[HN Gopher] Tech Interview Handbook ___________________________________________________________________ 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. ___________________________________________________________________ (page generated 2021-08-23 23:01 UTC)