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That explains why Waze works so much better than facebook or google products. Because people were hired based on actual competence not high school level "leetco

That explains why Waze works so much better than facebook or google products. Because people were hired based on actual competence not high school level "leetcode" questions that serve no purpose.

willvarfar 3y ago
Do we know those 40yos didn't go through a programming puzzle hiring gauntlet? (My own experience is that those I've worked with who are the best veterans also enjoy algorithms etc too. As do I. Shrug?)
- Consultant32452 3y ago
  In the last several years I've done work for some three letter agencies and fortune 500s. None of them required a technical interview really, only about half required a social fit interview. I'm starting to think my experience is really unusual. Edit: I just remembered I did a piece of work for a power company. The technical lead talked to me before hand and told me the one technical question he was going to ask me during the otherwise social fit interview.
  - duxup 3y ago
    I think there is a lot of the tech world that isn’t quite the stereotype / big tech type world we think of… it just doesn’t get much attention.
    - pc86 3y ago
      FAANG / BigTech is the exception in almost all areas. Scale, pay, interview, just about everything. Some for the better - anyone reading HN can pass just about any non-BigTech (or companies trying to pretend they're BigTech) technical interview without a ton of studying beforehand, especially once they have breadth of experience. And some for the worse - BigTech pay is also the exception, the median programmer salary in the US is something like $110k. 99% of companies give you zero equity, and in my anecdotal experience only 10-20% of companies give any sort of bonus with any sort of regularity.
      - deleted 3y ago
        [deleted]
      - duxup 3y ago
        Work life balance too. I hear folks talking about insane hours and feeling pressure to work them. I uh… work when I want… and that’s not uncommon from other folks I talk to. I think big tech and squeezing out every last dollar in compensation gets folks into a bit of a skewed world where their employer wants to do the same and they don’t always know it.
        deleted 3y ago
        [deleted]
  - dawnerd 3y ago
    I’ve never been subject to those crazy programming questions either and I’ve done work for some big companies including Discovery Channel. They were all mainly culture fit. Granted it’s been a long time since I’ve interviewed anywhere. I do however interview people and make a point to not try gotcha questions or leetcode. It’s a how would you do this. Make it clear as long as there’s a solution there’s no wrong answer. I just want to know how they think and approach problems. And not made up hypothetical will never happen questions. Day to day what they’d be doing kinda things. 90% of our interviews is conversation.
  - gumballindie 3y ago
    The only time I was asked such "leetcode" interview questions was for a contract at a company that coincidentally went under a few months later. Asked something about css colours in HEX and doing some magic stuff with them. When I asked what is the relevance to the task at hand they told me this was a question a friend of theirs was given at a google interview. Hilarious.
  - alexjplant 3y ago
    I've done more than a few software/"DevOps" engineering interviews at DoD contractors and the only three practical technical questions that I was asked across _all_ of them were 1) what is a CSS selector, 2) how would you join an array of strings into a comma-separated list in C#, and 3) what Linux command one would use to determine disk usage... not exactly LC medium-level problems. These types of places don't seem to be big on even attempting to rigorously test for technical acumen - as long as you had a pulse and sounded like you knew what you were talking about they were happy to extend an offer.
- AlwaysRock 3y ago
  Waze almost certainly hired/s using the same algo based interviews as every other FANG+/FANG adjacent company.
sebzim4500 3y ago
In my experience both Meta and Google's products work great from an engineering perspective. Low downtime, reasonably performant (with an adblock), etc. It's just that they are designed to maximize ad revenue rather than to provide a good service for the user.
- esotericimpl 3y ago
  [dead]
- underdeserver 3y ago
  Facebook works great from an engineering perspective? We have entirely different experiences then. I can't even count the number of times a photo didn't load, a timeline didn't refresh, a like didn't register (or worse, got clicked on accidentally and then didn't unregister). Google's products have their bugs but the main flows work. That's not the case with Facebook.
  - scrollaway 3y ago
    Facebook moved name updates to their account center and there are still incredibly basic bugs. My girlfriend can’t update her name because: You can't change your name right now because you've changed it in the last 60 days. You can still change the order. Your last name change was on December 31, 1969.
  - curiousllama 3y ago
    Just compare Facebook to WhatsApp. WhatsApp is crazy good, and doesn’t make money. Facebook is… what you describe, but very very profitable. I think you can see the difference in priority in the product.
    - KptMarchewa 3y ago
      WhatsApp made hundreds of billions for facebook by preventing rise of major competitor.
    - enraged_camel 3y ago
jasmer 3y ago
[dead]
xhkkffbf 3y ago
And just today I learned that the CEO of the failed sub exploring the Titanic said that he didn't want to hire 50 year old white guys. What a tool. He said they weren't "inspirational."

