[HN Gopher] Tech Interview Handbook
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Tech Interview Handbook
Author : oumua_don17
Score : 114 points
Date : 2021-08-23 19:35 UTC (3 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (techinterviewhandbook.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (techinterviewhandbook.org)
| mnd999 wrote:
| Honestly, I despair.
| sto_hristo wrote:
| These interviews are becoming their own profession.
| smnscu wrote:
| I've been an interviewer with Karat for 2.5yrs, it's genuinely
| great. https://karat.com/
|
| I know you made the statement in jest, but trying to improve on
| the interview process is not a bad idea. At the very least,
| it's less engineering time wasted conducting interviews.
| mLuby wrote:
| The last time I interviewed, I did it full-time for about a
| month. Was kind of fun actually: you're solving isolated little
| coding problems, talking with companies about their engineering
| and business challenges, meeting smart and friendly people, and
| at the end of it all you get a big pay raise. The downside is
| mostly that it's a ton of scheduling calls and on-sites (back
| when those were in person).
|
| At the end of that month, it really did feel like I was a
| professional interviewer.
| MattGaiser wrote:
| Well yes.
|
| To get a software engineering job, step 1 is to quit your
| software engineering job to study full time to get a job
| doing something very similar.
|
| Doing your job as a software engineer is an impediment to
| interviewing as one.
| someelephant wrote:
| Except for all those stories of people who have been
| interviewing for months but can't seem to land anything.
| Much better to realize you have developed some behavioral
| problems and seek treatment for them while you are employed
| rather than after you leave your job.
| drdeadringer wrote:
| I disagree about having an Objective Statement. I replaced mine
| with a Summary long ago.
|
| Also, talking about your interests should happen during an
| interview or even a phone screen. You don't list "Film Noir" when
| applying to a flowers shop.
| ghaff wrote:
| The typical "Looking for a challenging position juggling
| chainsaws in a hard-driving..." OK I exaggerate but I never
| liked anything along those lines. I was usually pretty fluid
| about what I was looking for and mostly stuck it in a cover
| letter or was having a conversation with someone I knew anyway.
| ecshafer wrote:
| I disagree with this resume advice actually. He for example
| removes that he was in the military sniper team and won best
| shot, but keeps high school education? I would totally say the
| opposite, keep the cool the side thing that's a conversation
| starter, but remove irrelevant educational experience.
|
| Including the number of stars on the github projects they worked
| on seems so.... narcissistic? Promotional? Idk but its
| distasteful and I would probably throw out the resume at that.
|
| I really think all of the resume changes, other than the incoming
| intern at bytedance were extremely bad changes. It went from
| someone who is smart, with a breadth of experiences, to someone
| that is obsessed with social media likes.
| keithnz wrote:
| I don't mind the stars, I wouldn't discount the resume based on
| that, but the changes themselves seemed useless. Having looked
| at many resumes of candidates, I scanned both with my "looking
| to hire" hat on and quickly determined, 1) is a grad and seems
| smart 2) is involved with open source projects and seems to
| enjoy creating software, on that basis I'd bring them in for an
| interview
| zerkten wrote:
| I would modify the cool side thing (being a sniper), if it
| highlights leadership skills, collaboration, and determination.
| There are many opportunities to develop these and many more in
| military and other roles before you get a first real job.
|
| Depending on whether you took advantage of the opportunity and
| who you are interviewing with, it can be a strong
| differentiator and set you onto a quicker path to promotion.
|
| The stars part is flawed because it's set against the 19
| commits which don't really quantify anything. Both these miss
| after some good build up around the adoption of the Docusaurus.
| It'd be better to have a description of the impact of the 19
| commits.
| mettamage wrote:
| Let me give a cautionary tale in the form of an ad (my email is
| in my profile). Full disclaimer: it's both, but the value to the
| discussion is the cautionary tale part. Feel free to ignore the
| ad part. Edit: I tacked on a perspective how I started to like
| leetcode questions, I hope that helps people find some
| inspiration to get through the leetcode grind. If I can do it
| during the evenings, then so can you! ;-)
|
| I'm looking for a FAANG internship and/or entry level job
| opportunity.
|
| Years of experience: 1.5 years
|
| Academic degree: bachelor + master computer science.
|
| Interview preparedness: 100 leetcode questions, 30 easy, 50
| medium, 20 hard (my opinion on them: I like them). Average
| solving time: 30 minutes for leetcode medium (not quite FAANG
| level yet).
|
| It may seem I aim the bar a bit low. Here is why: after
| graduation, I took a gap year and because of that missed the
| graduate loop. Before I knew it, I couldn't apply to FAANG
| anymore because I was not a current student (for internships) or
| a recent graduate (due to gap year). I also didn't realize that
| being from Europe would hurt my chances somewhat. It took me
| quite a long time to realize this, and now even more time had
| passed (after many rejection emails and 0 phone screens).
|
| So, it is possible that you may get top marks at your master
| program. It is possible that you did a bachelor + master and have
| TA experience during your degree (that I'm not counting here as
| experience). Yet, FAANG can still completely ignore you, because
| you didn't know you should be applying for internships when
| you're in your second year of your bachelor.
|
| If I could redo it, I would:
|
| * Get a real developer job as soon as possible
|
| * Start leetcoding in my 3rd year bachelor while applying to
| internships
|
| * More leetcoding during my 2 year master + applying to
| internships + getting actual developer work experience (actual
| dev experience trumps TA jobs)
|
| This is why I'm open to internships and/or graduate positions.
| I'm not good enough at systems design. However, with coding, I
| think I have a clear shot.
|
| To the leetcode naysayers: I used to dislike leetcode questions
| too. However, I've noticed simply by practicing it, it does
| become easier over time. More importantly, you have to own it in
| a way that suits your personality.
