13 ms·

Tech Interview Handbook

300 points by oumua_don17 5y ago

mettamage 5y ago
Let me give a cautionary tale in the form of an ad (my email is in my profile). Full disclaimer: it's both, but the value to the discussion is the cautionary tale part. Feel free to ignore the ad part. Edit: I tacked on a perspective how I started to like leetcode questions, I hope that helps people find some inspiration to get through the leetcode grind. If I can do it during the evenings, then so can you! ;-) I'm looking for a FAANG internship and/or entry level job opportunity. Years of experience: 1.5 years Academic degree: bachelor + master computer science. Interview preparedness: 100 leetcode questions, 30 easy, 50 medium, 20 hard (my opinion on them: I like them). Average solving time: 30 minutes for leetcode medium (not quite FAANG level yet). It may seem I aim the bar a bit low. Here is why: after graduation, I took a gap year and because of that missed the graduate loop. Before I knew it, I couldn't apply to FAANG anymore because I was not a current student (for internships) or a recent graduate (due to gap year). I also didn't realize that being from Europe would hurt my chances somewhat. It took me quite a long time to realize this, and now even more time had passed (after many rejection emails and 0 phone screens). So, it is possible that you may get top marks at your master program. It is possible that you did a bachelor + master and have TA experience during your degree (that I'm not counting here as experience). Yet, FAANG can still completely ignore you, because you didn't know you should be applying for internships when you're in your second year of your bachelor. If I could redo it, I would: * Get a real developer job as soon as possible * Start leetcoding in my 3rd year bachelor while applying to internships * More leetcoding during my 2 year master + applying to internships + getting actual developer work experience (actual dev experience trumps TA jobs) This is why I'm open to internships and/or graduate positions. I'm not good enough at systems design. However, with coding, I think I have a clear shot. To the leetcode naysayers: I used to dislike leetcode questions too. However, I've noticed simply by practicing it, it does become easier over time. More importantly, you have to own it in a way that suits your personality. In my particular case, I view data structures as organisms. I use plants a lot to visualize linked lists and trees. An array + linked list is a brick wall (array), and a vine (a node looks like a vine leaf). Traversing that linked list is dying the whole vine a certain color. Stacks are actual stacks, queues are queues of people, a set I need to iterate through (like an array) looks like my laundry basket, etc. I love visualizing data structures like this and it gives me a sense of wonder. That sense of wonder translates into motivation, and that's how I'm owning it with my personality. Currently, my only real weakness is dynamic programming, but I'm confident that I can master it over time :) Full disclosure: recently I have been rejected by all the FAANGs again (outright, no phone screen), except for 1 and I've finished their onsite and am awaiting their result. I'm horrible at systems design though and wish I could interview for a graduate position. If someone could help me apply for a graduate position (internship or job) despite my unusual circumstances, I'd appreciate that.
- frfl 5y ago
  If it helps, I didn't really start to grok system design and architecture until more than 2 years full time. Before that it was just a bunch of functions/methods, classes that used each other. Slowly though, you start to notice the patterns, you see what failed badly and how it failed (bad design). You get burnt having to solve problems in badly designed code. You get stuck trying to test badly designed code. You slowly see the bigger picture, how to put together these small pieces into that complete application that isn't a tangled mess and unmaintainable (bad design = maintainability being inversely related to time * functionality, or some equation of that sort). Of course this has nothing to do with what system design questions (most) interviewers care about. But this is the system design that matters on the job. Read books for the real system design after you land the job, they won't really stick before you get expeirence - refactoring legacy applications, pragmatic programmer, clean coder, clean code, clean architecture (all clean books are by 'Uncle Bob'). For interview system design (I'm not speaking from too much experience here), youtube has some good videos "software system design interview", I've seen "grokking the system design interview" book being mentioned. Good luck. Hope this helps somewhat.
  - makmanalp 5y ago
    > Of course this has nothing to do with what system design questions (most) interviewers care about. But this is the system design that matters on the job. Sigh. I just think it's so absurd that "system design" is now an interview category that's expected of new grads. I'm talking about the fanciful form of this, where the bright eyed and bushy tailed new grad is somehow working on a problem that is the equivalent of the Large Hadron Collider or the Apollo space program. I've sat on the other side of these interviews, and what I'm hoping for, especially from beginners, is just some common sense, and some reassurance that they can identify at least the main design tradeoffs and make appropriate decisions based on the information available. And then we look at what should happen to the design of our system if I modify our assumptions, or add new use cases that create new forms of stress on the system. What I get instead is stuff like "I'll use a key value store", and when I ask why, I get "because it scales better", and when I ask "compared to what, why, under what conditions", I get blank stares, because they've barely used either. Then I learn that they said a thing because they read some github repo with 100 system design questions that said so. Or they read a prep bible that told them this is how Google does things. Or they read an actual book about a subject (a bit better) but didn't really absorb the ideas (which is fine! happens to me too!), but wanted to use the thing they learned about anyway. What I actually wanted was "because the data is simple and non-relational and this will suffice for the foreseeable future, and features XYZ help remove complexity from the app" or "this is a single-purpose system designed to do one thing very well, and we can pack a lot more storage / throughput per node this way" or "Never mind, the requirements and the future are fairly vague, I'll just