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We recently interviewed a candidate, with 7 years of experience at a FAANG company, fail a really basic coding interview and we don't even make you write code.

We recently interviewed a candidate, with 7 years of experience at a FAANG company, fail a really basic coding interview and we don't even make you write code. I have no idea what these people expect. We ask coding questions, we have basic programming skills as a requirement, what do they think will happen if they get the job? Do they expect to just magically learn the required skills or hope that nobody will notice that they're not able to close their tasks?

vntok 3y ago
> Do they expect to just magically learn the required skills or hope that nobody will notice that they're not able to close their tasks? It obviously worked for the candidate you mention, didn't it? Spent 7 years at FAANG, didn't know how to code.
- mrweasel 3y ago
  That is true, but how?
  - azornathogron 3y ago
    There are lots of roles at big companies that don't involve actually writing code. The bigger the company, the more communication and organizational overhead there is, and the more not-actually-coding work there is. Even within roles that have a "software engineering" title. Hell, I barely touch any code in my current company. The only reason I can still code is because I love it, started programming at about 11 years old, and still do it in my spare time. If it was "just a job" for me, then no doubt the skill would atrophy.
  - deleted 3y ago
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mtnGoat 3y ago
Do you think working at a FANG would make you a better developer? I’m sorry but I think that’s a bad expectation, hire from a startup if you want great developers, their span of control and influence is much wider. Most of us at FANG are pigeon holed into a very narrow topic, have to work with really annoying, slow and complex internal build systems. And write very little actual code. Also, unless you have global scale problems, a lot of the skills developed working at that level aren’t useful to smaller orgs and will just drive up costs. Dont look to FANGs for guidance is my advice.
- barfbagginus 3y ago
  15 years ago fang devs were some of the best. Now it feels like all of fang is crumbling under tech debt and enshittifying executives, like AOL did. You love to see it!
- mrweasel 3y ago
  > Do you think working at a FANG would make you a better developer? No, but I do expect any reasonably competently run company to figure out that the person they hired isn't actually able to do their job, especially after 7 years. I was also under the impression that this company actually did coding challenges as part of their interview process, yet this person managed to slip through their interview process. On the other hand our approach to just talk about programming in general terms seems to spot this type of candidate pretty quickly. One of our most used questions is to ask people to tell us about something they don't like in a language or tool (one the candidate is very familiar with or enjoy using). It's pretty hard to imaging even a senior Java who doesn't have some pet pew about the language.
  - nwiswell 3y ago
    > No, but I do expect any reasonably competently run company to figure out that the person they hired isn't actually able to do their job, especially after 7 years. Oh, they did. This person probably did not get paid as much as their peers. A great deal of compensation is discretionary. Whether any decision-maker actually stood to benefit from removing this person from their position is another matter, however. Firings seem very uncommon, and layoffs depend on business conditions.
jimbobthrowawy 3y ago
Some people genuinely freeze up or overthink to their detriment in an interview setting, despite being competent otherwise. Happened to me a couple of times back in university when I had to get an internship for one of the semesters.
- mikebrave 3y ago
  This, I freeze up when put on the spot, otherwise I can actually code, but it doesn't seem like it when doing coding interviews.
  - sangnoir 3y ago
    I interview best when I'm relaxed and it doesn't feel like there's a lot riding on the interview. What has worked for me is to interview early (when I feel "maybe I should leave my current job", rather than "I have to leave this awful job ASAP or I'll lose my mind"). Even then, I've had bad interviews - where it's like forgetting your own phone number or PIN; It's hard to recover from your brain short-circuiting early on, I suspect my interviewers may have thought I'm a fraud too, but such is life. Interviewing has plenty of randomness - on a few occasions, the stars were aligned and I solved sequences of very challenging technical questions much quicker than the interviewers had planned, which gave the impression that I'm some sort of genius. That performance was not representative of my usual capabilities, but I didn't tell them that (:
- rvba 2y ago
  Some people freeze up when they have to do their jobs...
verteu 3y ago
Out of curiosity, is it possible he lied on his resume about being a FAANG SWE?

vntok 3y ago

> Do they expect to just magically learn the required skills or hope that nobody will notice that they're not able to close their tasks? It obviously worked for the candidate you mention, didn't it? Spent 7 years at FAANG, didn't know how to code.

mrweasel 3y ago
That is true, but how?
- azornathogron 3y ago
  There are lots of roles at big companies that don't involve actually writing code. The bigger the company, the more communication and organizational overhead there is, and the more not-actually-coding work there is. Even within roles that have a "software engineering" title. Hell, I barely touch any code in my current company. The only reason I can still code is because I love it, started programming at about 11 years old, and still do it in my spare time. If it was "just a job" for me, then no doubt the skill would atrophy.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]

mtnGoat 3y ago

Do you think working at a FANG would make you a better developer? I’m sorry but I think that’s a bad expectation, hire from a startup if you want great developers, their span of control and influence is much wider. Most of us at FANG are pigeon holed into a very narrow topic, have to work with really annoying, slow and complex internal build systems. And write very little actual code. Also, unless you have global scale problems, a lot of the skills developed working at that level aren’t useful to smaller orgs and will just drive up costs. Dont look to FANGs for guidance is my advice.

barfbagginus 3y ago
15 years ago fang devs were some of the best. Now it feels like all of fang is crumbling under tech debt and enshittifying executives, like AOL did. You love to see it!
mrweasel 3y ago
> Do you think working at a FANG would make you a better developer? No, but I do expect any reasonably competently run company to figure out that the person they hired isn't actually able to do their job, especially after 7 years. I was also under the impression that this company actually did coding challenges as part of their interview process, yet this person managed to slip through their interview process. On the other hand our approach to just talk about programming in general terms seems to spot this type of candidate pretty quickly. One of our most used questions is to ask people to tell us about something they don't like in a language or tool (one the candidate is very familiar with or enjoy using). It's pretty hard to imaging even a senior Java who doesn't have some pet pew about the language.
- nwiswell 3y ago
  > No, but I do expect any reasonably competently run company to figure out that the person they hired isn't actually able to do their job, especially after 7 years. Oh, they did. This person probably did not get paid as much as their peers. A great deal of compensation is discretionary. Whether any decision-maker actually stood to benefit from removing this person from their position is another matter, however. Firings seem very uncommon, and layoffs depend on business conditions.

jimbobthrowawy 3y ago

Some people genuinely freeze up or overthink to their detriment in an interview setting, despite being competent otherwise. Happened to me a couple of times back in university when I had to get an internship for one of the semesters.

mikebrave 3y ago
This, I freeze up when put on the spot, otherwise I can actually code, but it doesn't seem like it when doing coding interviews.
- sangnoir 3y ago
  I interview best when I'm relaxed and it doesn't feel like there's a lot riding on the interview. What has worked for me is to interview early (when I feel "maybe I should leave my current job", rather than "I have to leave this awful job ASAP or I'll lose my mind"). Even then, I've had bad interviews - where it's like forgetting your own phone number or PIN; It's hard to recover from your brain short-circuiting early on, I suspect my interviewers may have thought I'm a fraud too, but such is life. Interviewing has plenty of randomness - on a few occasions, the stars were aligned and I solved sequences of very challenging technical questions much quicker than the interviewers had planned, which gave the impression that I'm some sort of genius. That performance was not representative of my usual capabilities, but I didn't tell them that (:
rvba 2y ago
Some people freeze up when they have to do their jobs...

verteu 3y ago

Out of curiosity, is it possible he lied on his resume about being a FAANG SWE?