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"A+ players solving hard problems" Is this really what people think when joining a large company such as FAANG ? I mean not everyone can be an A player in a co

"A+ players solving hard problems" Is this really what people think when joining a large company such as FAANG ? I mean not everyone can be an A player in a company with 1000s of employees, correct ? Also not every team is going to be solving hard problems. Someone has to do the dirty things. Isn't that understood ? Not trying to shit on you OP but I would have tried to learn more about the team in interviews if possible or is that just not a thing with FAANG interviews ?

aynyc 5y ago
This is what you say when asked, "Why do you want to join XXX?". Say it long enough, you internalize it and accept it. FAANG usually don't hire for a specific team, you get matched after. It's a crapshoot where you end up, but they usually let you transfer relatively easily if positions are opened.
- smsm42 5y ago
  - Why do you want to join XXX? - https://www.smbc-comics.com/comic/2014-08-17 https://www.smbc-comics.com/comic/2014-08-17
efficax 5y ago
The hoops you have to jump through to snag one of these jobs make it seem like everyone there must be on top of their game. The truth seems to be that once you've got the position you can coast, these organizations are just too large, too bureaucratic and too rich to solve the problem of poor performance effectively
- NullPrefix 5y ago
  >everyone there must be on top of their game On top of their hoop jumping game.
- clint 5y ago
  The hoops, to me, make it seem like you're going to be working with puzzlemaster trivialords, which sounds like the definition of hell on earth.
- zamalek 5y ago
  > The hoops you have to jump through to snag one of these jobs This right here is exactly the problem. In the interview you are expected to write a fault tolerant k-way distributed sort and publish it to production, in 3 hours. Once you are embedded in your team they'll have you fixing typos on the landing page. "Our interview process is good at finding people who are good at interviewing, not good at their job." ~ Someone I follow on Twitter
  - jnwatson 5y ago
    I just got 4 offers from 3 FAANG companies, and I agree completely. None of the interviews had any filter for finishing tasks on time, writing good tests, improving team cohesion, or any of the many important characteristics of a great software developer. But, gosh, I can definitely explain how Aho-Corasick works.
    - rectang 5y ago
      You'd think that interviewers would investigate "designing for testability", which is in some ways similar to algorithm design — it's an architectural and optimization problem. You could even present open-ended programming exercises such as "design tests for this system". Similarly, you could test for ability to architect a Git commit history. Git uses some important algorithms (e.g. content addressable store, tree traversal) and people who demonstrate an understanding of how to leverage it well are likely to be more effective candidates.
      - taylodl 5y ago
        You're making the assumption the interviewers at FAANG companies know this stuff. Many don't. The FAANG companies cast a wide net filtering out below-average engineers, knowing that there are some rock stars in what remains. The average FAANG employee isn't unlike your average coworker in any software development shop. Besides, if you really want to "change the world" you'll quickly realize you're not going to be able to do it at a FAANG.
        5y ago
blahblahblogger 5y ago
Generally it's a normal thing to think about FAANG. I've interviewed at a few and they were the hardest interviews I've had. So it stands to reason that the people making it through must be good. Of course you could claim the people making it through just "leetcode" all day or whatever. But still we all know these companies because they're omnipresent in our lives, we use their products, we assume they've got smart talent internally.
ransom1538 5y ago
"A+ players solving hard problems" Eh. IMHO they are a group of super good test takers and white board ninjas.
- cr3ative 5y ago
  Don't forget the other important point: very willing to jump through many laborious hoops in order to work for said company, which self-selects quite a unique group.
whoknowswhat11 5y ago
Reality is also there is just a lot of regular stuff that needs to happen. Handle this report, deal with this type of issue, improve tooling for X.
toast0 5y ago
> I would have tried to learn more about the team in interviews if possible or is that just not a thing with FAANG interviews ? Depends on the FAANG, but a lot of them do pooled interviews and assign a team later. Some do a weeks long orientation/training and you have some ability to more or less interview for final placement, and there's some other styles as well. For important teams that have trouble hiring, probably some people get selected into it without a lot of choice. Either way, in a pooled hiring environment, you're probably not meeting with people on the team you'll work for before you join, although maybe you'd get to talk to a hiring manager after an offer; maybe.
mattgreenrocks 5y ago
The "FAANG has A+ players solving hard problems" meme is a myth that people need to believe to support idea that working at a FAANG company is guaranteed to be the apex of your career. No one motivates themselves by saying, "I'm going to do the same work I'd do with the same caliber of colleagues as I have currently." This is the tech version of the American Dream, where we're not employed by Google yet, but will be in the near future. FAANG companies certainly have a lot of very bright engineers. There's no disputing that. And they contend with some really thorny problems that admit no easy solutions, such as scale and content moderation. But there's also plenty of smaller companies that have difficult problems with very sharp coworkers. Of course, they don't have the same prestige.
- mooreds 5y ago
  > But there's also plenty of smaller companies that have difficult problems with very sharp coworkers. Of course, they don't have the same prestige. Or money. Or visibility. Or value on your resume (in certain circles). But what smaller companies have that I've found big companies don't: a distinct lack of places to hide. Sure, you can get folks who don't work out (I've been one!) but at all the small companies I've worked out, everyone is pulling together and no one is really slacking. My theory is that it's too easy to see when someone is slacking at a smallco, so folks don't do it. I find that delightful.
  - smsm42 5y ago
    Value in the resume cuts both ways. If somebody comes to me for an interview having a spectacular company in the list, I'd certainly be interested. But they better have some good story to tell because if it's just "oh I built an ACID webservice for internal tool for organizing meetings about when the kitchen snack supply should be replenished" I wouldn't be overly impressed and they'd better have some other skills to impress. It certainly creates some interest, but it can also create disappointment.
duxup 5y ago
Yeah I don't understand this idea that Google is all of that. With any company of any size the scale of grunt work / tedious maintenance and troubleshooting old stuff is going to grow massively. Being Google or anyone will not change that.
duxup 5y ago
Yeah I don't understand this idea that Google is all of that. With any company of any size the scale of grunt work / tedious maintenance and troubleshooting old stuff is going to grow massively. Being Google or anyone will not change that. Perhaps that startup history with greenfield type situations blinded OP to that reality?
de_keyboard 5y ago
> not everyone can be an A player in a company with 1000s of employees, correct ? Well if you pay top salaries and have a tough recruitment process maybe. They claim to hire the best from all over the world.
smsm42 5y ago
Also not every A+ hard-problem team would be willing to recruit an unproven newbie who knows nothing about internal processes and lore and culture of the company and would require a lot of training and adjustment and handholding for a while. Why bother if they could have somebody from another team who has worked there for a while and proven themselves and knows what they need to hit the ground running? Maybe they let the newbie to clean the dojo floor, and sweep the garden, and cut the wood, and take out the garbage, and paint the walls, and so on for a while and then he learns the ropes and knows more he could find himself a team that is more to his taste.

