How well do you need to do on a FAANG interview to get hired?
Had two on-sites: Google and Amazon. Have another at Apple coming up. Very impressed with my performance so far, but I suspect I won't get an offer from either... From what I gather on here, it seems that not only do you need to solve every question, but you have to solve them with the most optimal time and space complexity possible. Is that seriously true? I mean, it's not unreasonably hard coming up with something better than brute force, but some optimal solutions are pretty tricky.
Solve 2 questions with most optimal space and time complexity per 45 min interview.
Not true for 🍏
How does it work at Apple?
My solutions were generally good, but not all perfect by any means and I passed through. I think the rapport you develop with your interviewers is probably an underrated aspect.
I made them all laugh, so I'm keeping my fingers crossed.
I legitimately told my interview "I have no idea" and then explained why the question was really hard. So solving them isn't technically necessary?
Are there really that many people that can consistently come up with that many solutions? You'd have to have a optimal rate of 94% on these types of questions to even have a 50% chance of getting hired. That is to say, if out of 100 of such questions, you could solve 94 of them, completely optimally, in less than 20 minutes. And even if you could do that, statistically, you still only have a 53% chance of getting hired. Is the supply of people that can do this /that/ high? I know hundreds of engineers and I'm pretty sure none of them can do this. I dunno. On the flip side, statically, you can be not that good and get lucky, I suppose.
Because there are not infinite candidates as in your hypothetical
You just have to be better than the other 20 people that interview.
agree, if you didn't get the offer, and "the company" still hired enough people. That just meant you aren't "good" enough according to "their standard" By no means do I mean the current evaluation standard, i.e. leetcode style, is good. It's just how the system works.
Solved all the questions with optimal algorithm, including the system design one (surprisingly enough). There was only one bug in one of the interview where interviewer actually got stuck to point me the bug. I actually wrote the code home and figured the bug in less than a minute. Recruiter came up with the feedback that my results are mixed lol Now he is trying to get a team match before the HC. Sort of exhausting to me. May be its easier to get into Google when you are young.
It's all calibrated and comparative to how all candidates perform on the given question... I feel like Blind focuses way too much on "reach optimal solution asap." I recently did 4 onsites at tier1/2 companies (including G). I made numerous mistakes at every onsite (including completely botching a round at G and Amazon) but was communicative and tried to show my thought process. Landed all four offers. No I am not a minority/female. Focus less on optimality/end solution, but focus more on the actual solving process, at least that's what I think.
It's looking like I'm going to get an offer from Google and Amazon also, and I DEFINITELY could've done much better on every question. So, yeah, I think Blind is really over emphasizing the need to get everything perfect. As a hiring manager, I am personally much more interested in your ability to come up with multiple solutions and weigh the pros and cons of each and clearly communicate them, rather than your ability to regurgitate leetcode.
Congratulations! You got HC approval? Or matching team before that?
@JOANY So how'd it turn out?
Not that much, just be yourself