|
| In my particular case, I view data structures as organisms. I use
| plants a lot to visualize linked lists and trees. An array +
| linked list is a brick wall (array), and a vine (a node looks
| like a vine leaf). Traversing that linked list is dying the whole
| vine a certain color. Stacks are actual stacks, queues are queues
| of people, a set I need to iterate through (like an array) looks
| like my laundry basket, etc. I love visualizing data structures
| like this and it gives me a sense of wonder. That sense of wonder
| translates into motivation, and that's how I'm owning it with my
| personality.
|
| Currently, my only real weakness is dynamic programming, but I'm
| confident that I can master it over time :)
|
| Full disclosure: recently I have been rejected by all the FAANGs
| again (outright, no phone screen), except for 1 and I've finished
| their onsite and am awaiting their result. I'm horrible at
| systems design though and wish I could interview for a graduate
| position.
|
| If someone could help me apply for a graduate position
| (internship or job) despite my unusual circumstances, I'd
| appreciate that.
| frfl wrote:
| If it helps, I didn't really start to grok system design and
| architecture until more than 2 years full time. Before that it
| was just a bunch of functions/methods, classes that used each
| other. Slowly though, you start to notice the patterns, you see
| what failed badly and how it failed (bad design). You get burnt
| having to solve problems in badly designed code. You get stuck
| trying to test badly designed code. You slowly see the bigger
| picture, how to put together these small pieces into that
| complete application that isn't a tangled mess and
| unmaintainable (bad design = maintainability being inversely
| related to time * functionality, or some equation of that
| sort).
|
| Of course this has nothing to do with what system design
| questions (most) interviewers care about. But this is the
| system design that matters on the job.
|
| Read books for the real system design after you land the job,
| they won't really stick before you get expeirence - refactoring
| legacy applications, pragmatic programmer, clean coder, clean
| code, clean architecture (all clean books are by 'Uncle Bob').
|
| For interview system design (I'm not speaking from too much
| experience here), youtube has some good videos "software system
| design interview", I've seen "grokking the system design
| interview" book being mentioned.
|
| Good luck. Hope this helps somewhat.
| gorbachev wrote:
| "GPA does matter"
|
| No, it does not, unless you're a recent graduate. Absolutely
| nobody pays attention to your GPA, if you're more than a few
| years in your career.
| nosequel wrote:
| I never put my GPA on any resume. I had a garbage GPA because
| the only classes I went to were CS classes so I got horrible
| grades in all my required electives. I was worried someone
| would ask and no one did.
| Graffur wrote:
| Did you not have to submit transcripts of your results?
| saagarjha wrote:
| I think the only company that has ever asked me for this
| has been Google.
| commandlinefan wrote:
| I always put my GPA on my resume. I'm always hoping somebody
| will mention it and nobody ever does.
| yupper32 wrote:
| As a new grad I didn't have my GPA on my resume and it never
| actually came up except for the occasional transcript request.
| I had a fine GPA, but not high enough for it to be a nice
| datapoint.
|
| I had plenty of interest with lots of companies, including many
| FAANGMGOEWVIOPJW companies.
|
| This was years ago though.
| nvarsj wrote:
| Maybe things have changed, but when I went to career fairs as
| a uni student in the 00s they all asked for my GPA. Less than
| 3.5 was pretty much an instant no.
| yupper32 wrote:
| I'm talking like 2012-2015ish here. I was never asked for
| it specifically, or asked why it was not on my resume. A
| few big companies asked for my transcript, but that's all.
| I don't even know if they looked at it.
|
| I had about a 3.5, so nothing to write home about. Got
| offers from a few big tech companies.
|
| I really think they didn't care, unless my barely 3.5 GPA
| just made the cutoff when they looked at my transcripts.
| bovermyer wrote:
| This is... incredibly disconnected from my 15-odd years of
| experience in my career.
|
| Is this how Silicon Valley engineering careers work?
| teddybloake wrote:
| This is really skewed to recent or new graduate and elite
| universities. When I was out of college, 15 years ago, some of
| the internships listed were hard or near impossible to get
| into. Take for example Goldman Sachs. They should be listing
| more regular internships and not those who managed to
| matriculate into the elite of the elite (hint: not a
| meritocracy). If anything it creates disillusionment that STEM
| careers are a straight path to being the next Bezos. It is like
| golfing: pick up golf to play golf not to play on the PGA tour.
| rcurry wrote:
| One thing that always blows me away (literally) is candidates
| that will eat like a tunafish sandwich with onions five minutes
| before they come in for an interview.
| data_spy wrote:
| With that kind of confidence, I hire them on the spot!
| decebalus1 wrote:
| Here are some psychological tricks that will help you ace a job
| interview.
|
| Tailor your answers to the interviewer's age. Generation Y
| interviewers (between 20 and 30): Bring along visual samples of
| your work and highlight your ability to multitask. Generation X
| interviewers (between 30 and 50): Emphasize your creativity and
| mention how work/life balance contributes to your success. Baby
| Boomer interviewers (between 50 and 70): Show that you work hard
| and demonstrate respect for what they've achieved.
|
| --
|
| Are you kidding me? Maybe insert a joke about 'millennials' if
| you get interviewed by a boomer, am I right? Really tailor your
| material for the crowd.
| mbernstein wrote:
| Since when are 35 year old in 2021 gen-x?
| nosequel wrote:
| They aren't. It has the generations all wrong.
| [deleted]
| walshemj wrote:
| I think this may be very targeted to certain cultures and while
| its useful to take elements from maybe for your first job.
|
| Now I have a pitch style CV and have dumped the chronological for
| well over a decade.
|
| However writing a guide like this you need up front to show that
| you have actually done a lot of recruiting.
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(page generated 2021-08-23 23:01 UTC)