use something I understand well, is flexible, well supported and easy to migrate out of" or ANY sort of sense that we do things because of reasons, and we don't do things if we don't have good reasons to do them. I remember being a beginner too - not knowing things and inexperience is perfectly fine, the point is we want you to do your best with what you have. It's fine to be honest about your knowledge and capabilities. You can look silly otherwise. What are fairly nuanced, philosophical or "it depends on ..." questions to me after two degrees and almost a decade and a half into my career, for some of these folks is "of course it's X", and I'm just flabbergasted at the level of confidence that's projected. Please just a) exercise judgement b) based on the facts available c) leveraging your existing knowledge of core software concepts. Try a design, say why you did each thing this way, say what you like and don't like about it, say what you're uncertain about, what a few alternatives would look like, what you don't like about those, and what you'd change if you had a bit more information. This is the kind of "how do I do this" thing everyone building anything should be doing every day. It's not impressive for you to be able to regurgitate the X types of cache policies according to wikipedia. It is, however, impressive when I point out a potential problem with the way you set up your caching scheme, and so you look at what you designed, actually think about what that means, and are able to tweak it to better fit the requirements. I don't mind whether you're aware that you just re-discovered a thing that already has a name. My plea to whoever is posing and judging these system design interview questions in this way causes young interviewees to think they need to participate in a kind of veteran staff engineer cosplay tech-braggadocio circus: for god's sake, just test what's required for the job, please and thank you.
gorbachev 5y ago
"GPA does matter" No, it does not, unless you're a recent graduate. Absolutely nobody pays attention to your GPA, if you're more than a few years in your career.
- yupper32 5y ago
  As a new grad I didn't have my GPA on my resume and it never actually came up except for the occasional transcript request. I had a fine GPA, but not high enough for it to be a nice datapoint. I had plenty of interest with lots of companies, including many FAANGMGOEWVIOPJW companies. This was years ago though.
  - nvarsj 5y ago
    Maybe things have changed, but when I went to career fairs as a uni student in the 00s they all asked for my GPA. Less than 3.5 was pretty much an instant no.
    - yupper32 5y ago
      I'm talking like 2012-2015ish here. I was never asked for it specifically, or asked why it was not on my resume. A few big companies asked for my transcript, but that's all. I don't even know if they looked at it. I had about a 3.5, so nothing to write home about. Got offers from a few big tech companies. I really think they didn't care, unless my barely 3.5 GPA just made the cutoff when they looked at my transcripts.
    - pbalau 5y ago
      > when I went to career fairs *as a uni student* At that point that was the only thing you could possible show.
      - yupper32 5y ago
        That's not true. Projects, internships, and interviewing skills are how you get into companies as a uni student. GPA is maybe required for some, but it's definitely not the only thing a uni student should be showing.
bovermyer 5y ago
This is... incredibly disconnected from my 15-odd years of experience in my career. Is this how Silicon Valley engineering careers work?
- teddybloake 5y ago
  This is really skewed to recent or new graduate and elite universities. When I was out of college, 15 years ago, some of the internships listed were hard or near impossible to get into. Take for example Goldman Sachs. They should be listing more regular internships and not those who managed to matriculate into the elite of the elite (hint: not a meritocracy). If anything it creates disillusionment that STEM careers are a straight path to being the next Bezos. It is like golfing: pick up golf to play golf not to play on the PGA tour.
  - b9a2cab5 5y ago
    This is a pretty garbage take. Goldman Sachs is easier to get into as a software engineer than any FAANG. And every FAANG I know takes the majority of their new grad hires from public universities which, at least in California, are banned from affirmative action and legacy admits. Despite the UC administration's best efforts to remove merit from the equation by not counting standardized test scores admissions into a top UC is still merit-based. Software engineering is not investment banking or law.
    - gorbachev 5y ago
      > Goldman Sachs is easier to get into as a software engineer than any FAANG That wasn't the case 15 years ago, as the post you're responding to stated. The world has changed.
- posharma 5y ago
  If your question is specifically referring to the leetcode style coding interviews, this is exactly how Silicon Valley engineering careers work if you want to change jobs.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
mnd999 5y ago
Honestly, I despair.
sto_hristo 5y ago
These interviews are becoming their own profession.
- mLuby 5y ago
  The last time I interviewed, I did it full-time for about a month. Was kind of fun actually: you're solving isolated little coding problems, talking with companies about their engineering and business challenges, meeting smart and friendly people, and at the end of it all you get a big pay raise. The downside is mostly that it's a ton of scheduling calls and on-sites (back when those were in person). At the end of that month, it really did feel like I was a professional interviewer.
  - MattGaiser 5y ago
    Well yes. To get a software engineering job, step 1 is to quit your software engineering job to study full time to get a job doing something very similar. Doing your job as a software engineer is an impediment to interviewing as one.
    - someelephant 5y ago
      Except for all those stories of people who have been interviewing for months but can't seem to land anything. Much better to realize you have developed some behavioral problems and seek treatment for them while you are employed rather than after you leave your job.
      - qntty 5y ago
        What kind of behavioral problems are you referring to?
        Aeolun 5y ago
        The inability to listen to people judge you for not knowing the answer to arbitrary and contrived problems? I’ve been a valuable professional for years, and then this little snot tells me I don’t qualify for his position because I don’t know what happens when you sum two arrays in Javascript? Fuck off.
