After working for 15 years at FAANG, startups and no-name companies, I have conducted more than a 100 interviews for all levels, mostly in engineering.
In my experience with technical interviews specifically, there are 4 types of candidates:
- the memorizer
- the mathematical brain
- the project builder
- the coding enthusiast that knows a language well but can’t do algorithms
Most of the time, I have encountered candidates in buckets 3 and 4. Many showed debugging skills, communication skills, but lacked the right answer to trapping rainwater.
I was told to reject candidates who couldn’t pass these problems mainly on the grounds of solved or not solved, even if they clearly communicated.
The only reason I got into FAANG companies myself is because I was the good memorizer. I couldn’t solve most of these problems today without months of prep.
At the end, I left my FAANG job recently because I realized it’s going to be the same or worse at any other company, because internally it’s all the same B.S. once you make it in. Sure, you’ll get a fat salary, but it’s a slow grind.
Instead, I chose to build things.
Is the interview process today bad? I think so.
What can candidates do about it? Take it in their own hands and play the game or get played.
What is the alternative? Depends. There are many companies that don’t do crazy algorithm interviews and pay really well. In my opinion, if you are hiring hundreds of engineers per year, take-home assessments and reviewing them is literally a job on its own. Making candidates build apps from scratch and deploy it, test it, present it? Maybe, but certainly opinionated, not binary.
New grads don’t have experience, but experienced engineers do. You shouldn’t need to ask people with 10 years of experience about trapping rainwater from LC. There are so many other things to ask, discuss, and gauge experience, scope and depth.
After working for 15 years at FAANG, startups and no-name companies, I have conducted more than a 100 interviews for all levels, mostly in engineering.
In my experience with technical interviews specifically, there are 4 types of candidates:
- the memorizer - the mathematical brain - the project builder - the coding enthusiast that knows a language well but can’t do algorithms
Most of the time, I have encountered candidates in buckets 3 and 4. Many showed debugging skills, communication skills, but lacked the right answer to trapping rainwater.
I was told to reject candidates who couldn’t pass these problems mainly on the grounds of solved or not solved, even if they clearly communicated.
The only reason I got into FAANG companies myself is because I was the good memorizer. I couldn’t solve most of these problems today without months of prep.
At the end, I left my FAANG job recently because I realized it’s going to be the same or worse at any other company, because internally it’s all the same B.S. once you make it in. Sure, you’ll get a fat salary, but it’s a slow grind.
Instead, I chose to build things.
Is the interview process today bad? I think so.
What can candidates do about it? Take it in their own hands and play the game or get played.
What is the alternative? Depends. There are many companies that don’t do crazy algorithm interviews and pay really well. In my opinion, if you are hiring hundreds of engineers per year, take-home assessments and reviewing them is literally a job on its own. Making candidates build apps from scratch and deploy it, test it, present it? Maybe, but certainly opinionated, not binary.
New grads don’t have experience, but experienced engineers do. You shouldn’t need to ask people with 10 years of experience about trapping rainwater from LC. There are so many other things to ask, discuss, and gauge experience, scope and depth.