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Pragmatic interviews that get at the things you'll be working on and the role you'll be in are great. Game playing interviews like the aforementioned "whiteboard the game of life" nonsense seem like tactics used by people who have no business conducting an interview. The one I had yesterday was for a second round interview for a full-stack senior position on a team where there is a wide range of skill. The first round began with writing a simple not-fizzbuzz toy from a minimal spec in JS without any assistance (google/intellisense/hints). I was told up front that being able to do that was a go/nogo for the entire process moving forward (and that like, 4/5 people they had come in couldn't do it, which I guess I shouldn't find surprising at this point, but I still do). After that they had me meet a bunch of non-tech people because it turns out the hiring manager and most of the dev team were out at a conference, which I took as a good sign because hey, learning. Second round was all technical or technical adjacent:
No games, literally all things I would need to do as part of the job or related to demonstrating the skills I would actually need for the job. They had clearly put some thought and effort into it, and THAT made it feel like they respected me and my time far more than just taking me to lunch or something would have, and gave me a really good idea of who they are and what they'd be like to work with. I've been on interviews where it was clear the people interviewing me had zero knowledge of how to interview someone and had therefore picked things that weren't going to be useful for determining whether I could do the work or how I would fit, or really anything. On the other hand, I found those interviews very useful for me determining that I wouldn't want to work there. If they're that bad at finding and assessing people, I can only imagine how bad they are once they hire someone, you know?
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Aug 2, 2017 13:12
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metztli posted:Pragmatic interviews that get at the things you'll be working on and the role you'll be in are great. Game playing interviews like the aforementioned "whiteboard the game of life" nonsense seem like tactics used by people who have no business conducting an interview. I would love an interview like that. I'd get loving chumped, but it'd be a lot better than whiteboarding some Game of Life bullshit.
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Aug 2, 2017 13:46
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Pollyanna posted:I would love an interview like that. I'd get loving chumped, but it'd be a lot better than whiteboarding some Game of Life bullshit. Yeah, I felt like I'd been put through my paces at the end, and I'm sure I missed a few things, but hey, the overall feedback was super positive. Even if I had whiffed, I'd still feel like it was an honest assessment and not some bullshit "read my mind" or "have you memorized standard dev interview questions" stuff, and it would have given me some areas to work on.
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Aug 2, 2017 14:32
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metztli posted:Yeah, I felt like I'd been put through my paces at the end, and I'm sure I missed a few things, but hey, the overall feedback was super positive. Even if I had whiffed, I'd still feel like it was an honest assessment and not some bullshit "read my mind" or "have you memorized standard dev interview questions" stuff, and it would have given me some areas to work on. The smaller trivia questions at least are okay, I kinda liked the "if you have 8 gigabytes of RAM, how large of a Game of Life board can you make" since it got me to think about the data I was working with and how it could most efficiently be represented. It was totally irrelevant, but a nice change of pace...which now that I think about it, still doesn't make it a good question. (Since each cell in a Game of Life is a piece of binary data that can be represented as a bit, and since there's 8 bits in a byte, it's something on the order of an 8 billion square bit large board (64 billion bits total -> 8 billion bytes -> 8 gigabytes).) My previous job did an interview similar to yours, where they ran me through a few domain-specific problems, asked me to present a personal project, and had me pair program with another developer. It was the best interview I've done.
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Aug 2, 2017 14:54
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Pollyanna posted:The smaller trivia questions at least are okay, I kinda liked the "if you have 8 gigabytes of RAM, how large of a Game of Life board can you make" since it got me to think about the data I was working with and how it could most efficiently be represented. It was totally irrelevant, but a nice change of pace...which now that I think about it, still doesn't make it a good question. That's going to depend on your implementation. If you used a standard 2D array of booleans you are using more than 1 bit per index.
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Aug 2, 2017 16:31
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Jose Valasquez posted:That's going to depend on your implementation. If you used a standard 2D array of booleans you are using more than 1 bit per index. And you need two instances of the board (or maybe one full instance and one row or column) if you want to do updates.
