In the last 6 months I have interviewed at around 10 companies. In most of them I was able to solve the problem, explain my thought process and answer follow up questions. Despite this I’ve failed to clear most of them. Some of the feedback I have received 1. Skipped some edge case testing - my code would’ve worked I didn’t explicitly mention the test case 2. There were multiple parts but we couldn’t complete all the parts. How’s the candidate supposed to know this - how can one expect a candidate will discuss only what the interviewer thinks is enough and then move to next part without knowing there are more parts to the question? 3. In a multipart question I didn’t reuse solution From previous part but used a new method - okay reusability is good but when I have a better method with the new set of constraints I would want to suggest that. Is this a criteria to reject someone? I just want to know if I am doing something wrong or interviews are getting tougher to crack. These interview feedback are for Senior Software Engineer level for companies like Snap / Palantir / Datadog / Reddit / Square / The Trade Desk
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Yeah I don’t know if it’s changed but I’ve seen the same thing. Places are taking a passive approach and expect you to be proactive in those things and basically a mind reader.
You are right man. When there are so many qualified candidates they are looking for petty feedback to reject. Also, I am seeing all that talk "they don't want a solution but want to see how you approach the problem" is stupid. They need the most optimal solution in 20mins. I feel I am back in India preparing for the dreaded IIT JEE.
At least in IIT you know what you did wrong, here it’s putting a dent in my confidence without giving proper reasons. Cracking interviews is more about luck now I think.
always has been 🌎🧑🚀🔫👨🏽🚀
Yes market has got opportunity to evaluate large number of candidate from the desk itself. Earlier when virtual round were not there then number of evaluation were less, (for obvious reason as it would consume a lot resource on the company side) so whenever company thought someone will be good fit then they used to release offer. Nowadays things has changed. As company just need a zoom link to evaluate guys they conduct several evaluation. Even they get best fit they search for best of best. In India there is saying that making marriage on tinder and matrimony is hardest part. (if you correlate it correctly :)) :) All the best!!! .
I thought this was a seller's market. As an sa, i find that people are crawling all over each other trying to recruit me. Must be different for devs
@Trace3 getting recruiter spam and clearing an on site are very different things!
It will only get worse. It seems like almost everyone is majoring in CS now lol
Makes me happy that I made my million and will peace out to another field soon Always look a few steps ahead of the pack
You are just born earlier in the pack lol
Not harder, I’ve passed 7/7 onsites in last 2 months.
Congratulations, which level?
L4 target with some upleveled to L5/senior
Basic problem with interviews is interviewers look to hire their kind of candidates - expecting they know exactly what they know, think exactly like them, etc which may not happen. Coming to LC problems - it makes sense if most of the people solve without any prep. If they need to prep then it is not needed for daily SE life. So things are broken with interviewing
Exactly this ^ “Interviewing is a numbers game”. It’s always been hard. You just keep going until your number gets called. Quitters don’t get there number called. If not, then your setup your own company. Everything I am learning as an entry level Software Engineer and Site Reliability Engineer is so I can start my own company in 1-2 years as a side project. Even now I am reading the DDIA System Design book and etc. to make sure I am prepared for the future.
I’m definitely a tougher interviewer than most but my view on it is two fold. First is that I believe there’s a lot of people currently with inflated title / levels. People get promoted now simply for delivering some service product, regardless of how well it was done or how well it runs while in service. Often times they build it and move on to the next thing without actually being the one who maintains it. This results in people with only like 4 YOE being senior and not actually understanding how to run a service, only how to write code. I don’t rate candidates on this explicitly but I expect that candidates at my level or above should be able to teach me something. Second is that it seems most companies now have a (usually small) bank of questions they ask. Those questions show a whole bunch of different aspects to cover and expect for an answer. This ends up just inserting bias into the interview as now many people have been able to give different solutions to the problem and highlight all the edge cases. It’s much better IMO if the interviewer doesn’t go into the interview knowing every edge case and possible way to solve the problem. It gives the candidate the ability to actually teach the interviewer something.
Doesn’t Coinbase also have a small bank of questions they ask?
Yes. Not saying CB does it any better.
I think it’s normal to fail most interviews: if you don’t, it could mean you didn’t place your own bar high enough. I think you want be somewhere where you’ll be reasonably challenged, meaning the interview process should be challenging too. Also, you might also be interviewing at a higher level than when you interviewed for your last role? If that’s the case the interviewers will expect you to lead more compared to last time around.
Care to share why you’re moving on from Uber? (Your CEO recently called the company “recession proof”…!)
Personal reason. I like my team and manager. Work is okay, nothing exciting to be honest but not bad either. Only con I see is PMs drive what engineers spend time on, so it’s always feature delivery over building extensible services or engineering excellence items.
Good to know. Thanks.
The market is getting harder due to economic circumstances
I understand this and is relevant for last few weeks but some of these interviews were back in January. I don’t think this was the case in January. Also why keep positions open if you don’t intend to fill it? These companies are wasting so much time interviewing candidates for rejecting them for something trivial.
When people interview candidates, life is always miserable for candidates. They forget that it is the same difficulty they have to go through, if they want to make a switch.