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I still, after all these years, hold the belief that facebook failed to innovate because the engineering interview is based on memorization. Having worked with

I still, after all these years, hold the belief that facebook failed to innovate because the engineering interview is based on memorization. Having worked with those types of engineers, they can absolutely build exactly what is needed. But abstract and engaging product vision does not come easily with them. Outsourcing that capability to an attractive and charismatic product manager can never close that gap.

notart666 4y ago
Algorithm interviews never worked it was just a filtering mechanism so they could access cheaper labor. The reality is you have no idea if someone is qualified for their job until you hire them. Everything else are just signals. Fuzzy at best.
- s1k3 4y ago
  I don’t think it’s cheapening the labor… it’s a way to filter the pool at the cost of missing some gems. Basically it will filter more bad than good but it will still filter good.
  - notart666 4y ago
    It's a poor filter and well tech salaries are artificially high the reality is most companies can afford to hire tens of thousands of developers to work on projects but instead then only hire the bare minimum.
paxys 4y ago
Google, Apple, Microsoft, TikTok, Tesla, NVidia and the vast majority of tech companies of all sizes that have been using this exact same interview process for decades are managing to innovate just fine. Facebook's problem has never been engineering. Blame its leadership and the product decisions they made (like dumping $4B a quarter into a "metaverse" that nobody wants).
- ldjkfkdsjnv 4y ago
  Not quite. Facebook is the pinnacle of memorization. Google is similar and is absolutely not innovating, they just have a monopoly on search, and a bunch of side projects copying other companies (AWS, Microsoft Word) etc. Microsoft does not interview like that, and TikTok is a copy of FB funded by the CCP. Tesla does not ask leetcode hard interview questions. Neither does Amazon. I am intimately familiar with the interview process.
  - flyinglizard 4y ago
    FB did technical innovation just fine. The problem is with the product, and this is not something that engineers solve.
    - bsaul 4y ago
      And yet i still think the facebook page sucks tremendously from an engineering pov. It hasn't evolved in years feature wise and yet it still slows to a crawl whenever i launch it. Totally unimpressed.
      - datavirtue 4y ago
        I use (try to sometimes) the Facebook lite app on Android. It rarely opens. Just sits there spinning on the logo screen. It has been consistently acting like this for years through several updates of both Android and the app...on various phones. Shrug.
    - ldjkfkdsjnv 4y ago
      The problem is that it should be something that engineers solve. Non technical product managers from top schools are not equipped to drive innovation if they are not on the technical ground level.
  - jarsin 4y ago
    Did amazon change recently? I got leetcoded there. I even applied to a web dev role using ruby on rails and was blindsided by the hard trick questions.
cletus 4y ago
I get that you dislike this format. There are legitimate critcisms. But to extrapolate this to a company-wide strategy failure is beyond ludicrous and simply belies just how much you detest whiteboard coding. Please, for your own sake, try and separate your personal dislikes from objective judgements. Meta is product-driven not engineering-driven. How engineers are hired doesn't really matter because it's generally not engineers at the helm. Meta is in the position they are because post-WhatsApp there has been no company strategy. First it was the post-2016 election fallout of fighting misinformation, which was never going to work and isn't really the problem anyway, followed by a brief foray into crypto and finally the eye-watering boondoggle that is the metaverse, the answer to the question no one asked. None of that has anything to do with hiring engineering ICs with whiteboard coding interviews and it's crazy to suggest it is.
- ldjkfkdsjnv 4y ago
  I have worked at two FAANGs. It's obvious to me that there is no vision, just raw execution on strictly defined design documents. The product decisions come from a place that is commonly never even exposed to the engineer. "Meta is product-driven not engineering-driven." My point exactly. Divorcing product management from technical implementation is a fools errand in an extremely technical company. When every engineer is focussed on execution, it adds up. Interesting engineering led ideas cannot lead the company in new directions.
  - kevinh 4y ago
    Surely someone is writing the strictly-defined design documents.
- ren_engineer 4y ago
