5 ms·
The funny thing is like 8 months ago amazon was hiring engineers with 4 years of experience for 350-400k. These people aren’t even good programmers. And now the
by greatpostman 4y ago
The funny thing is like 8 months ago amazon was hiring engineers with 4 years of experience for 350-400k. These people aren’t even good programmers. And now they need to cut.
- nfRfqX5n 4y agoIf they can make L5/6 to get that salary then they're probably pretty good actually
- m00x 4y agoYou can make it to L5/6 without being a good engineer. I interviewed several Uber/Amazon engineers and they couldn't solve a simple problem (very easy problem that most bootcamp grads could do). A lot of them get there by being interviewed by other bad engineers, and just float when the market is strong, or use politics to get in a good position. A guy at my company just merges library upgrade PRs blindly. That's all he does. He fought getting dependabot up on Github, but he finally conceded. He hasn't done a commit since. I've reported it to management, but I was told it wasn't our team's responsibility. There are tons of dark corners to hide in at big companies.
- laidoffamazon 4y agoWhich companies do have good mid level engineers then, if you believe L5's at Amazon are stupid?
- LudwigNagasena 4y agoHe didn’t say that L5’s at Amazon are stupid. He said that there are lots of L5’s at Amazon who are bad engineers. It doesn’t even have to be a majority rather than a noticeable minority.
- laidoffamazon 4y agoEh, it's a big enough minority that it paints all of us (as someone that used to be an Amazon L5 who constantly received microaggressions from others for being "stupid" because I worked at Amazon) poorly.
- Firmwarrior 4y ago> I interviewed several Uber/Amazon engineers and they couldn't solve a simple problem (very easy problem that most bootcamp grads could do). I don't know you personally, and I don't want to start a flame war here, but if there's one thing FAANG senior engineers are good at, it's solving simple coding problems in interviews If you're saying they can't actually proactively get useful work done on their own, or quickly ship quality products, or talk to customers, I could understand. But basically the only thing that you can be 100% sure of is that almost everyone at those big companies passed some arbitrary coding tests
- 8note 4y agoIf you've moved up from L4 to L6 at a faang, chances are that you haven't spent a lot of time solving simple interviewing coding problems. You've likely spent time on the interviewer side, but the number of problems you're interacting with is small. At some point, a faang engineer was good at solving those, but that might not be their current state
- metadat 4y agoThis runs contrary to my firsthand experience. Have been disappointed by Amazon engineers who couldn't solve simple level-1 problems in an interview. I know there are smart people there. Somewhere. Else. One time the candidate had a bunch of video games out in plain view (Switch and Xbox, IIRC). Apparently couldn't be bothered to put them away for the remote interview. They proceeded to flail and scored a zero on every question. What are people thinking in these scenarios? -_-
- bitanarch 4y agoex-AAPL senior software engineer here. You generally only get good at interview problems when you're entering the door. After that, interview questions generally have nothing to do with your job. Also, as you move beyond entry level positions, political skills, communications skills and connections becomes more and more important. Unless you happen to be at some massive growth teams at the right times, it's basically impossible to move beyond ICT4 or L5 unless both you and your boss have very good grasp of politics.
- 4y ago
- _gabe_ 4y ago> I interviewed several Uber/Amazon engineers and they couldn't solve a simple problem (very easy problem that most bootcamp grads could do). That's probably why you're interviewing them. I doubt the ones who are good at their job are leaving as much as the ones who aren't. This is like reverse survivorship bias.
- muh_gradle 4y agoOk I'm going to bite. What is this simple problem that Amazon and Uber engineers can't solve?
- Sparkyte 4y agoI know where the real Amazon talent is at there. However I won't say. Most of the talent isn't great and just fills the void of too much work for one person to do so that the amazing talent can have a weekend.
- lhorie 4y agoNo offense but this comment reeks of bias. For one thing, if by your own analysis, these companies' interviewing processes aren't effective, there's logically a conclusion that yours also aren't, given that interview processes are fairly similar among big tech companies. I've even also heard of an interviewer trying to tell a director with a straight face that a high level IC candidate (L6/L7 IIRC) from a prestigious big tech couldn't solve a "simple" problem at one of those companies. Leetcode style questions aren't even necessarily good proxies for whether an engineer is actually effective at their job or not (and yes, a good number of FAANGers openly admit here and elsewhere that they needed to grind leetcode to pass interviews at these companies). Another thing is that Uber and Amazon are fairly competitive w/ other more prestigious FAANGs in terms of compensation. A decent staff eng at Uber isn't going to be very interested in grinding leetcode for a equivalent role at Google, the compensation delta is just not appealing[0] [0] https://www.levels.fyi/?compare=Uber,Google&track=Software%20Engineer https://www.levels.fyi/?compare=Uber,Google&track=Software%2...
- roncesvalles 4y agoI agree to an extent. When Amazon goes on a hiring spree, they really do open up the floodgates. I suppose they rely on their infamous PIP-and-fire process to weed out those who shouldn't have come through. "Hire first, evaluate later."
- nemo44x 4y agoWe all know the 80/20 rule. You’re looking for those 20%. You need to hire more and more people to find them.
- ZephyrBlu 4y ago4 YOE is probably SDE2 or SDE3, which is mid (L5) or senior (L6) in Amazon levels.
- Sparkyte 4y agoYou can get promoted by just showing up sometimes.
- omega3 4y agoWhat do you mean that they aren’t even good programmers?
- greatpostman 4y agoThey just solve a few leetcode problems. The company is constantly failing to launch good tech due to technical debt and lack of ability of the engineers
- wahnfrieden 4y agoAre they also engaged and interested in the work at Amazon?
- andirk 4y agoMy favorite interview question was "Do you know Leetcode?". I said yes and prepared my brain for the problem-solving portion of the interview. But no. That was the question with no follow-up. One of the two got sent back to the offshore team and even eventually to the offshore's offshore team, and the other guy got sent back but then somehow returned to the onshore offshore team.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- bdcravens 4y agoSince you are saying the programmers they hired aren't good, it sounds like you have personal knowledge of the situation (or a bone to pick)
- greatpostman 4y agoI have personal knowledge
- ip_addr 4y agoOn the internet everyone is worse than me because i am the best. {Insert south park wow guy meme here}.
- rideontime 4y agoWhat does "south park wow guy meme" mean?
- ge96 4y agoThink it's the overweight balding guy playing a video game.
- Sparkyte 4y agoI'm a good programmer and would gladly take 280k. 350 to 400k is just sweaty money at that point.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]