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Aug 2, 2017 16:35
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It's pretty trivial to make a sparse board in any language that comes with a hash/map type, so the answer to the question starts to depend on the presence of an arbitrary precision library and how strings are stored. It could get pretty loving big without capping a megabyte.
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Aug 2, 2017 16:51
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Well, yeah. The question was how large of a board could you have with 8 gigabytes of RAM, and my interpretation of it was the most naive and obvious I thought of. Once you bring actually ticking the game state into question, that changes the circumstances. You also don't necessarily need an entire second board in memory, just a list of what cells should change into what state on the next tick - which could be less data than an entire board. The open-endedness of this question is why I really, really hope people don't ask this question expecting a "good engineer" to come up with an explicit "right answer".
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Aug 2, 2017 16:52
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Munkeymon posted:It's pretty trivial to make a sparse board in any language that comes with a hash/map type, so the answer to the question starts to depend on the presence of an arbitrary precision library and how strings are stored. It could get pretty loving big without capping a megabyte. This also starts to get into questions of just how dense the average Game of Life board is, though. Sparse matrices allocate considerably more memory per element than a dense matrix does.
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Aug 2, 2017 16:59
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Don't forget memory used by the system, max addressable memory of the platform, etc. etc. etc. I doubt they were looking for a "correct" answer or just the math, but instead an answer that shows awareness and consideration of multiple factors that would contribute to the answer. And if they *were* looking for one specific answer or they wanted you to do the trivial arithmetic, then it was a bad question and they were bad interviewers for asking it.
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Aug 2, 2017 17:04
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8 gigs of ram for the board, or total? Because your OS and the logic controlling the thing are going to impact the exact size you can support.
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Aug 2, 2017 17:25
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leper khan posted:8 gigs of ram for the board, or total? Because your OS and the logic controlling the thing are going to impact the exact size you can support. I discounted stuff like that, and thought of it purely in terms of storing the relevant data. "How big of a board can you store in 8 gigs of RAM" is the only prompt I got.  I'm aware that there's way more than just the board data that's stored in RAM, but if that means I failed the test, well gently caress me then.
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Aug 2, 2017 17:37
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It seems weird that they'd specify it being RAM rather than just 'how much can you fit in 8 gigs'
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Aug 2, 2017 18:26
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Rex-Goliath posted:It seems weird that they'd specify it being RAM rather than just 'how much can you fit in 8 gigs' They made a point about it being in RAM, and never elucidated on that. I just went along with it wondering if there'd be more to it, but then it just ended
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Aug 2, 2017 18:28
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Pollyanna posted:I discounted stuff like that, and thought of it purely in terms of storing the relevant data. "How big of a board can you store in 8 gigs of RAM" is the only prompt I got. I feel like this is the kind of question where they throw out an incomplete question and are hoping you ask clarifying questions and walk through your thought process, otherwise it is just an odd math question. "Is the 8GB what the machine has or what my program has access to?" "Full program or just the board itself?" If I was writing in C++ I'd ask if I could assume the size of a bool is 1 byte since that is implementation specific. If they said the machine has 8GB of RAM I'd ballpark a number like 25% going towards the OS and such so my program has about 6GB to work with, you'd need to take into account any copies you are using during runtime as well and probably end up with something like 3GB of usable memory for the board / sizeof(bool), maybe throw in a small fudge factor to account for any other overhead of running you program and come out with something in the ballpark of a 50000x50000 board You could also then speculate that an ideal implementation that uses bits instead of bytes and get up to 155000x155000 if you're still using two boards or 220000x220000 if you're using one board. A sparse implementation that only keeps track of which spots are turned on may help the average case but you may still need to be able to handle the scenario where they are ALL turned on, so worst case space complexity is still the same. I have no clue if any of those numbers are correct but it shows the thought process and that you're taking into account various factors. This isn't intended to poo poo on you or your answer, I don't know how you actually answered in the interview, just my thoughts on how I would approach the question if asked.