  >None of that has anything to do with hiring engineering ICs with whiteboard coding interviews and it's crazy to suggest it is. you don't think dangling a massive salary behind an easily gamed interview format can lead to problems and attract the wrong type of people to a company? FAANG is now attracting people who would have been on Wall Street 20 years ago. They are money chasers, not the type of people who actually build things >Meta is in the position they are because post-WhatsApp there has been no company strategy >How engineers are hired doesn't really matter because it's generally not engineers at the helm you don't see the dissonance between these 2 statements? Maybe if you had builders with opinions instead of coding robots who follow instructions they wouldn't be such a mess
wittycardio 4y ago
"How can I make this about my inability to answer basic algorithms questions"
- ldjkfkdsjnv 4y ago
  I have worked at two FAANGs. On a daily basis I see how the sausage is made. I currently work on an AI platform for a product 100M people use
iLoveOncall 4y ago
> failed to innovate because the engineering interview is based on memorization Disclaimer: I'm a software engineer myself. I think if a company considers product innovation as part of its software engineers duties, they have already failed. Software engineers innovate on technical solutions, they are the bridge between innovative products and their implementation, and it happens that they can bring out innovative product, but innovation is the job of product people, not software people. I know some on HN would like to believe that software engineers are the ultimate worker that can and should do everything and anything, but it's not the case.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- nobodyandproud 4y ago
  Without that ability to share, shift, or generate a vision you’ll be limited. The best engineers I’ve seen are doing far more than just solving coding and system design problems for existing issues. Also a software engineer, though I’ve moved to the management side (I miss the engineering focus).
  - iLoveOncall 4y ago
    I agree with that, and I don't doubt that Facebook has the capability in place to leverage the ideas brought by those people. All I'm saying is that if a company is _relying_ on software engineers to drive innovation, they're doomed.
    - ldjkfkdsjnv 4y ago
      Why don't you doubt it? They have failed to leverage and put into place new radical ideas
antiterra 4y ago
I assure you there are plenty of engineers with abstract and engaging product vision at Meta. There are some genuinely difficult problems to solve at their scale and they are incredibly creative at it.
- laluser 4y ago
  Exactly. This is such a weird take. Just spend a few minutes browsing through some recent tech blog posts from Meta and you'll realize the scale they have to deal with and creativity for solving these problems.
camgunz 4y ago
Facebook is one of the most innovative software companies out there: - Cassandra - Hiphop VM - Flow - React - GraphQL - zstd - PyTorch - rocksdb I hate Facebook to my core, but this is pretty undeniable. You gotta re-examine your priors on this one.
- ldjkfkdsjnv 4y ago
  Innovative software! Not product. React alone is a brilliant front end framework that changed the web. PyTorch as well. Amazon does not produce the same level of open source, or anywhere close, but the products are more varied and far better.
  - netheril96 4y ago
    Asking engineers to innovate on the product side is the same as asking product managers to invent better programming languages.
    - pyb 4y ago
      There is such a thing as a product-minded engineer, but FB's interview process does not select for them.
  - hn_throwaway_99 4y ago
    But your original post said: > I still, after all these years, hold the belief that facebook failed to innovate because the engineering interview is based on memorization. Having worked with those types of engineers, they can absolutely build exactly what is needed. I think the fact that so much engineering innovation has come out of Facebook absolutely disproves your thesis. Also, while I've interviewed for Amazon (but not FB), I don't think Amazon's technical interview questions were really any different from any other big tech companies I've interviewed at. They certainly didn't seem to optimize for any sort of "innovation" in their tech questions (to be clear, I'm not sure how you'd do that).
    - ldjkfkdsjnv 4y ago
bradlys 4y ago
> But abstract and engaging product vision does not come easily with them Well it's a good thing neither of those are particularly necessary or even going to be received well at them. After all - this is why you have PMs. It's not engineers who are dictating the direction product is going. It's the PMs and execs.
steve76 4y ago
[dead]
tennisflyi 4y ago
So I'm missing out on 6/7 figure salary due to not memorizing stuff? Oy vey.

