One thing I learned ~15 years ago was that Nightwish commissioned lyrics from lyricists (one such commissioned person told me himself I believe a year or two after Dark Passion Play was released - they never used what he wrote for them though) - maybe that helps give the polished impression for some.

> You’re going to have to grind Leetcode. Yes, even the dynamic programming problems.

One trend I've been seeing is the MANGAs have been moving away from leetcode crap - in my org at one of them, I think almost the entire org is against leetcode questions as an insufficient form of candidate assessment.

> Come up with a more, uh, positive reason for why you’re interviewing instead of disclosing that you were laid off.

Honestly, as an engineering manager on the hiring side, I haven't seen any negative perception in these times when candidates disclose they were laid off - its become so common as of late & often not due to the candidates' fault that it's a non-issue for us. I know a manager trying to extend a formal offer to one such candidate who revealed that they were laid off. I especially appreciate honesty in a candidate when they admit they don't know something & try to set the conversation around working with the info they have as presented to them, creating space for an open conversation around questions being asked instead of viewing it as a Q&A session. Those tend to be the candidates who get the highest marks from me.

The compensation though makes take home pay far better than anywhere else even omitting that if you’re at a well compensating place (i.e. FAANG), even for just single individuals.

> Writing in The Guardian, Moira Donegan called Weiss a "professional rightwing attention seeker" and disputed her claim that social media's influence had led to a hostile media environment for conservatives.

In addition, her employment history outlined in Wikipedia seem to be filled with fairly conservative outlets or stints (WSJ, Die Welt, NY Times stint cited as an effort to bring in more diverse ideological views). Nothing wrong with that necessarily, just pointing it out as contradictory to the claim that she's a staunch liberal.

We routinely have & hire interns from top programs and many lesser known ones, or even non-CS degree holders.

My own grad school happens to have a top 4 CS program (UIUC), but I went there for math (was top 15 at the time, not sure how it has done since). Some of the stories of people I met in my grad program were fascinating, there were people there who were likely smarter than most students at most of the elite universities - one particular extremely smart person I met even turned down top math programs in favor of a full scholarship at a lesser known public school for undergrad. My own personal background is a bit fascinating in some ways as well, but it never comes up in interviews - I'm at a FAANG with most of the achievements notched for a promotion to staff SWE, and my brother was promoted to staff research scientist at another FAANG for an extraordinary business-wide accomplishment. Neither of us coded before trying to get into the tech industry (my brother has a PhD in Chemistry from a reputed program).

I've learned throughout my life that focusing so much on where people went to school might cause you to miss smart and/or revolutionary people. People don't really talk so much about the schools people like Steve Jobs went to. Lots of very smart people are rejected by the likes of the Ivies, or not gotten the head start in life that would've gotten them placed at the most prestigious schools or programs. Some people's lives took a different turn for reasons that may have caused them to miss out on opportunities earlier in life, but life events created resolve & the will to make a switch & become successful. I think it's very unfair/silly to pass judgment on someone just due to what school they went to (I certainly don't really care when I'm interviewing someone) - there are actually a lot of very smart people who never had any such privileged background out there. We should be striving to find them not only because it could be very beneficial for business, but it's also the right thing to do.

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31197855

Points: 94

# Comments: 158

I’m usually not even asking a coding question in my session - I set up a practical/common problem beforehand and we explore the scenario together. I can assure you that many candidates don’t pass my session necessarily, even if they have proven in other sessions to be brilliant coders - I’m not looking for technical brilliance in most of the interviews I give, and neither are the hiring managers I work with. To me, focusing on the coding is most important on the technical screen, not the full panel - once you reach the full panel, your goal is to demonstrate technical leadership, which includes expertise in knowledge, coding competency, focus on UX, and some other areas for more senior roles (conflict management, responsibility, navigating different stakeholders for product/project decisions, etc.).

If all your focus is in is just the coding questions, you’ve likely already set yourself up for failure.

How the process for us works is if you are a strong enough candidate, we have no qualms giving multiple offers simultaneously and working out the reqs afterwards, even borrowing against a future one if we have to. How we evaluate is probably also a lot different & more thoughtful than a lot of candidates realize - we're discussing leadership traits, strengths & weaknesses, and skills in our debriefs and what we all observed about the candidate in our sessions. No candidate does perfect in any given session - even candidates who I have given 4s for have slipped up or had negatives observed.

For my non-coding problems, I just create it from scratch depending on the position/needs & spend a bit of time navigating the scenario myself and store the question in my notes.

As to failing a question, failing a single question isn't necessarily a deal breaker in itself - it's showing a pattern of not meeting the bar that is. I may rate someone a 2 out of 4 if they didn't go into sufficient depth in a particular question I asked, but I probably won't stay in the way of hiring them if they did ok otherwise and that failure was just an aberration. Loss of integrity is perception that is likely to sour people on any upside of hiring though, and overcoming that bar is incredibly difficult - if someone is clearly rehearsed on a particular question and is dishonest about it, they're probably not getting a 3 or 4.

I don't give a particularly hard interview, candidates and interviewers who pair with me are all pretty happy with the session & almost always leave relaxed, which is usually targeted towards a certain set of leadership traits (and occasionally I'll do coding screens as well although I've been put on those less in general). My interview feedback also has generally been corroborated by other interviewers in debriefs as well, so it's not like it's in crazy land.

I've done two onsites with Google in the past essentially YOLOing it (I only study my interview failures because I view otherwise as an inefficient use of my time) - first time did terrible, second time almost passed if I didn't completely bomb my very last session. The second time ended up not really mattering because two different teams in two different orgs for my current non-Google FAANG wanted to hire me after onsites done on back to back days (side note: that was almost 15 hours of interviewing in two consecutive days - that's a lot of time, I only was able to do it because I was funemployed at the time).

I actually appreciate it very much if a candidate didn't study & focus more on giving the best answers to their capability when I interview them - the questions I give them are usually questions that no amount of studying would have prepared them for, so already taking the mindset of trying to respond thoughtfully & earnestly to problems & situations that change on a whim puts them a step ahead.

Perhaps I evaluate differently than a lot of interviewers, but I'm primarily interested in figuring out if a candidate has the traits/skills that I'm looking for in a potential coworker - for us, the traits matter more than the skills even.

At the same time, I recognize that this is also some of the challenge that underrepresented minorities face in general in American society where there are others who have more closed doors than I (I went to a high school with over 70% minorities, mostly African-Americans + hispanics). I don't pretend to know what the solution to the problem is, but given that high prestige colleges have created a high risk high reward situation with how they handle admissions, I feel like a lot of the problem is how academia has created this artificial situation - maybe this is by design, I don't know, but if we truly value diversity & equity in higher educational opportunities, there needs to be a significant change.