decebalus1 5y ago
Here are some psychological tricks that will help you ace a job interview. Tailor your answers to the interviewer's age. Generation Y interviewers (between 20 and 30): Bring along visual samples of your work and highlight your ability to multitask. Generation X interviewers (between 30 and 50): Emphasize your creativity and mention how work/life balance contributes to your success. Baby Boomer interviewers (between 50 and 70): Show that you work hard and demonstrate respect for what they've achieved. -- Are you kidding me? Maybe insert a joke about 'millennials' if you get interviewed by a boomer, am I right? Really tailor your material for the crowd.
- mbernstein 5y ago
  Since when are 35 year old in 2021 gen-x?
  - nosequel 5y ago
    They aren't. It has the generations all wrong.
drdeadringer 5y ago
I disagree about having an Objective Statement. I replaced mine with a Summary long ago. Also, talking about your interests should happen during an interview or even a phone screen. You don't list "Film Noir" when applying to a flowers shop.
- ghaff 5y ago
  The typical "Looking for a challenging position juggling chainsaws in a hard-driving..." OK I exaggerate but I never liked anything along those lines. I was usually pretty fluid about what I was looking for and mostly stuck it in a cover letter or was having a conversation with someone I knew anyway.
rcurry 5y ago
One thing that always blows me away (literally) is candidates that will eat like a tunafish sandwich with onions five minutes before they come in for an interview.
- data_spy 5y ago
  With that kind of confidence, I hire them on the spot!
  - rcurry 5y ago
    If you’re going to melt my face when we are talking you should at least bring me a sandwich too. I’d hire that guy for sure. Hasn’t happened yet, but I’ll still hold out hope.
ecshafer 5y ago
I disagree with this resume advice actually. He for example removes that he was in the military sniper team and won best shot, but keeps high school education? I would totally say the opposite, keep the cool the side thing that's a conversation starter, but remove irrelevant educational experience. Including the number of stars on the github projects they worked on seems so.... narcissistic? Promotional? Idk but its distasteful and I would probably throw out the resume at that. I really think all of the resume changes, other than the incoming intern at bytedance were extremely bad changes. It went from someone who is smart, with a breadth of experiences, to someone that is obsessed with social media likes.
- mewpmewp2 5y ago
  It is widely suggested that resume should be as metric oriented as possible so I wouldn't think anything bad about the stars. It is similar as to "I built X to increase Y by Z.". It does show impact. Definitely wouldn't throw a resume out for something like this even if it for some reason is a pet peeve for you. However I agree that cool things like the military sniper thing should stay.
  - foxfluff 5y ago
    To me the stars seem more similar to likes, follows, and subs.. a popularity metric for social media. And unless it spells that they're big, it actually gives me a rather negative vibe. Assuming I'm hiring for a technical role, I'd be unimpressed to see someone attempt to flaunt the 10k karma they scored on HN or the 150 followers they got on twitter. Also as others point out, if you don't see what their contribution is, it seems even more flaunty. "Talked to a guy with 100k karma"? It's pretty easy to sneak a few low-impact commits into big and popular projects.. (speaking as someone who's got a commit or five e.g. in Mozilla Firefox)
- keithnz 5y ago
  I don't mind the stars, I wouldn't discount the resume based on that, but the changes themselves seemed useless. Having looked at many resumes of candidates, I scanned both with my "looking to hire" hat on and quickly determined, 1) is a grad and seems smart 2) is involved with open source projects and seems to enjoy creating software, on that basis I'd bring them in for an interview
walshemj 5y ago
I think this may be very targeted to certain cultures and while its useful to take elements from maybe for your first job. Now I have a pitch style CV and have dumped the chronological for well over a decade. However writing a guide like this you need up front to show that you have actually done a lot of recruiting.
- HWR_14 5y ago
  I tried the pitch style CV, but I think I fucked it up (in audience if not in style.) Do you have any good advice/guides?
dzonga 5y ago
this is the cancer in our industry. seems interviewing is geared towards whatever mega tech companies. yet this on hacker-news. a place filled with seed-stage companies, and early series * who probably just want someone who can get shit done. anecdote: honestly, I have had more problems regarding visa status more than anything, in picking up jobs.
- freyr 5y ago
  The worst interviews I’ve ever experienced, hands down, were from startups. They asked the most ridiculous whiteboard problems, and that generally just identifies the candidates who crammed most the leetcode. The mega tech companies interviews, by comparison, were surprisingly more reasonable. The startups have probably adopted this approach because it’s all they know, but nobody is forcing them to.
  - kradroy 5y ago
    At startups recruitment beyond getting a body in the door/Zoom is largely an afterthought. I remember interviewing a staff researcher candidate when I was 22 at a startup (<50 employees). I was pulled away from my work the day of and thrown in a room with someone with 15 years more experience than me. I actually asked him questions that were not lawful, but I didn't know this because no one bothered giving me guidelines. I recently interviewed for a hands-on manager position at a startup, and it went south. The recruiter set up the appointment with the VP of eng and told me what the technical topic would be. Two days before the interview the interviewer was changed to a staff engineer. I emailed the recruiter to confirm that the topic would still be the same. She said it would be. Come interview time the interviewer throws a different topic at me, for which I didn't study. I ended up with the correct answer, but it took me the full time to get there. They weren't impressed, but neither was I. As a hiring manager I take all the these experiences and ensure that I never put a candidate in such a shitty situation.
  - danjac 5y ago
    That's because startups (by no means all, but far too many) are often run by people with very little experience (technical or business) and so they cargo cult their practices from the big players. They lack the acumen to filter and fine-tune these practices to their actual needs and means.