notart666 4y ago

Algorithm interviews never worked it was just a filtering mechanism so they could access cheaper labor. The reality is you have no idea if someone is qualified for their job until you hire them. Everything else are just signals. Fuzzy at best.

s1k3 4y ago
I don’t think it’s cheapening the labor… it’s a way to filter the pool at the cost of missing some gems. Basically it will filter more bad than good but it will still filter good.
- notart666 4y ago
  It's a poor filter and well tech salaries are artificially high the reality is most companies can afford to hire tens of thousands of developers to work on projects but instead then only hire the bare minimum.

paxys 4y ago

Google, Apple, Microsoft, TikTok, Tesla, NVidia and the vast majority of tech companies of all sizes that have been using this exact same interview process for decades are managing to innovate just fine. Facebook's problem has never been engineering. Blame its leadership and the product decisions they made (like dumping $4B a quarter into a "metaverse" that nobody wants).

ldjkfkdsjnv 4y ago
Not quite. Facebook is the pinnacle of memorization. Google is similar and is absolutely not innovating, they just have a monopoly on search, and a bunch of side projects copying other companies (AWS, Microsoft Word) etc. Microsoft does not interview like that, and TikTok is a copy of FB funded by the CCP. Tesla does not ask leetcode hard interview questions. Neither does Amazon. I am intimately familiar with the interview process.
- flyinglizard 4y ago
  FB did technical innovation just fine. The problem is with the product, and this is not something that engineers solve.
  - bsaul 4y ago
    And yet i still think the facebook page sucks tremendously from an engineering pov. It hasn't evolved in years feature wise and yet it still slows to a crawl whenever i launch it. Totally unimpressed.
    - datavirtue 4y ago
      I use (try to sometimes) the Facebook lite app on Android. It rarely opens. Just sits there spinning on the logo screen. It has been consistently acting like this for years through several updates of both Android and the app...on various phones. Shrug.
  - ldjkfkdsjnv 4y ago
    The problem is that it should be something that engineers solve. Non technical product managers from top schools are not equipped to drive innovation if they are not on the technical ground level.
- jarsin 4y ago
  Did amazon change recently? I got leetcoded there. I even applied to a web dev role using ruby on rails and was blindsided by the hard trick questions.

cletus 4y ago

I get that you dislike this format. There are legitimate critcisms. But to extrapolate this to a company-wide strategy failure is beyond ludicrous and simply belies just how much you detest whiteboard coding. Please, for your own sake, try and separate your personal dislikes from objective judgements. Meta is product-driven not engineering-driven. How engineers are hired doesn't really matter because it's generally not engineers at the helm. Meta is in the position they are because post-WhatsApp there has been no company strategy. First it was the post-2016 election fallout of fighting misinformation, which was never going to work and isn't really the problem anyway, followed by a brief foray into crypto and finally the eye-watering boondoggle that is the metaverse, the answer to the question no one asked. None of that has anything to do with hiring engineering ICs with whiteboard coding interviews and it's crazy to suggest it is.

ldjkfkdsjnv 4y ago
I have worked at two FAANGs. It's obvious to me that there is no vision, just raw execution on strictly defined design documents. The product decisions come from a place that is commonly never even exposed to the engineer. "Meta is product-driven not engineering-driven." My point exactly. Divorcing product management from technical implementation is a fools errand in an extremely technical company. When every engineer is focussed on execution, it adds up. Interesting engineering led ideas cannot lead the company in new directions.
- kevinh 4y ago
  Surely someone is writing the strictly-defined design documents.
ren_engineer 4y ago
>None of that has anything to do with hiring engineering ICs with whiteboard coding interviews and it's crazy to suggest it is. you don't think dangling a massive salary behind an easily gamed interview format can lead to problems and attract the wrong type of people to a company? FAANG is now attracting people who would have been on Wall Street 20 years ago. They are money chasers, not the type of people who actually build things >Meta is in the position they are because post-WhatsApp there has been no company strategy >How engineers are hired doesn't really matter because it's generally not engineers at the helm you don't see the dissonance between these 2 statements? Maybe if you had builders with opinions instead of coding robots who follow instructions they wouldn't be such a mess

