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I've been on interviews at some companies that have no brand name recognition/prestige, and probably do not have legions of candidates trying to get in. But the

I've been on interviews at some companies that have no brand name recognition/prestige, and probably do not have legions of candidates trying to get in. But they've thrown me harder leetcode questions than FAANG.

sanderjd 6y ago
It's a bit perverse but the problem is that hiring people who can't do the job well is much worse for a company like that than it is for a big company with lots of slack in the system. Not only do they have to pay a person that isn't contributing enough, but the more senior folks on the team have to spend more time mentoring, so it's a double drain. This drives the process toward a higher bar after getting burned a few times.
- decafninja 6y ago
  I can understand that - but if I (or my company) were in that situation, I would not even use leetcode interviews.
  - sanderjd 6y ago
    I have been in that situation and I still have no idea what I'd do.
  - wdb 6y ago
    I like to ask simple questions, and then dig further into once they answered it correctly. You would be surprised how many ex-employees from FAANG like companies fail it.
    - decafninja 6y ago
      Simple questions, as in simple leetcode questions? FWIW, most FAANG employees seem to admit that if they had to redo their interview, odds are they're more likely to fail than pass. Goes to show how much luck is involved in the process. I think it's gotten harder too. Maybe in the past it really was about trying to see how the candidate thinks and solve problems. But now it seems like all all of that is secondary to getting the optimal solution. Two of my friends in Google who got in ~10 years ago say that it's definitely gotten harder from what they see.
      - vlod 6y ago
        > Simple questions, as in simple leetcode questions? I believe they mean e.g. "tell me what happens when you type https://example.com https://example.com" in a browser. You can go deep into tcp/ip, dns, how ssl encryption works, how urls on a server get mapped to specific ports, load balancing/round-robin etc.

sanderjd 6y ago

It's a bit perverse but the problem is that hiring people who can't do the job well is much worse for a company like that than it is for a big company with lots of slack in the system. Not only do they have to pay a person that isn't contributing enough, but the more senior folks on the team have to spend more time mentoring, so it's a double drain. This drives the process toward a higher bar after getting burned a few times.

decafninja 6y ago
I can understand that - but if I (or my company) were in that situation, I would not even use leetcode interviews.
- sanderjd 6y ago
  I have been in that situation and I still have no idea what I'd do.
- wdb 6y ago
  I like to ask simple questions, and then dig further into once they answered it correctly. You would be surprised how many ex-employees from FAANG like companies fail it.
  - decafninja 6y ago
    Simple questions, as in simple leetcode questions? FWIW, most FAANG employees seem to admit that if they had to redo their interview, odds are they're more likely to fail than pass. Goes to show how much luck is involved in the process. I think it's gotten harder too. Maybe in the past it really was about trying to see how the candidate thinks and solve problems. But now it seems like all all of that is secondary to getting the optimal solution. Two of my friends in Google who got in ~10 years ago say that it's definitely gotten harder from what they see.
    - vlod 6y ago
      > Simple questions, as in simple leetcode questions? I believe they mean e.g. "tell me what happens when you type https://example.com https://example.com" in a browser. You can go deep into tcp/ip, dns, how ssl encryption works, how urls on a server get mapped to specific ports, load balancing/round-robin etc.