3 ms·

All jobs I applied for that I interviewed for looked at my GitHub specifically, and my past projects, and that was their main topic of discussion in the intervi

All jobs I applied for that I interviewed for looked at my GitHub specifically, and my past projects, and that was their main topic of discussion in the interview, apart from usual coding questions and such. Im not victim blaming by saying you may just be applying to the wrong places, am I

majormajor 3y ago
I would love to talk about my github projects with an interviewer - hell, I'd also love to talk more about my past systems than their hypothetical ones - but like the parent post, I've found it pretty rare. Past projects maybe 15% of the time at medium-to-large companies (500+ person), and so far am batting 0.000 for "asked about personal projects", including at FAANG interviews.
- liuliu 3y ago
  The logic is twisted and strange, the justification sums up to this: talking past projects like talking to a PhD student about his research paper, it is all they does and doesn't put them in enough "foreign situation" to see their novel problem-solving abilities. OTOH, when you are hiring for leaders (directors and above), past experiences and behavior questions are all you talking about.
  - majormajor 3y ago
    That makes a certain about of sense but I think you can usually get a feel for project-by-project dissimilarities in someone's background and figure out if they've been doing the "1 year of experience for 10 years" or the "continually tackling new challenges and learning from them" path.
PheonixPharts 3y ago
Unfortunately this also means you have to be open to a potential 50% cut in TC as well. Personally, I find enjoying the 8+ hours I spend at work each day more important than raw TC, so have made the tradeoff (and still have a reasonably high TC) which works for me. That said, I would love a more laid back research programming job in academia, but that requires an additional 50% cut from where I am now. It's still understandably frustrating that knowing how to write software seems largely irrelevant to getting a job at a FAANG.

majormajor 3y ago

I would love to talk about my github projects with an interviewer - hell, I'd also love to talk more about my past systems than their hypothetical ones - but like the parent post, I've found it pretty rare. Past projects maybe 15% of the time at medium-to-large companies (500+ person), and so far am batting 0.000 for "asked about personal projects", including at FAANG interviews.

liuliu 3y ago
The logic is twisted and strange, the justification sums up to this: talking past projects like talking to a PhD student about his research paper, it is all they does and doesn't put them in enough "foreign situation" to see their novel problem-solving abilities. OTOH, when you are hiring for leaders (directors and above), past experiences and behavior questions are all you talking about.
- majormajor 3y ago
  That makes a certain about of sense but I think you can usually get a feel for project-by-project dissimilarities in someone's background and figure out if they've been doing the "1 year of experience for 10 years" or the "continually tackling new challenges and learning from them" path.

PheonixPharts 3y ago

Unfortunately this also means you have to be open to a potential 50% cut in TC as well. Personally, I find enjoying the 8+ hours I spend at work each day more important than raw TC, so have made the tradeoff (and still have a reasonably high TC) which works for me. That said, I would love a more laid back research programming job in academia, but that requires an additional 50% cut from where I am now. It's still understandably frustrating that knowing how to write software seems largely irrelevant to getting a job at a FAANG.