wittycardio 4y ago

"How can I make this about my inability to answer basic algorithms questions"

ldjkfkdsjnv 4y ago
I have worked at two FAANGs. On a daily basis I see how the sausage is made. I currently work on an AI platform for a product 100M people use

iLoveOncall 4y ago

> failed to innovate because the engineering interview is based on memorization Disclaimer: I'm a software engineer myself. I think if a company considers product innovation as part of its software engineers duties, they have already failed. Software engineers innovate on technical solutions, they are the bridge between innovative products and their implementation, and it happens that they can bring out innovative product, but innovation is the job of product people, not software people. I know some on HN would like to believe that software engineers are the ultimate worker that can and should do everything and anything, but it's not the case.

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
nobodyandproud 4y ago
Without that ability to share, shift, or generate a vision you’ll be limited. The best engineers I’ve seen are doing far more than just solving coding and system design problems for existing issues. Also a software engineer, though I’ve moved to the management side (I miss the engineering focus).
- iLoveOncall 4y ago
  I agree with that, and I don't doubt that Facebook has the capability in place to leverage the ideas brought by those people. All I'm saying is that if a company is _relying_ on software engineers to drive innovation, they're doomed.
  - ldjkfkdsjnv 4y ago
    Why don't you doubt it? They have failed to leverage and put into place new radical ideas

antiterra 4y ago

I assure you there are plenty of engineers with abstract and engaging product vision at Meta. There are some genuinely difficult problems to solve at their scale and they are incredibly creative at it.

laluser 4y ago
Exactly. This is such a weird take. Just spend a few minutes browsing through some recent tech blog posts from Meta and you'll realize the scale they have to deal with and creativity for solving these problems.

camgunz 4y ago

Facebook is one of the most innovative software companies out there: - Cassandra - Hiphop VM - Flow - React - GraphQL - zstd - PyTorch - rocksdb I hate Facebook to my core, but this is pretty undeniable. You gotta re-examine your priors on this one.

ldjkfkdsjnv 4y ago
Innovative software! Not product. React alone is a brilliant front end framework that changed the web. PyTorch as well. Amazon does not produce the same level of open source, or anywhere close, but the products are more varied and far better.
- netheril96 4y ago
  Asking engineers to innovate on the product side is the same as asking product managers to invent better programming languages.
  - pyb 4y ago
    There is such a thing as a product-minded engineer, but FB's interview process does not select for them.
- hn_throwaway_99 4y ago
  But your original post said: > I still, after all these years, hold the belief that facebook failed to innovate because the engineering interview is based on memorization. Having worked with those types of engineers, they can absolutely build exactly what is needed. I think the fact that so much engineering innovation has come out of Facebook absolutely disproves your thesis. Also, while I've interviewed for Amazon (but not FB), I don't think Amazon's technical interview questions were really any different from any other big tech companies I've interviewed at. They certainly didn't seem to optimize for any sort of "innovation" in their tech questions (to be clear, I'm not sure how you'd do that).
  - ldjkfkdsjnv 4y ago

bradlys 4y ago

> But abstract and engaging product vision does not come easily with them Well it's a good thing neither of those are particularly necessary or even going to be received well at them. After all - this is why you have PMs. It's not engineers who are dictating the direction product is going. It's the PMs and execs.

steve76 4y ago

[dead]

tennisflyi 4y ago

So I'm missing out on 6/7 figure salary due to not memorizing stuff? Oy vey.