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People need to know the truth that these "genius" engineers at Meta/FAANG are mostly getting in by memorizing. They try interviewing at five top companies. One

People need to know the truth that these "genius" engineers at Meta/FAANG are mostly getting in by memorizing. They try interviewing at five top companies. One of those interviews they will absolutely crush, and then will get an offer at 400k+.

paulddraper 3y ago
When you say "memorize" what do you mean? You mean that they remember common patterns to solve problems? Or they memorize questions verbatim?
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- ldjkfkdsjnv 3y ago
  People are going on leetcode.com, they find the company they are interviewing for, they remove all questions more than a year or two old, then they sort by frequency. They start memorizing the most frequent questions first. Then they pass the interview. There are other forums with question banks, but I wont get into that
- michaelt 3y ago
  For example, if asked "how would you detect a cycle in a linked list?" you might memorise "Tortoise and hare algorithm, two pointers one slow and one fast, fast overtaking slow indicates the presence of a cycle" A person with a deep passion for algorithms might be tempted to try to solve it themselves before checking the answer - which can be a time consuming business. Time your competitors have used to memorised the answers to 25 more questions. ldjkfkdsjnv has exaggerated a bit, to be provocative - but I've certainly had interviewers ask me questions that stumped the greatest minds in computer science for 25+ years; I don't know what they were expecting if not memorisation.
  - paulddraper 3y ago
    That's a funny example, because once in an interview I had exactly that question and the week before I saw tortoise and hair. But that wasn't FAANG that's pretty exceptional.... Most stuff is DFS, memorization, etc... Things that are good principles and don't have "this one weird trick"
- stale2002 3y ago
  Memorizing questions verbatim means that you will often get questions that require only a single line change in your solution. Furthermore, if you have a memorized solution, you can spit that out in 5 minutes, and then spend the next 30 minutes trying to figure out the slight change that you need to do to make it work for the minor change that was made. Speed matters. And having stuff memorized makes everything else easier.
  - nsxwolf 3y ago
    Speed matters. So what if you just can't be fast? What if you have dyslexia? Then what are you supposed to do?
    - stale2002 3y ago
      > So what if you just can't be fast? Then I guess you won't be very good at interviewing. > Then what are you supposed to do? Get better or give up. Your choice.
      - nsxwolf 3y ago
        Oh cool. So the ADA doesn't apply to this industry huh.
        stale2002 3y ago
        It actually does apply. You'd have to request reasonable accommodations if you have a provable and medically documented disorder. But also it would depend. A company is allowed to not hire someone if the person is not able to do the work. A company is only required to give reasonable accommodations.
VirusNewbie 3y ago
Lol wtf are you talking about. There is no way you can memorize 2000 Leetcode questions. When I interviewed at a google and netflix, not one of the coding questions were on any site (leetcode or hackerrank). After the interviews I wanted to look at the solutions afterwords so I searched for them, couldn't find anything. It was only microsoft that would ask the common canned questions.
- ldjkfkdsjnv 3y ago
  People are going on leetcode.com, they find the company they are interviewing for, they remove all questions more than a year or two old, then they sort by frequency. They start memorizing the most frequent questions first. Then they pass the interview. There are other forums with question banks (airbnb's whole question bank is leaked), but I wont get into that
  - VirusNewbie 3y ago
    But i passed both of those interviews without having seen a single question before.
    - ldjkfkdsjnv 3y ago
      Congratulations, doesnt change the approach for people that are struggling to pass
  - otteromkram 3y ago
    Can we not advertise that cesspool of a company? They are a pile of trash who are more than happy to place travelers in dangerous scenarios, while moving refund goalposts down the infinitely+long field. Any mention of the company is advertising, whether you want to believe it or not.
    - satvikpendem 3y ago
      What's the context of this? Placing travelers in dangerous scenarios?
Der_Einzige 3y ago
They mostly get in by cheating. A lot of people, even before ChatGPT cheated in college, cheated on their FAANg interview, and then still get promoted later since none of that shit matters and their promotion criteria is on if the button is moved 3CM correctly or not in some app that will be killed in 5 months anyway

paulddraper 3y ago

When you say "memorize" what do you mean? You mean that they remember common patterns to solve problems? Or they memorize questions verbatim?

deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
ldjkfkdsjnv 3y ago
People are going on leetcode.com, they find the company they are interviewing for, they remove all questions more than a year or two old, then they sort by frequency. They start memorizing the most frequent questions first. Then they pass the interview. There are other forums with question banks, but I wont get into that
michaelt 3y ago
For example, if asked "how would you detect a cycle in a linked list?" you might memorise "Tortoise and hare algorithm, two pointers one slow and one fast, fast overtaking slow indicates the presence of a cycle" A person with a deep passion for algorithms might be tempted to try to solve it themselves before checking the answer - which can be a time consuming business. Time your competitors have used to memorised the answers to 25 more questions. ldjkfkdsjnv has exaggerated a bit, to be provocative - but I've certainly had interviewers ask me questions that stumped the greatest minds in computer science for 25+ years; I don't know what they were expecting if not memorisation.
- paulddraper 3y ago
  That's a funny example, because once in an interview I had exactly that question and the week before I saw tortoise and hair. But that wasn't FAANG that's pretty exceptional.... Most stuff is DFS, memorization, etc... Things that are good principles and don't have "this one weird trick"
stale2002 3y ago
Memorizing questions verbatim means that you will often get questions that require only a single line change in your solution. Furthermore, if you have a memorized solution, you can spit that out in 5 minutes, and then spend the next 30 minutes trying to figure out the slight change that you need to do to make it work for the minor change that was made. Speed matters. And having stuff memorized makes everything else easier.
- nsxwolf 3y ago
  Speed matters. So what if you just can't be fast? What if you have dyslexia? Then what are you supposed to do?
  - stale2002 3y ago
    > So what if you just can't be fast? Then I guess you won't be very good at interviewing. > Then what are you supposed to do? Get better or give up. Your choice.
    - nsxwolf 3y ago
      Oh cool. So the ADA doesn't apply to this industry huh.
      - stale2002 3y ago
        It actually does apply. You'd have to request reasonable accommodations if you have a provable and medically documented disorder. But also it would depend. A company is allowed to not hire someone if the person is not able to do the work. A company is only required to give reasonable accommodations.

VirusNewbie 3y ago

Lol wtf are you talking about. There is no way you can memorize 2000 Leetcode questions. When I interviewed at a google and netflix, not one of the coding questions were on any site (leetcode or hackerrank). After the interviews I wanted to look at the solutions afterwords so I searched for them, couldn't find anything. It was only microsoft that would ask the common canned questions.

ldjkfkdsjnv 3y ago
People are going on leetcode.com, they find the company they are interviewing for, they remove all questions more than a year or two old, then they sort by frequency. They start memorizing the most frequent questions first. Then they pass the interview. There are other forums with question banks (airbnb's whole question bank is leaked), but I wont get into that
- VirusNewbie 3y ago
  But i passed both of those interviews without having seen a single question before.
  - ldjkfkdsjnv 3y ago
    Congratulations, doesnt change the approach for people that are struggling to pass
- otteromkram 3y ago
  Can we not advertise that cesspool of a company? They are a pile of trash who are more than happy to place travelers in dangerous scenarios, while moving refund goalposts down the infinitely+long field. Any mention of the company is advertising, whether you want to believe it or not.
  - satvikpendem 3y ago
    What's the context of this? Placing travelers in dangerous scenarios?

Der_Einzige 3y ago

They mostly get in by cheating. A lot of people, even before ChatGPT cheated in college, cheated on their FAANg interview, and then still get promoted later since none of that shit matters and their promotion criteria is on if the button is moved 3CM correctly or not in some app that will be killed in 5 months anyway