aynyc 5y ago

This is what you say when asked, "Why do you want to join XXX?". Say it long enough, you internalize it and accept it. FAANG usually don't hire for a specific team, you get matched after. It's a crapshoot where you end up, but they usually let you transfer relatively easily if positions are opened.

smsm42 5y ago
- Why do you want to join XXX? - https://www.smbc-comics.com/comic/2014-08-17 https://www.smbc-comics.com/comic/2014-08-17

efficax 5y ago

The hoops you have to jump through to snag one of these jobs make it seem like everyone there must be on top of their game. The truth seems to be that once you've got the position you can coast, these organizations are just too large, too bureaucratic and too rich to solve the problem of poor performance effectively

NullPrefix 5y ago
>everyone there must be on top of their game On top of their hoop jumping game.
clint 5y ago
The hoops, to me, make it seem like you're going to be working with puzzlemaster trivialords, which sounds like the definition of hell on earth.
zamalek 5y ago
> The hoops you have to jump through to snag one of these jobs This right here is exactly the problem. In the interview you are expected to write a fault tolerant k-way distributed sort and publish it to production, in 3 hours. Once you are embedded in your team they'll have you fixing typos on the landing page. "Our interview process is good at finding people who are good at interviewing, not good at their job." ~ Someone I follow on Twitter
- jnwatson 5y ago
  I just got 4 offers from 3 FAANG companies, and I agree completely. None of the interviews had any filter for finishing tasks on time, writing good tests, improving team cohesion, or any of the many important characteristics of a great software developer. But, gosh, I can definitely explain how Aho-Corasick works.
  - rectang 5y ago
    You'd think that interviewers would investigate "designing for testability", which is in some ways similar to algorithm design — it's an architectural and optimization problem. You could even present open-ended programming exercises such as "design tests for this system". Similarly, you could test for ability to architect a Git commit history. Git uses some important algorithms (e.g. content addressable store, tree traversal) and people who demonstrate an understanding of how to leverage it well are likely to be more effective candidates.
    - taylodl 5y ago
      You're making the assumption the interviewers at FAANG companies know this stuff. Many don't. The FAANG companies cast a wide net filtering out below-average engineers, knowing that there are some rock stars in what remains. The average FAANG employee isn't unlike your average coworker in any software development shop. Besides, if you really want to "change the world" you'll quickly realize you're not going to be able to do it at a FAANG.
      - 5y ago