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Aug 2, 2017 18:52
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Jose Valasquez posted:I feel like this is the kind of question where they throw out an incomplete question and are hoping you ask clarifying questions and walk through your thought process, otherwise it is just an odd math question. You're definitely thinking through a lot more things that I would have bothered to bring up. I mean, in the back of my mind I know these are a thing - but when I get a question like that, I reply in the most naive fashion possible and only expand the potential kinks and ancillary issues when they crop up. Is this a bad thing? Does the fact that my immediate response was to assume a very particular case mean that I'm inexperienced, not learning what I should, or something? Incidentally, I'm really really bad at saying "I think I'll pass" to places I'm not completely stoked to try and interview for.  Just said yes to one that was interested in an in-person interview even though I'm a little suspicious and wary of their product (one that's heavily tied to Uber's platform), but on the other hand I might be too picky. I still haven't developed a sense of what I should and shouldn't go for...
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Aug 2, 2017 21:30
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Pollyanna posted:You're definitely thinking through a lot more things that I would have bothered to bring up. I mean, in the back of my mind I know these are a thing - but when I get a question like that, I reply in the most naive fashion possible and only expand the potential kinks and ancillary issues when they crop up. Is this a bad thing? Always start simple with your answers. Only add complexities as you think of them and assuming the interviewer doesn't cut you off. It is good to be aware of the things that Jose mentioned, but that just comes with practice and experience. I wouldn't worry about it if I were in your shoes. Just keep working and accruing knowledge.
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Aug 2, 2017 21:45
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Pollyanna posted:Incidentally, I'm really really bad at saying "I think I'll pass" to places I'm not completely stoked to try and interview for. Interview everywhere, even at places you'd never want to work. They'll give you good interviewing experience and/or hilarious horror stories for this thread.
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Aug 3, 2017 01:45
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It doesn't mean you ARE inexperienced or not learning, but it does mean you are sending signals that you might be inexperienced. I would take it as a sign of either a lack of experience or poor communications skills if someone didn't spontaneously at least mention possible practical issues when providing an answer for the ideal case. I definitely know that, when I interview people, I don't want to have to pull information out of them - I would consider that a definite strike against them from the perspective of how they would be to work with. If you're going to take the interviews, use them as a chance to practice new interviewing skills. I'm serious - go to the interview and beat them up, ask hard questions to make them prove the viability of the product. Take it as an opportunity to build and project confidence, and recognize that it may not go well but it's getting practice, so don't internalize . Best case, they turn out to be great and offer you a job, worst case they pass but you get some practice honing your skills on a job interview you weren't excited about anyway.
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Aug 3, 2017 02:48
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metztli posted:It doesn't mean you ARE inexperienced or not learning, but it does mean you are sending signals that you might be inexperienced. I would take it as a sign of either a lack of experience or poor communications skills if someone didn't spontaneously at least mention possible practical issues when providing an answer for the ideal case. I definitely know that, when I interview people, I don't want to have to pull information out of them - I would consider that a definite strike against them from the perspective of how they would be to work with. Fair enough. I try to go the other way and keep it simple, cause I have a habit of overcomplicating problems I encounter - I do keep these things in mind, just as they come up and once I'm confident that I've kept myself on track. I'll make sure to be more forthright on possible factors in the future. One of the places I had expressed interest in recently lowered their max compensation to $30k under my floor because they found college graduates who would do the work for cheaper. Have fun with that, I guess  Edit: the place I interviewed with on Thursday seems to be interested in moving forward, so I guess that Game of Life fiasco didn't scare them off. I still don't think I'm convinced that the product is any good, though, so I'm gonna pass on it. I wonder if there's a diplomatic way to say "I don't have a lot of confidence in your product and longevity". Pollyanna fucked around with this message at 20:24 on Aug 3, 2017 |
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Aug 3, 2017 14:57
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Pollyanna posted:I wonder if there's a diplomatic way to say "I don't have a lot of confidence in your product and longevity". You don't say it directly, diplomatic or not - doing so wouldn't gain you anything. Instead, you bring up the issues you see and ask them how they handle them. "So it seems like your product is tightly coupled to Uber - what's your plan if Uber goes down/blocks you/whatever?" That way you at least learn something from them and maybe new things to consider when evaluating them/future options.