Aeolun 5y ago
Wow, literally the first thing I saw when I entered the page was an ad for ‘3 terrible interview answers’ I bounced immediately.
- drenvuk 5y ago
  I understand the response but I'm wondering why you don't have an adblocker. even on mobile on ios they exist.
  - purplecats 5y ago
    ironic that although not in the manner intended by the advertisers, ads very strongly determine GP's behavior.
taurath 5y ago
My comment is going to come across as mostly a nit - I'm definitely the target audience here as I'm just coming off of a short break and diving into interviews. I'll update my post with more thoughts as I go through it, as I'm sure it'll be a decent resource to brush up on my DS&A. There's kind of a focus on education here in the "skills section" that I don't find to be true after a certain level of experience. > "Must have" — Typically, most of the must-haves include a degree (or not) in a relevant technical field, some years (or not) of experience in a particular programming language or technology I'm not sure I agree with any of this - there are some domains like say embedded where having no C experience is an absolute must have, but to my knowledge almost nobody is thrown out of a pile for not using the specific key language a company is using, like say C# vs Java vs Cpp. Of course there's some red flags as in if you're doing modern frontend work and the resume only notes PHP4. Also I have always treated degree requirements as optional, unless the role focuses in a specific area of research rather than general SWE. All of my positions in my career have required a degree which I don't have and I don't feel held back by it at this point. IMO at least, accomplishments > YoE > degree is much better outside of entry level.
devnull3 5y ago
Forget the Hunger Games, here is the dystopian shit right now: For a medium level leetcode problem here is the time split (for which 20 min are given typically): 1. 4 min => Read/interpret/parse the problem statement 2. 5 min => Formulate the solution. 3. 8 min => Actual code 4. 3 min => Edge cases/review --------------------- Notes: * #2 You should think of various algos, DS and lock on to a particular one. If you cannot improve upon the time complexity, you need to make a split decision to either 1) continue to think more or 2) choose the next best and move to #3 * All you can do is steal one min from other phases but at the cost of less time in that phase. * Think aloud in #2, #3 & #4 * At times even less time is available in case follow-up questions are to be accounted for. * Code structure & consistency is important. You will be penalized if you write big monoliths. * Additional conditions when GTFO is triggered: ["Solved the problem in 23 min instead of 20", "Did not think about that 1 scenario even though you took care of most of the important ones", "Solved the DP problem in top-down instead of bottom-up.. loser"] ---------------------- Optimizations: * #3 should be reduced as much as possible. Choose a lang, know its standard lib by heart. This gives more time for #2 * Think of edge cases while writing code in #3 * At #2 one, you should be able to describe a solution (in your mind) detailed enough to convert into a code e.g Do DFS. Keep a max_val variable. Update max_val on values from left & right sub-tree. * Develop intuition of doing some #2 work while in #1 ------------------------- What actually happens (or should happen) when someone practices leetcode a lot? 1. Reduce #1 time. 2. #2 => Quick recall of high level patterns already encountered 3. Able to generate multiple solutions. 4. #3 => Translate that pattern as fast as possible. E.g. There is a standard template for BFS, DFS, two pointers, etc -------------------------- So the entire prep can be divided into two parts: 1. How soon you can zero-in a solution and convert into an outline? 2. How fast you can vomit that into a code? Once you are comfortable in writing any code fast, you do not have to code every problem in leetcode. I see a problem and only solve it in mind and then check whether the approach was ok or not. I know I can code it fast Edit: So for me if I have solved 200-300 LC problems, what it really means is I have actually coded in like 40-50 and remaining are just mind puzzles. If I do daily 5 mind solves, I can easily cover 200 in 40 days. I finish this daily routine in 30-45 min. (Hey .. I said this is dystopian) ------------------------ High level view: * Practice incrementally and not in 2-3 months sprint. Think of it as daily exercise. * This is just the way it is. May be I will do my part to change the system from inside when I am in an influential position. If you are able to find companies which do not do this shit, really good for you. * Know that as senior dev, the margin for error is even less. So more important to practice incrementally. -------------------------- I do not approve of this. Its bad. I am just a guy dealing with the "system".
traceroute66 5y ago
As someone who has interviewed techs in my time, I can tell you that what the employer wants more than anything is to see YOU. Don't treat employers like idiots. They can smell the stink of a massaged CV/Resume a mile off. They can equally tell if the person on the other side of the interview table is attempting to stick to a polished script. The best thing you can do for yourself is be YOU. The employer wants to see the real person. The person that will be expected to work with their colleagues, customers and suppliers. They want to see the same person today that they will see a year later in the work environment, not some Jekyll & Hyde double personality. The last thing the interviewer wants is a polished turd, i.e. someone who interviews well and then is utterly useless in the job because they are incapable of working with others or don't have the skills they promised.
- fractallyte 5y ago
  Sounds great! But what does HR want? You have to get through the gatekeepers first...
ricardobeat 5y ago
The very first bit of advice is a cover letter? I've never seen one when interviewing, and last time I sent one was applying for an internship 18 years ago.
arcbyte 5y ago
The best hiring outcomes I've ever seen was a program manager who hired entirely on attitude. As long as you had programmed something/anything in the past, if you could sit through a 45 minute interview and have a great attitude you were hired. That company went from years of stagnation to doubling over the next two years. It makes sense. If you have a great attitude about your work you'll learn and do whatever you need to. The other key was this program manager wanted to be known as having the highest paid tech staff in the area.

