Got hit up by a FANG recruiter on LinkedIn. Almost went for it, but then I remembered I'd have to spend 3 months prepping for it, since it's been 5 years since I've manually reversed a linked list, back when we did that for funsies in college...

Plus how do you tell your manager you're quitting to "prep" for an interview...and moreover, how do you go back and sheepishly tell them you didn't make it...

Like, that one simple LinkedIn message caused me to re-evaluate my life and seriously consider leaving my comfy job to do something insane like try to work at <insert FANG company here>. And I wasn't going to quit until I had made it.

Solution:

Don't prep.

Wing it just to see how it goes.

It's annoying they ask link list reversal, but they will ask other stuff too, the stuff you are already good at. I assume they are not stupid and also have a hard time hiring. The recruiter probably delivered a slightly misleading message.

@N00bPancakes that sounds like a recipe for disaster

@valkn0t

Disaster of what exactly?

Not getting a job you're not going to try to get anyway?

@bettercallshao it wasn't really misleading; just your generic, "We are looking for engineers and you look like you fit our profile! Want to set up a chat?". And unfortunately I have a healthy dose of impostor syndrome so there's no way I'd not prep for it.

@N00bPancakes I don't think you understand lol-I've never failed an interview, so if I take an interview, it's because I want to work there and I believe I'm more than capable for the job. If I failed the first interview, I'd have to prep again and re-apply. I can't walk away with an L when it comes to this

Do leetcode on the weekends or free time. There’s tons of problems there asked by FANG types

If you can't do the interview as is, and it's not just a cattle call, you won't get it anyways. You're making the right call.

@d-fanelli I actually used to maintain a golang lib that solved some hackerrank problems as a way to exercise those skills, nowadays most of my evening/weekend coding is devoted to a SaaS I'm trying to code on the side with 2 buddies in manufacturing, so most of my experience has shifted more to system design and architecture than problem solving

@SortOfTested what’s a cattle call

@d-fanelli
There's two types of recruiter solicitations from FAANG companies.

The first is a direct consideration from a recruiter for a specific team. These are the actual show. You get solicited out of university, or out of senior positions at other companies.

The second is the cattle call. A recruiter contacts you to make you aware of the large scale test to hire recruitments that companies like facebook prefer. Many times it's just advertisement to get their interest numbers up; they don't tell you that's what it is, and you only find out when you show up and find out it's just an open to the public thing. It's literally a cafeteria full of desks and an exam.

The results are posted to teams and then you get an actual interview if they want you. No one aside from college kids who didn't get scouted are pulled in during these.

If they won't tell you the team or product, it's likely the second option.

@d-fanelli

@SortOfTested ok thanks. I never had anything like that from these fang companies. I have an online exam coming up from amazon and had a phone screen from Facebook late October. They denied me bc even though I solved both problems I wasn’t fast enough. Whatever that means (bullshit). They were both problems i never even saw before but what’s hilarious is that they were posted on leetcode! So prior experience helps sadly, a weaker programmer can do better than a stronger one if he’s given questions he knows. It’s bullshit!

Solve complex problems in front of a guy you never met with a time constraint while keeping your anxiety in check! Easy! Right?

@d-fanelli
Dunno, I'm former amazon and Google. All I share is what is. Did you ask what teams you were interviewing for?

@F1973
You guys are also asking DP and NP-Complete questions in your interviews?

@F1973

Amen.

Folks who never failed are either the one true ultra ubermensch (probably not) or are dishonest.

I agree, we learn more by failing. Get up, do it again and then succeed.

@F1973
Just FAANG stuff. Most leadership and managers at FAANG companies associated with product are also engineers. There wasn't a BA who didn't have at least a math minor.

It's why they're on top of things.

@N00bPancakes
OP said he'd never failed an interview It's entirely possible to have never failed at an interview going after average companies. I've never done a fortune 500 interview where I didn't get an offer.

@F1973
There's one or two who are also physicists.

Hey wait, what’s a failed interview? Is it a rejection not based on any show of skill? I’ve had plenty of those from “average” companies, so does failing interviews at average companies imply that I’m incompetent and dumb? Sorry but I feel a little agitated...I’m not into arguing but my self esteem can’t be any lower since I’m between jobs and not sure when I’ll get the next role with this pandemic going on! I’m at a low I never thought I’d reach!

Sorry for sounding like a dick, just frustrated with this industry and not knowing what it is it wants from me and what it is I don’t have. I’ve done very well in my previous roles and solved 200 plus leetcode medium and hard problems. Job eliminations due to covid affected my last role but here I am still searching. I’m 36 so is it my age? I’m 29 years to retirement, lean and physically active so physically I’m much younger. But of course that’s not what they know

I would not want to work for a FAANG company anyway.

I worked for Microsoft (uh... MANFAG? excuse my language) for a long summer, and it was pretty awful -- in terms of expectations, strict rules, toxic culture, etc.

My current company works closely together with Google on some fronts, and the leads & devs I talk to on their side of the fence don't make the grass seem greener either. Their salary is good, but they have an awful sense of what is "healthy" in terms of unpaid overtime for example -- so in effect they earn less than me when fairly calculated per hour.

There's a reason those companies are at the top.

They bait devs with sexy shots, but they are rather uncompromising in what they want from you -- drain every free hour out of your life.

Maybe it's a good move year or two if you're a brilliant graduate, just to kickstart your career.

Those companies are mostly horror stories in my opinion. Yes, the pay is probably awesome and you might work on awesome things, but after a few years you will figure out that you can do that on your own and keep your sanity and work for a normal good enough pay and be happy. I would rather be happy than be able to tell that I work in a FAANG company.

@F1973 I've never failed an interview; I've had plenty of failures, refactors, rejected PRs, missed deadlines, disappointed clients, unmet objectives along the way.

@SortOfTested this hurt, but you're right. Sticking with the comfy job and side projects for now

@F1973 I think you missed the part where I said "in my opinion" :)

If you are working in it and are happy then I am glad for you. I wouldn't be. I would rather build something on my own terms and be happy about it than be a "google developer". :)

@valkn0t it’s impressive that you can do architecture, that doesn’t sound comfy, that sounds hard 😁! I never did architecture so I can’t accurately judge how difficult it is. I can write a bangin big Oh solution to a medium to hard leetcode problem bc I’m good at logic problems but not sure if I can do architecture, that sounds scary

@SortOfTested

To be clear my comment about failure was really just riffing off F1973 in a general sense.

I have know knowledge about this person in particular / don't dispute his account of ... whatever it is he said.

@d-fanelli it's not all that impressive when you think about it; architecture/system design is taking business needs and figuring out how to solve them using some combination of applications, services, cloud resources, etc. You try to use tactics like domain driven design, and evaluate whether you're looking at building a CRUD type application or multi service, where your data is coming from, where it's going, where it needs to be stored, how the app/services are going to be built/deployed/monitored, etc.

@valkn0t thank you, very informative!

@d-fanelli the hardest part is actually dealing with the ramifications of some of your design choices early on; you spend a lot of time second guessing yourself

@N00bPancakes
Just reeling it back in because the comment while similar, was non-sequitur.