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Aug 3, 2017 23:03
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metztli posted:You don't say it directly, diplomatic or not - doing so wouldn't gain you anything. Instead, you bring up the issues you see and ask them how they handle them. "So it seems like your product is tightly coupled to Uber - what's your plan if Uber goes down/blocks you/whatever?" That way you at least learn something from them and maybe new things to consider when evaluating them/future options. This was to another position that I turned down and they're asking for why, and I was wondering if I should say why past "my commute would get 3x as long".
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Aug 3, 2017 23:37
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Pollyanna posted:This was to another position that I turned down and they're asking for why, and I was wondering if I should say why past "my commute would get 3x as long". You are also under no obligation to tell them why.
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Aug 4, 2017 00:04
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I stuck with just the commute explanation. They said it was fair enough. What does everyone do to vet smaller companies and startups? I generally take a look at their product, look them up on Crunchbase, and see if they're showing up in recent news. The best metrics on that end are the news, and how much funding they've secured and when/how recently. If a company started a few years ago but don't seem to have much activity since then, it ends up looking kinda suspicious to me - if they've been around for 3-4 years, why don't they have more of a presence? That kind of concern.
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Aug 4, 2017 18:46
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I don't know exactly which companies you're applying to, but not all small companies are built to make it big. Some are just lifestyle companies, where they just want to supply good web development to local business. My first company was like that. Pay sucked, but I got to do everything short of sales. That was almost 15 years ago and I still have good stories for interviews when they ask about it. Kind of a, "everything I know about software development I learned from being the only programmer in a small shop."
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Aug 4, 2017 19:50
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Pollyanna posted:What does everyone do to vet smaller companies and startups? I generally take a look at their product, look them up on Crunchbase, and see if they're showing up in recent news. The best metrics on that end are the news, and how much funding they've secured and when/how recently. If a company started a few years ago but don't seem to have much activity since then, it ends up looking kinda suspicious to me - if they've been around for 3-4 years, why don't they have more of a presence? That kind of concern. Are you looking to get into a startup that might make it big and get in early or are you looking for a more stable environment with established practices and mentorship opportunities? Not that those two things are mutually exclusive, but I think the overlap would be pretty limited...
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Aug 7, 2017 09:08
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Doghouse posted:I'm applying for a job at a company in NYC but I live in St Louis, they say you can workremote or in the NYC office and that half the team works remote. In this type of situation, are they going to try to offer me a St Louis salary, or a NYC salary? I have 3 years experience. My experience was that they offered the NYC salary (which is good) but then put in my location as where I actually live (which is bad). So according to their salary calculator which has a cost of living adjustment, I am now very highly paid relative to my location and doubt I will get any automatic salary bumps. But there are worse problems to have.
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Aug 7, 2017 12:46
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Also, don't look at just the amount of money raised but what they've been able to accomplish with the money raised. I've seen places raise $50MM and over 5 years they'd hired way too many people, the product was completely horrific, and the turnover was really high. This is what it looks like when company direction is unclear and when management is not doing a good job of leading. Don't trust Glassdoor for anything besides the views of disgruntled employees either (almost all companies will have negative reviews critical of management, btw - look for patterns in how they are mismanaging). I've been writing software or software platforms for over 10 years now and never have had any mentorship. What I have had though is a working relationship with peers beyond daily professional work, and I've attended a fair number of local meetups where I've lived, and you can learn a lot from a range of peers at different stages of their career. The obvious bias is that the really busy, productive folks are probably going to conferences, not local meet-ups for beer so much. If you're looking for mentorship, even large companies have a lot of difficulty providing any decent form of structure for their juniors. Most of the time I've seen large companies "mentor" their junior employees, it's basically been an indoctrination program cheerleading why the company's so great, not actually providing serious career coaching explaining the career paths most sane people go through (hint: almost everyone sane will leave a large company at some point and the exceptions wind up as senior executives after 20+ years or are sitting in a corner collecting checks waiting for retirement). Most of these places really want to emphasize that their size makes it possible to have a multi-decade long career without ever changing companies.