300 points by oumua_don17 5y ago

Let me give a cautionary tale in the form of an ad (my email is in my profile). Full disclaimer: it's both, but the value to the discussion is the cautionary tale part. Feel free to ignore the ad part. Edit: I tacked on a perspective how I started to like leetcode questions, I hope that helps people find some inspiration to get through the leetcode grind. If I can do it during the evenings, then so can you! ;-) I'm looking for a FAANG internship and/or entry level job opportunity. Years of experience: 1.5 years Academic degree: bachelor + master computer science. Interview preparedness: 100 leetcode questions, 30 easy, 50 medium, 20 hard (my opinion on them: I like them). Average solving time: 30 minutes for leetcode medium (not quite FAANG level yet). It may seem I aim the bar a bit low. Here is why: after graduation, I took a gap year and because of that missed the graduate loop. Before I knew it, I couldn't apply to FAANG anymore because I was not a current student (for internships) or a recent graduate (due to gap year). I also didn't realize that being from Europe would hurt my chances somewhat. It took me quite a long time to realize this, and now even more time had passed (after many rejection emails and 0 phone screens). So, it is possible that you may get top marks at your master program. It is possible that you did a bachelor + master and have TA experience during your degree (that I'm not counting here as experience). Yet, FAANG can still completely ignore you, because you didn't know you should be applying for internships when you're in your second year of your bachelor. If I could redo it, I would: * Get a real developer job as soon as possible * Start leetcoding in my 3rd year bachelor while applying to internships * More leetcoding during my 2 year master + applying to internships + getting actual developer work experience (actual dev experience trumps TA jobs) This is why I'm open to internships and/or graduate positions. I'm not good enough at systems design. However, with coding, I think I have a clear shot. To the leetcode naysayers: I used to dislike leetcode questions too. However, I've noticed simply by practicing it, it does become easier over time. More importantly, you have to own it in a way that suits your personality. In my particular case, I view data structures as organisms. I use plants a lot to visualize linked lists and trees. An array + linked list is a brick wall (array), and a vine (a node looks like a vine leaf). Traversing that linked list is dying the whole vine a certain color. Stacks are actual stacks, queues are queues of people, a set I need to iterate through (like an array) looks like my laundry basket, etc. I love visualizing data structures like this and it gives me a sense of wonder. That sense of wonder translates into motivation, and that's how I'm owning it with my personality. Currently, my only real weakness is dynamic programming, but I'm confident that I can master it over time :) Full disclosure: recently I have been rejected by all the FAANGs again (outright, no phone screen), except for 1 and I've finished their onsite and am awaiting their result. I'm horrible at systems design though and wish I could interview for a graduate position. If someone could help me apply for a graduate position (internship or job) despite my unusual circumstances, I'd appreciate that.

frfl 5y ago
If it helps, I didn't really start to grok system design and architecture until more than 2 years full time. Before that it was just a bunch of functions/methods, classes that used each other. Slowly though, you start to notice the patterns, you see what failed badly and how it failed (bad design). You get burnt having to solve problems in badly designed code. You get stuck trying to test badly designed code. You slowly see the bigger picture, how to put together these small pieces into that complete application that isn't a tangled mess and unmaintainable (bad design = maintainability being inversely related to time * functionality, or some equation of that sort). Of course this has nothing to do with what system design questions (most) interviewers care about. But this is the system design that matters on the job. Read books for the real system design after you land the job, they won't really stick before you get expeirence - refactoring legacy applications, pragmatic programmer, clean coder, clean code, clean architecture (all clean books are by 'Uncle Bob'). For interview system design (I'm not speaking from too much experience here), youtube has some good videos "software system design interview", I've seen "grokking the system design interview" book being mentioned. Good luck. Hope this helps somewhat.
- makmanalp 5y ago
  > Of course this has nothing to do with what system design questions (most) interviewers care about. But this is the system design that matters on the job. Sigh. I just think it's so absurd that "system design" is now an interview category that's expected of new grads. I'm talking about the fanciful form of this, where the bright eyed and bushy tailed new grad is somehow working on a problem that is the equivalent of the Large Hadron Collider or the Apollo space program. I've sat on the other side of these interviews, and what I'm hoping for, especially from beginners, is just some common sense, and some reassurance that they can identify at least the main design tradeoffs and make appropriate decisions based on the information available. And then we look at what should happen to the design of our system if I modify our assumptions, or add new use cases that create new forms of stress on the system. What I get instead is stuff like "I'll use a key value store", and when I ask why, I get "because it scales better", and when I ask "compared to what, why, under what conditions", I get blank stares, because they've barely used either. Then I learn that they said a thing because they read some github repo with 100 system design questions that said so. Or they read a prep bible that told them this is how Google does things. Or they read an actual book about a subject (a bit better) but didn't really absorb the ideas (which is fine! happens to me too!), but wanted to use the thing they learned about anyway. What I actually wanted was "because the data is simple and non-relational and this will suffice for the foreseeable future, and features XYZ help remove complexity from the app" or "this is a single-purpose system designed to do one thing very well, and we can pack a lot more storage / throughput per node this way" or "Never mind, the requirements and the future are fairly vague, I'll just use something I understand well, is flexible, well supported and easy to migrate out of" or ANY sort of sense that we do things because of reasons, and we don't do things if we don't have good reasons to do them. I remember being a beginner too - not knowing things and inexperience is perfectly fine, the point is we want you to do your best with what you have. It's fine to be honest about your knowledge and capabilities. You can look silly otherwise. What are fairly nuanced, philosophical or "it depends on ..." questions to me after two degrees and almost a decade and a half into my career, for some of these folks is "of course it's X", and I'm just flabbergasted at the level of confidence that's projected. Please just a) exercise judgement b) based on the facts available c) leveraging your existing knowledge of core software concepts. Try a design, say why you did each thing this way, say what you like and don't like about it, say what you're uncertain about, what a few alternatives would look like, what you don't like about those, and what you'd change if you had a bit more information. This is the kind of "how do I do this" thing everyone building anything should be doing every day. It's not impressive for you to be able to regurgitate the X types of cache policies according to wikipedia. It is, however, impressive when I point out a potential problem with the way you set up your caching scheme, and so you look at what you designed, actually think about what that means, and are able to tweak it to better fit the requirements. I don't mind whether you're aware that you just re-discovered a thing that already has a name. My plea to whoever is posing and judging these system design interview questions in this way causes young interviewees to think they need to participate in a kind of veteran staff engineer cosplay tech-braggadocio circus: for god's sake, just test what's required for the job, please and thank you.

