3 ms·

If you want to see a weird process, apply for a dev role at Meta. They appear to optimize for people who have either memorized leetcode or are really good at ch

by sfblah 2y ago

If you want to see a weird process, apply for a dev role at Meta. They appear to optimize for people who have either memorized leetcode or are really good at cheating. I’m in their process as a pretty senior dev mostly on a lark (I hate the company). I’m pretty sure the only way I could get hired is to cheat. Why would they want to hire folks that way?

busterarm 2y ago
It's weirder than that. For Meta's interview, how well you do on preparing specifically for their interview and trying to max out the specific metrics that they're judging you on isn't just tied to whether you get an offer or not but where in the scale they pay you. They care a lot less about what you've done and where you are in your career, mainly because most of the what and how of the job is fairly unique to Meta. They want good Meta employees and people who thrive specifically in their culture and not necessarily people with a career trajectory and goals beyond the company. Turns out that there's a lot of over-achieving types out there whose sole desire in life is to be Good Germans. You will know immediately if this is or isn't you.
- geetee 2y ago
  Is it overachieving or seeing a shortcut to retirement?
  - busterarm 2y ago
    Every long-term Meta employee that I know has had their lifestyle grow to match their means and isn't any closer to their retirement than when they started. And in my circles we're talking people who've been there mostly in the 5-12 year range. In truth I really know just one retired FAANG engineer who put 12 years in at Microsoft until he was put on a team with a bad manager who had it out for him and stack ranked him out of the company. He's been happily working on side projects in the few years since that and sitting on his millions. It also doesn't hurt that his wife is also a Microsoft employee and is still there. Also I don't know if you've seen Meta offers in the last year or so since their layoffs but they've been absolutely lowballing the shit out of everyone they can justify doing so to.
dumbo-octopus 2y ago
You misunderstood. They (Google too) are precisely interested in selecting for folks who love drilling on mundane tasks so much that they’ll willingly devote hours upon hours to doing that very grinding you might detest. Because that’s approximately what the next N years of their life will look like…
LVB 2y ago
I recently bailed on their process. My reward for passing the leetcode gantlet would be a 50% chance that the offer would require uprooting my family and moving across the country. Ok, we’re done.
- busterarm 2y ago
  They really need to get their shit together. Even for a few years after the Instagram acquisition and having an established office in NY, they tended to be pretty wishy-washy even with new hires on whether they could work from NY or would be forced to relocate to the west coast and it would take going through their full orientation in CA before you found out. Now that they have a big office in Moynihan and SWE teams that do operations work they're a little more consistent about being able to work out of the location that you expect, but they still can't seem to always figure this out for sure _before_ you accept their offer.
- nickcox 2y ago
  Why didn't they tell you this at the start?

by sfblah 2y ago

busterarm 2y ago

It's weirder than that. For Meta's interview, how well you do on preparing specifically for their interview and trying to max out the specific metrics that they're judging you on isn't just tied to whether you get an offer or not but where in the scale they pay you. They care a lot less about what you've done and where you are in your career, mainly because most of the what and how of the job is fairly unique to Meta. They want good Meta employees and people who thrive specifically in their culture and not necessarily people with a career trajectory and goals beyond the company. Turns out that there's a lot of over-achieving types out there whose sole desire in life is to be Good Germans. You will know immediately if this is or isn't you.

geetee 2y ago
Is it overachieving or seeing a shortcut to retirement?
- busterarm 2y ago
  Every long-term Meta employee that I know has had their lifestyle grow to match their means and isn't any closer to their retirement than when they started. And in my circles we're talking people who've been there mostly in the 5-12 year range. In truth I really know just one retired FAANG engineer who put 12 years in at Microsoft until he was put on a team with a bad manager who had it out for him and stack ranked him out of the company. He's been happily working on side projects in the few years since that and sitting on his millions. It also doesn't hurt that his wife is also a Microsoft employee and is still there. Also I don't know if you've seen Meta offers in the last year or so since their layoffs but they've been absolutely lowballing the shit out of everyone they can justify doing so to.

dumbo-octopus 2y ago

You misunderstood. They (Google too) are precisely interested in selecting for folks who love drilling on mundane tasks so much that they’ll willingly devote hours upon hours to doing that very grinding you might detest. Because that’s approximately what the next N years of their life will look like…

LVB 2y ago

I recently bailed on their process. My reward for passing the leetcode gantlet would be a 50% chance that the offer would require uprooting my family and moving across the country. Ok, we’re done.

busterarm 2y ago
They really need to get their shit together. Even for a few years after the Instagram acquisition and having an established office in NY, they tended to be pretty wishy-washy even with new hires on whether they could work from NY or would be forced to relocate to the west coast and it would take going through their full orientation in CA before you found out. Now that they have a big office in Moynihan and SWE teams that do operations work they're a little more consistent about being able to work out of the location that you expect, but they still can't seem to always figure this out for sure _before_ you accept their offer.
nickcox 2y ago
Why didn't they tell you this at the start?