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Aug 7, 2017 12:53
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so I'm gonna get an offer from the job i interviewed for last week I'm a little surprised by the fact they never asked for/checked references. is this a  ? they're a Fortune 500 company Maybe they will ask for references when they give me the offer?
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Aug 8, 2017 17:57
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Ploft-shell crab posted:so I'm gonna get an offer from the job i interviewed for last week Checking references is about as rigorous as asking if you've ever met 3 people that liked you. Not important.
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Aug 8, 2017 18:00
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Ploft-shell crab posted:so I'm gonna get an offer from the job i interviewed for last week I've never had anyone check or ask in ~ 20 years.
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Aug 8, 2017 18:03
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Cool, cheers!
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Aug 8, 2017 18:05
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I've had lots of former colleagues ask over the years if they could name me as a reference, and outside of one instance I've always agreed. I only turned that down because I had an employment contract that said I couldn't participate in the hiring of current or freshly-former (< 1 year) employees elsewhere, and I wasn't sure to the extent that being a reference would be participation. The only time I've ever been called is when the individual in question was working with a staffing firm. The recruiter decided to call me not to do a reference check, but to pitch openings to me. kitten smoothie fucked around with this message at 18:28 on Aug 8, 2017 |
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Aug 8, 2017 18:26
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Interesting! I've been called as a reference 5 times in the last 5 years, and I don't feel like I have a particularly large network of coworkers. Most of them, it just felt like the reference was adding a bit of color -- potentially useful for getting a slightly higher salary? Maybe? One of them was for a coworker who'd been fired and I presume it was helpful to have me say that I'd worked with him and disagreed with the firing (he got the job).
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Aug 8, 2017 19:07
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an offer arrives. they hit my (unspoken) target on their initial offer(a >50% raise over my current salary!!), but according to what I've read I guess I should still ask for more? is there any resources anyone recommends on salary negotiation?
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Aug 9, 2017 21:21
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Ploft-shell crab posted:an offer arrives. Ask if they can give an extra 10% or more vacation. If you don't have corroborating reasons to support why they should give you that, you don't need it to ask anyway. Negotiation is like posting. 
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Aug 9, 2017 21:39
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You don't need to negotiate if you're happy with the offer they've made.
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Aug 10, 2017 02:33
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Ploft-shell crab posted:an offer arrives. https://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3768531 Generally, if they gave you an offer, they have already invested a lot in you. Just don't be a dick or outrageous about it.
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Aug 10, 2017 03:08
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A start-up I'm talking to is not offering individual contributors equity because the CEO has had bad experiences with employees doing resting and vesting. Instead, they want to pay at or above market and offer bonuses with stock grants, not options or RSUs. Cynical me sees this as another way to avoid diluting cap tables for the investors and execs and makes even more money for them while screwing over naive folks. CEO has a track record of successful ventures into 9 figures, so this is a strong probability. I'm concerned that they could dangle stock grants in my face and after I burn out once again I'd come out with not much over 3 years when the company sells for $2Bn+ while under 300 employees. The only exit I have as a personal reference for was for ~120% of my annual salary in ISOs when I was a junior engineer and I'd expect 400%+ now. Anyone ever had this variable comp / bonus structure work out for them?Ploft-shell crab posted:they hit my (unspoken) target on their initial offer(a >50% raise over my current salary!!), but according to what I've read I guess I should still ask for more? is there any resources anyone recommends on salary negotiation?
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Aug 10, 2017 03:31
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Wait. Then if you got, say, an offer from Amazon and an offer from Microsoft, you couldn't just, you know, tell Amazon that Microsoft offered you 20% more, then when Amazon matches it, you go to Microsoft and tell them you'd love to work there, but Amazon made an offer and the neighborhood you'd live in is so much cheaper, and you'd need an extra 20% to make it break even, and then if they give you that 20%, you go back to Amazon and tell them you'd love to work with them but... That's not how you're supposed to do it?
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Aug 10, 2017 03:52
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