gorbachev 5y ago

"GPA does matter" No, it does not, unless you're a recent graduate. Absolutely nobody pays attention to your GPA, if you're more than a few years in your career.

yupper32 5y ago
As a new grad I didn't have my GPA on my resume and it never actually came up except for the occasional transcript request. I had a fine GPA, but not high enough for it to be a nice datapoint. I had plenty of interest with lots of companies, including many FAANGMGOEWVIOPJW companies. This was years ago though.
- nvarsj 5y ago
  Maybe things have changed, but when I went to career fairs as a uni student in the 00s they all asked for my GPA. Less than 3.5 was pretty much an instant no.
  - yupper32 5y ago
    I'm talking like 2012-2015ish here. I was never asked for it specifically, or asked why it was not on my resume. A few big companies asked for my transcript, but that's all. I don't even know if they looked at it. I had about a 3.5, so nothing to write home about. Got offers from a few big tech companies. I really think they didn't care, unless my barely 3.5 GPA just made the cutoff when they looked at my transcripts.
  - pbalau 5y ago
    > when I went to career fairs *as a uni student* At that point that was the only thing you could possible show.
    - yupper32 5y ago
      That's not true. Projects, internships, and interviewing skills are how you get into companies as a uni student. GPA is maybe required for some, but it's definitely not the only thing a uni student should be showing.

bovermyer 5y ago

This is... incredibly disconnected from my 15-odd years of experience in my career. Is this how Silicon Valley engineering careers work?

teddybloake 5y ago
This is really skewed to recent or new graduate and elite universities. When I was out of college, 15 years ago, some of the internships listed were hard or near impossible to get into. Take for example Goldman Sachs. They should be listing more regular internships and not those who managed to matriculate into the elite of the elite (hint: not a meritocracy). If anything it creates disillusionment that STEM careers are a straight path to being the next Bezos. It is like golfing: pick up golf to play golf not to play on the PGA tour.
- b9a2cab5 5y ago
  This is a pretty garbage take. Goldman Sachs is easier to get into as a software engineer than any FAANG. And every FAANG I know takes the majority of their new grad hires from public universities which, at least in California, are banned from affirmative action and legacy admits. Despite the UC administration's best efforts to remove merit from the equation by not counting standardized test scores admissions into a top UC is still merit-based. Software engineering is not investment banking or law.
  - gorbachev 5y ago
    > Goldman Sachs is easier to get into as a software engineer than any FAANG That wasn't the case 15 years ago, as the post you're responding to stated. The world has changed.
posharma 5y ago
If your question is specifically referring to the leetcode style coding interviews, this is exactly how Silicon Valley engineering careers work if you want to change jobs.

deleted 5y ago

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mnd999 5y ago

Honestly, I despair.

sto_hristo 5y ago

These interviews are becoming their own profession.

mLuby 5y ago
The last time I interviewed, I did it full-time for about a month. Was kind of fun actually: you're solving isolated little coding problems, talking with companies about their engineering and business challenges, meeting smart and friendly people, and at the end of it all you get a big pay raise. The downside is mostly that it's a ton of scheduling calls and on-sites (back when those were in person). At the end of that month, it really did feel like I was a professional interviewer.
- MattGaiser 5y ago
  Well yes. To get a software engineering job, step 1 is to quit your software engineering job to study full time to get a job doing something very similar. Doing your job as a software engineer is an impediment to interviewing as one.
  - someelephant 5y ago
    Except for all those stories of people who have been interviewing for months but can't seem to land anything. Much better to realize you have developed some behavioral problems and seek treatment for them while you are employed rather than after you leave your job.
    - qntty 5y ago
      What kind of behavioral problems are you referring to?
      - Aeolun 5y ago
        The inability to listen to people judge you for not knowing the answer to arbitrary and contrived problems? I’ve been a valuable professional for years, and then this little snot tells me I don’t qualify for his position because I don’t know what happens when you sum two arrays in Javascript? Fuck off.