blahblahblogger 5y ago

Generally it's a normal thing to think about FAANG. I've interviewed at a few and they were the hardest interviews I've had. So it stands to reason that the people making it through must be good. Of course you could claim the people making it through just "leetcode" all day or whatever. But still we all know these companies because they're omnipresent in our lives, we use their products, we assume they've got smart talent internally.

ransom1538 5y ago

"A+ players solving hard problems" Eh. IMHO they are a group of super good test takers and white board ninjas.

cr3ative 5y ago
Don't forget the other important point: very willing to jump through many laborious hoops in order to work for said company, which self-selects quite a unique group.

whoknowswhat11 5y ago

Reality is also there is just a lot of regular stuff that needs to happen. Handle this report, deal with this type of issue, improve tooling for X.

toast0 5y ago

> I would have tried to learn more about the team in interviews if possible or is that just not a thing with FAANG interviews ? Depends on the FAANG, but a lot of them do pooled interviews and assign a team later. Some do a weeks long orientation/training and you have some ability to more or less interview for final placement, and there's some other styles as well. For important teams that have trouble hiring, probably some people get selected into it without a lot of choice. Either way, in a pooled hiring environment, you're probably not meeting with people on the team you'll work for before you join, although maybe you'd get to talk to a hiring manager after an offer; maybe.

mattgreenrocks 5y ago

The "FAANG has A+ players solving hard problems" meme is a myth that people need to believe to support idea that working at a FAANG company is guaranteed to be the apex of your career. No one motivates themselves by saying, "I'm going to do the same work I'd do with the same caliber of colleagues as I have currently." This is the tech version of the American Dream, where we're not employed by Google yet, but will be in the near future. FAANG companies certainly have a lot of very bright engineers. There's no disputing that. And they contend with some really thorny problems that admit no easy solutions, such as scale and content moderation. But there's also plenty of smaller companies that have difficult problems with very sharp coworkers. Of course, they don't have the same prestige.

mooreds 5y ago
> But there's also plenty of smaller companies that have difficult problems with very sharp coworkers. Of course, they don't have the same prestige. Or money. Or visibility. Or value on your resume (in certain circles). But what smaller companies have that I've found big companies don't: a distinct lack of places to hide. Sure, you can get folks who don't work out (I've been one!) but at all the small companies I've worked out, everyone is pulling together and no one is really slacking. My theory is that it's too easy to see when someone is slacking at a smallco, so folks don't do it. I find that delightful.
- smsm42 5y ago
  Value in the resume cuts both ways. If somebody comes to me for an interview having a spectacular company in the list, I'd certainly be interested. But they better have some good story to tell because if it's just "oh I built an ACID webservice for internal tool for organizing meetings about when the kitchen snack supply should be replenished" I wouldn't be overly impressed and they'd better have some other skills to impress. It certainly creates some interest, but it can also create disappointment.

duxup 5y ago

Yeah I don't understand this idea that Google is all of that. With any company of any size the scale of grunt work / tedious maintenance and troubleshooting old stuff is going to grow massively. Being Google or anyone will not change that.

duxup 5y ago

de_keyboard 5y ago

> not everyone can be an A player in a company with 1000s of employees, correct ? Well if you pay top salaries and have a tough recruitment process maybe. They claim to hire the best from all over the world.

smsm42 5y ago

Also not every A+ hard-problem team would be willing to recruit an unproven newbie who knows nothing about internal processes and lore and culture of the company and would require a lot of training and adjustment and handholding for a while. Why bother if they could have somebody from another team who has worked there for a while and proven themselves and knows what they need to hit the ground running? Maybe they let the newbie to clean the dojo floor, and sweep the garden, and cut the wood, and take out the garbage, and paint the walls, and so on for a while and then he learns the ropes and knows more he could find himself a team that is more to his taste.