to have written something that actually runs within 20mins or so (even if it's incomplete), then work on improving it afterwards
Aeolun 6y ago
> You don't have to have an optimal solution first. The problem is that they still want that optimal solution in the 30 minutes given to you. There’s no point in thinking about it unless you already know what they are looking for. Whoever thought up that alghorithm the first time certainly didn’t do it in 30 minutes during an interview.
- CBLT 6y ago
  > The problem is that they still want that optimal solution in the 30 minutes given to you. This is only half true in my opinion. A lot of the interview questions I've gotten are pretty straightforward, for example given two lists of length M and N, brute force searching their product space is O(M*N), but if you sort one list the complexity reduces to O(NlogN + MlogN). I get the impression that the interviewer did expect me to sort, and writing code to do that was good enough. On the other hand everyone shares stories about the really hard "gotcha" problems with clever optimal solutions. I've only been given one of those[0], and I did not come up with the optimal solution but I still passed the interview. I wrote a halfway solution that was better than bruteforce and I explained why any attempt I'd make to remove terms from the big O expression wouldn't work (obviously I could remove more if I was clever enough or given unlimited time). So I would sum up my experience with they expect you to do better than brute force within 30 minutes, and to give them an intelligent conversation. I don't think this is easy, but it's not as impossible as you make it out to be. [0] https://techdevguide.withgoogle.com/resources/former-interview-question-find-longest-word/ https://techdevguide.withgoogle.com/resources/former-intervi...
  - Aeolun 6y ago
    > I don't think this is easy, but it's not as impossible as you make it out to be. How fast are you going to come up with sorting one or two lists if you don’t already know this is an option? If I ever run into a situation where I need to do it in real life, it takes me all of two seconds to find, so the only thing being tested is if I’ve ever done that before (and still remember).
    - 6y ago

Aeolun 6y ago

You think that’s unbelievable? I’ve literally had a company recruiter tell me that I should probably spend a few hours on leetcode and hackerrank before the interview. That turned out to be predictive, because they rejected me mostly based on my inability to do well on those kinds of tests. I got a life people. Between taking care of my son, wife and work, where am I supposed to find ‘a few hours’ to spend on something that is solely meant to do good on your company interview. It could theoretically have been worth it because of increased compensation, but something in me just screams nooo whenever I consider it.

PunchTornado 6y ago
why do you expect to pass an interview without preparing for the interview?
- Ma8ee 6y ago
  Maybe in the hope that the interview would reflect the actual work that needs to be done, which my education and previous work experience have prepared me very well for. Then I'm happy to prepare for the interview in the sense that I try to learn as much as possible about the company and the people I'm going to meet.
  - karolist 6y ago
    Copying this response from my older comment: The rampup at FAANG can be brutal and you'd be doing lots of learning even after getting in. The leetcode style interviews are designed to select people capable of studying and materialising broad problems in depth and scope under time constraints. They are also objective and can't really be faked nor you can talk your way in like in most banking/finance IT jobs. I was of similar opinion at some point but these realisations made me change my mind and I've come to like leetcode interviews. But I also think they only make sense in FAANG scoped companies where all the stack is proprietary. Small companies or companies using opensource tools don't really have this rampup and are doing such interviews mostly because others (FAANG) do it.

danjac 6y ago

Small startup doing FAANG style interviews is like a small startup adopting microservices for their 3-developer team. More red flags than a Soviet May Day parade.

joelbluminator 6y ago
Yeah I never got it. Don't they at least wanna make sure the candidate knows their current tech stack? many of them don't seem to care. The ones that care are usually very small companies where every hire is super critical. The bigger the team, the less important the hire is, the less they care about the actual work that needs to be done.
- danjac 6y ago
  The thing is, when I've seen code written in startups that have a "leetcode" process, it's ... not great. Lots of premature optimization and code review bikeshedding and not-invented-here, while having big issues around perhaps more important things like security, API design and database performance.
  - joelbluminator 6y ago
    Yeah I agree. A lot of it is coming from CTO's, tech leads. It feels like that for them to justify their salaries they will push for "cutting edge" solutions like graphql, micro service architecture and stuff like that. Many times completely unneeded.

joelbluminator 6y ago

Do u feel u improve or just get less confident after a failed interview? I sometimes actually improve after a bad technical interview but if the interviewer is impatient/nasty it can really decimate my confidence and hurt the chances I'll try again soon.

arwhatever 6y ago

I'm trying to kickstart a job search website that allows you to find jobs with an interviewing style which you are comfortable with (in addition to a commute distance that you are comfortable with, seating arrangement, pay rate, work hours expectation, automated productivity monitoring, etc.) My hope is to get enough developers to create (free) profiles that the website can put some backpressure on the industry, however small, to curtail some practices that engineers dislike. There is so much demand for software engineering labor, after all. I'm sure this won't make a dent in the large software companies that have their own internally-hosted job board + cachet, but any difference in a positive direction would be good. The website is here: https://sievejobs.com https://sievejobs.com FWIW, just from loads of recent experience, there are still quite a few teams that will hire you based on your demonstration of some real-world software development ability. And I'll also add, that I really like your simple phrase "FAANG-style interviewing." It's more succinct than any I have been able to come up with: "Whiteboard + algorithms?" "Non-real-world Leetcode puzzles?" etc.