That explains why Waze works so much better than facebook or google products. Because people were hired based on actual competence not high school level "leetcode" questions that serve no purpose.

willvarfar 3y ago

Do we know those 40yos didn't go through a programming puzzle hiring gauntlet? (My own experience is that those I've worked with who are the best veterans also enjoy algorithms etc too. As do I. Shrug?)

Consultant32452 3y ago
In the last several years I've done work for some three letter agencies and fortune 500s. None of them required a technical interview really, only about half required a social fit interview. I'm starting to think my experience is really unusual. Edit: I just remembered I did a piece of work for a power company. The technical lead talked to me before hand and told me the one technical question he was going to ask me during the otherwise social fit interview.
- duxup 3y ago
  I think there is a lot of the tech world that isn’t quite the stereotype / big tech type world we think of… it just doesn’t get much attention.
  - pc86 3y ago
    FAANG / BigTech is the exception in almost all areas. Scale, pay, interview, just about everything. Some for the better - anyone reading HN can pass just about any non-BigTech (or companies trying to pretend they're BigTech) technical interview without a ton of studying beforehand, especially once they have breadth of experience. And some for the worse - BigTech pay is also the exception, the median programmer salary in the US is something like $110k. 99% of companies give you zero equity, and in my anecdotal experience only 10-20% of companies give any sort of bonus with any sort of regularity.
    - deleted 3y ago
      [deleted]
    - duxup 3y ago
      Work life balance too. I hear folks talking about insane hours and feeling pressure to work them. I uh… work when I want… and that’s not uncommon from other folks I talk to. I think big tech and squeezing out every last dollar in compensation gets folks into a bit of a skewed world where their employer wants to do the same and they don’t always know it.
      - deleted 3y ago
        [deleted]
- dawnerd 3y ago
  I’ve never been subject to those crazy programming questions either and I’ve done work for some big companies including Discovery Channel. They were all mainly culture fit. Granted it’s been a long time since I’ve interviewed anywhere. I do however interview people and make a point to not try gotcha questions or leetcode. It’s a how would you do this. Make it clear as long as there’s a solution there’s no wrong answer. I just want to know how they think and approach problems. And not made up hypothetical will never happen questions. Day to day what they’d be doing kinda things. 90% of our interviews is conversation.
- gumballindie 3y ago
  The only time I was asked such "leetcode" interview questions was for a contract at a company that coincidentally went under a few months later. Asked something about css colours in HEX and doing some magic stuff with them. When I asked what is the relevance to the task at hand they told me this was a question a friend of theirs was given at a google interview. Hilarious.
- alexjplant 3y ago
  I've done more than a few software/"DevOps" engineering interviews at DoD contractors and the only three practical technical questions that I was asked across _all_ of them were 1) what is a CSS selector, 2) how would you join an array of strings into a comma-separated list in C#, and 3) what Linux command one would use to determine disk usage... not exactly LC medium-level problems. These types of places don't seem to be big on even attempting to rigorously test for technical acumen - as long as you had a pulse and sounded like you knew what you were talking about they were happy to extend an offer.
AlwaysRock 3y ago
Waze almost certainly hired/s using the same algo based interviews as every other FANG+/FANG adjacent company.

sebzim4500 3y ago

In my experience both Meta and Google's products work great from an engineering perspective. Low downtime, reasonably performant (with an adblock), etc. It's just that they are designed to maximize ad revenue rather than to provide a good service for the user.

esotericimpl 3y ago
[dead]
underdeserver 3y ago
Facebook works great from an engineering perspective? We have entirely different experiences then. I can't even count the number of times a photo didn't load, a timeline didn't refresh, a like didn't register (or worse, got clicked on accidentally and then didn't unregister). Google's products have their bugs but the main flows work. That's not the case with Facebook.
- scrollaway 3y ago
  Facebook moved name updates to their account center and there are still incredibly basic bugs. My girlfriend can’t update her name because: You can't change your name right now because you've changed it in the last 60 days. You can still change the order. Your last name change was on December 31, 1969.
- curiousllama 3y ago
  Just compare Facebook to WhatsApp. WhatsApp is crazy good, and doesn’t make money. Facebook is… what you describe, but very very profitable. I think you can see the difference in priority in the product.
  - KptMarchewa 3y ago
    WhatsApp made hundreds of billions for facebook by preventing rise of major competitor.
  - enraged_camel 3y ago

jasmer 3y ago

[dead]

xhkkffbf 3y ago

And just today I learned that the CEO of the failed sub exploring the Titanic said that he didn't want to hire 50 year old white guys. What a tool. He said they weren't "inspirational."