decebalus1 5y ago

Here are some psychological tricks that will help you ace a job interview. Tailor your answers to the interviewer's age. Generation Y interviewers (between 20 and 30): Bring along visual samples of your work and highlight your ability to multitask. Generation X interviewers (between 30 and 50): Emphasize your creativity and mention how work/life balance contributes to your success. Baby Boomer interviewers (between 50 and 70): Show that you work hard and demonstrate respect for what they've achieved. -- Are you kidding me? Maybe insert a joke about 'millennials' if you get interviewed by a boomer, am I right? Really tailor your material for the crowd.

mbernstein 5y ago
Since when are 35 year old in 2021 gen-x?
- nosequel 5y ago
  They aren't. It has the generations all wrong.

drdeadringer 5y ago

I disagree about having an Objective Statement. I replaced mine with a Summary long ago. Also, talking about your interests should happen during an interview or even a phone screen. You don't list "Film Noir" when applying to a flowers shop.

ghaff 5y ago
The typical "Looking for a challenging position juggling chainsaws in a hard-driving..." OK I exaggerate but I never liked anything along those lines. I was usually pretty fluid about what I was looking for and mostly stuck it in a cover letter or was having a conversation with someone I knew anyway.

rcurry 5y ago

One thing that always blows me away (literally) is candidates that will eat like a tunafish sandwich with onions five minutes before they come in for an interview.

data_spy 5y ago
With that kind of confidence, I hire them on the spot!
- rcurry 5y ago
  If you’re going to melt my face when we are talking you should at least bring me a sandwich too. I’d hire that guy for sure. Hasn’t happened yet, but I’ll still hold out hope.

ecshafer 5y ago

I disagree with this resume advice actually. He for example removes that he was in the military sniper team and won best shot, but keeps high school education? I would totally say the opposite, keep the cool the side thing that's a conversation starter, but remove irrelevant educational experience. Including the number of stars on the github projects they worked on seems so.... narcissistic? Promotional? Idk but its distasteful and I would probably throw out the resume at that. I really think all of the resume changes, other than the incoming intern at bytedance were extremely bad changes. It went from someone who is smart, with a breadth of experiences, to someone that is obsessed with social media likes.

mewpmewp2 5y ago
It is widely suggested that resume should be as metric oriented as possible so I wouldn't think anything bad about the stars. It is similar as to "I built X to increase Y by Z.". It does show impact. Definitely wouldn't throw a resume out for something like this even if it for some reason is a pet peeve for you. However I agree that cool things like the military sniper thing should stay.
- foxfluff 5y ago
  To me the stars seem more similar to likes, follows, and subs.. a popularity metric for social media. And unless it spells that they're big, it actually gives me a rather negative vibe. Assuming I'm hiring for a technical role, I'd be unimpressed to see someone attempt to flaunt the 10k karma they scored on HN or the 150 followers they got on twitter. Also as others point out, if you don't see what their contribution is, it seems even more flaunty. "Talked to a guy with 100k karma"? It's pretty easy to sneak a few low-impact commits into big and popular projects.. (speaking as someone who's got a commit or five e.g. in Mozilla Firefox)
keithnz 5y ago
I don't mind the stars, I wouldn't discount the resume based on that, but the changes themselves seemed useless. Having looked at many resumes of candidates, I scanned both with my "looking to hire" hat on and quickly determined, 1) is a grad and seems smart 2) is involved with open source projects and seems to enjoy creating software, on that basis I'd bring them in for an interview

walshemj 5y ago

I think this may be very targeted to certain cultures and while its useful to take elements from maybe for your first job. Now I have a pitch style CV and have dumped the chronological for well over a decade. However writing a guide like this you need up front to show that you have actually done a lot of recruiting.

HWR_14 5y ago
I tried the pitch style CV, but I think I fucked it up (in audience if not in style.) Do you have any good advice/guides?

dzonga 5y ago

this is the cancer in our industry. seems interviewing is geared towards whatever mega tech companies. yet this on hacker-news. a place filled with seed-stage companies, and early series * who probably just want someone who can get shit done. anecdote: honestly, I have had more problems regarding visa status more than anything, in picking up jobs.

freyr 5y ago
The worst interviews I’ve ever experienced, hands down, were from startups. They asked the most ridiculous whiteboard problems, and that generally just identifies the candidates who crammed most the leetcode. The mega tech companies interviews, by comparison, were surprisingly more reasonable. The startups have probably adopted this approach because it’s all they know, but nobody is forcing them to.
- kradroy 5y ago
  At startups recruitment beyond getting a body in the door/Zoom is largely an afterthought. I remember interviewing a staff researcher candidate when I was 22 at a startup (<50 employees). I was pulled away from my work the day of and thrown in a room with someone with 15 years more experience than me. I actually asked him questions that were not lawful, but I didn't know this because no one bothered giving me guidelines. I recently interviewed for a hands-on manager position at a startup, and it went south. The recruiter set up the appointment with the VP of eng and told me what the technical topic would be. Two days before the interview the interviewer was changed to a staff engineer. I emailed the recruiter to confirm that the topic would still be the same. She said it would be. Come interview time the interviewer throws a different topic at me, for which I didn't study. I ended up with the correct answer, but it took me the full time to get there. They weren't impressed, but neither was I. As a hiring manager I take all the these experiences and ensure that I never put a candidate in such a shitty situation.
- danjac 5y ago
  That's because startups (by no means all, but far too many) are often run by people with very little experience (technical or business) and so they cargo cult their practices from the big players. They lack the acumen to filter and fine-tune these practices to their actual needs and means.

Aeolun 5y ago

Wow, literally the first thing I saw when I entered the page was an ad for ‘3 terrible interview answers’ I bounced immediately.

drenvuk 5y ago
I understand the response but I'm wondering why you don't have an adblocker. even on mobile on ios they exist.
- purplecats 5y ago
  ironic that although not in the manner intended by the advertisers, ads very strongly determine GP's behavior.

taurath 5y ago

My comment is going to come across as mostly a nit - I'm definitely the target audience here as I'm just coming off of a short break and diving into interviews. I'll update my post with more thoughts as I go through it, as I'm sure it'll be a decent resource to brush up on my DS&A. There's kind of a focus on education here in the "skills section" that I don't find to be true after a certain level of experience. > "Must have" — Typically, most of the must-haves include a degree (or not) in a relevant technical field, some years (or not) of experience in a particular programming language or technology I'm not sure I agree with any of this - there are some domains like say embedded where having no C experience is an absolute must have, but to my knowledge almost nobody is thrown out of a pile for not using the specific key language a company is using, like say C# vs Java vs Cpp. Of course there's some red flags as in if you're doing modern frontend work and the resume only notes PHP4. Also I have always treated degree requirements as optional, unless the role focuses in a specific area of research rather than general SWE. All of my positions in my career have required a degree which I don't have and I don't feel held back by it at this point. IMO at least, accomplishments > YoE > degree is much better outside of entry level.

devnull3 5y ago

Forget the Hunger Games, here is the dystopian shit right now: For a medium level leetcode problem here is the time split (for which 20 min are given typically): 1. 4 min => Read/interpret/parse the problem statement 2. 5 min => Formulate the solution. 3. 8 min => Actual code 4. 3 min => Edge cases/review --------------------- Notes: * #2 You should think of various algos, DS and lock on to a particular one. If you cannot improve upon the time complexity, you need to make a split decision to either 1) continue to think more or 2) choose the next best and move to #3 * All you can do is steal one min from other phases but at the cost of less time in that phase. * Think aloud in #2, #3 & #4 * At times even less time is available in case follow-up questions are to be accounted for. * Code structure & consistency is important. You will be penalized if you write big monoliths. * Additional conditions when GTFO is triggered: ["Solved the problem in 23 min instead of 20", "Did not think about that 1 scenario even though you took care of most of the important ones", "Solved the DP problem in top-down instead of bottom-up.. loser"] ---------------------- Optimizations: * #3 should be reduced as much as possible. Choose a lang, know its standard lib by heart. This gives more time for #2 * Think of edge cases while writing code in #3 * At #2 one, you should be able to describe a solution (in your mind) detailed enough to convert into a code e.g Do DFS. Keep a max_val variable. Update max_val on values from left & right sub-tree. * Develop intuition of doing some #2 work while in #1 ------------------------- What actually happens (or should happen) when someone practices leetcode a lot? 1. Reduce #1 time. 2. #2 => Quick recall of high level patterns already encountered 3. Able to generate multiple solutions. 4. #3 => Translate that pattern as fast as possible. E.g. There is a standard template for BFS, DFS, two pointers, etc -------------------------- So the entire prep can be divided into two parts: 1. How soon you can zero-in a solution and convert into an outline? 2. How fast you can vomit that into a code? Once you are comfortable in writing any code fast, you do not have to code every problem in leetcode. I see a problem and only solve it in mind and then check whether the approach was ok or not. I know I can code it fast Edit: So for me if I have solved 200-300 LC problems, what it really means is I have actually coded in like 40-50 and remaining are just mind puzzles. If I do daily 5 mind solves, I can easily cover 200 in 40 days. I finish this daily routine in 30-45 min. (Hey .. I said this is dystopian) ------------------------ High level view: * Practice incrementally and not in 2-3 months sprint. Think of it as daily exercise. * This is just the way it is. May be I will do my part to change the system from inside when I am in an influential position. If you are able to find companies which do not do this shit, really good for you. * Know that as senior dev, the margin for error is even less. So more important to practice incrementally. -------------------------- I do not approve of this. Its bad. I am just a guy dealing with the "system".

traceroute66 5y ago

As someone who has interviewed techs in my time, I can tell you that what the employer wants more than anything is to see YOU. Don't treat employers like idiots. They can smell the stink of a massaged CV/Resume a mile off. They can equally tell if the person on the other side of the interview table is attempting to stick to a polished script. The best thing you can do for yourself is be YOU. The employer wants to see the real person. The person that will be expected to work with their colleagues, customers and suppliers. They want to see the same person today that they will see a year later in the work environment, not some Jekyll & Hyde double personality. The last thing the interviewer wants is a polished turd, i.e. someone who interviews well and then is utterly useless in the job because they are incapable of working with others or don't have the skills they promised.

fractallyte 5y ago
Sounds great! But what does HR want? You have to get through the gatekeepers first...

ricardobeat 5y ago

The very first bit of advice is a cover letter? I've never seen one when interviewing, and last time I sent one was applying for an internship 18 years ago.

arcbyte 5y ago

The best hiring outcomes I've ever seen was a program manager who hired entirely on attitude. As long as you had programmed something/anything in the past, if you could sit through a 45 minute interview and have a great attitude you were hired. That company went from years of stagnation to doubling over the next two years. It makes sense. If you have a great attitude about your work you'll learn and do whatever you need to. The other key was this program manager wanted to be known as having the highest paid tech staff in the area.