Register a SA Forums Account here!
JOINING THE SA FORUMS WILL REMOVE THIS BIG AD, THE ANNOYING UNDERLINED ADS, AND STUPID INTERSTITIAL ADS!!!

You can: log in, read the tech support FAQ, or request your lost password. This dumb message (and those ads) will appear on every screen until you register! Get rid of this crap by registering your own SA Forums Account and joining roughly 150,000 Goons, for the one-time price of $9.95! We charge money because it costs us money per month for bills, and since we don't believe in showing ads to our users, we try to make the money back through forum registrations.
 
  • Post
  • Reply
FamDav
Mar 29, 2008

Bloody posted:

ya you drive to a "town" that is really just a named intersection then drive half an hour into even more the middle of nowhere

don't worry we don't make computer touchers work there

I remember driving through west Texas and seeing freeway exits that end at oil pumps.

Adbot
ADBOT LOVES YOU

FamDav
Mar 29, 2008

qhat posted:

Just went to an in person tech screen. Pretty sure I flunked it, they asked me to whiteboard an algorithm to serialise a binary tree structure (not a binary search tree, just any unsorted binary tree) and one to deserialise it into the same structure. I got there in the end but there was a lot of prompting. Also not sure if the company culture is really my thing anyway though, but I would've been interested in seeing the salary they offer.

you should've asked if this was a good starting place

code:
@Value
public class BinaryTree<T> {
  private final T value;
  private final BinaryTree<T> left;
  private final BinaryTree<T> right;
}
then wrote

code:
@Value
public class BinaryTree<T extends Serializable> implements Serializable {
  private static final long serialVersionUID = 1234567890L;

  private final T value;
  private final BinaryTree<T> left;
  private final BinaryTree<T> right;
}

FamDav
Mar 29, 2008
alternatively ask if this is a good definition of a binary tree

code:
// b_tree.proto
message Tree {
  Any value = 1;
  Tree left = 2;
  Tree right = 3;
}
then write

code:
public class BinaryTree<T extends Message> {
  private final BTree.Tree tree;
  private final Class<? extends T> clazz;

  public BinaryTree(final T value, final BinaryTree left, final BinaryTree right) {
    this(value.getClass(), BTree.Tree.newBuilder()
        .setValue(Any.pack(value))
        .setLeft(left.left)
        .setRight(right.right)
        .build());
  }

  private BinaryTree(final Class<T> clazz, final BTree.Tree tree) {
    this.clazz = clazz;
    this.tree = tree;
  }

  public T getValue() {
    return tree.getValue().unpack(clazz);
  }

  public BinaryTree<T> getLeft() {
    return new BinaryTree<>(clazz, tree.left);
  }

  public BinaryTree<T> getRight() {
    return new BinaryTree<>(clazz, tree.right);
  }

  public static <T> BinaryTree<T> unpack(final Class<T> clazz, final byte[] input) throws Exception {
    return new BinaryTree<>(clazz, BTree.Tree.parseFrom(input));
  }

  public byte[] pack() {
    return tree.toByteArray();
  }
}

FamDav fucked around with this message at 07:12 on Sep 5, 2018

FamDav
Mar 29, 2008

jit bull transpile posted:

in Java you're fine but I think in .net you need to implement the actual serialize function when you contain fields that aren't standard types. probably a good way to get rejected by someone who's team literal about the specific platform they use.

considering thats not valid c# and this is the standard for defining a class serializable by any conforming jvm i dont really get your comment

FamDav
Mar 29, 2008

jit bull transpile posted:

OK now do it so your serialized format is just the value plus sigils for having parent or children. you know, for space efficiency. because that matters for some reason.

I assume that's the sort of dumb way the question was posed because doing it with standard library stuff is too easy for dumb whiteboard interviews and I assume he would have nailed it if the question was asked sanely enough to allow this answer.

:thejoke:

FamDav
Mar 29, 2008

jit bull transpile posted:

this is the thread for picking apart interview bs. take your nerd poo poo somewhere else *flexes jock muscles at u*

:rolleyes:

FamDav
Mar 29, 2008

Rex-Goliath posted:

this is a red flag btw unless you're interviewing for a customer-facing position or a consulting gig where you'll regularly be interacting with bad faith actors

yeah for real. I always feel incredibly awful when I misunderstand an interviewee and make sure they know I’m the one failing here, not them.

FamDav fucked around with this message at 02:39 on Oct 14, 2018

FamDav
Mar 29, 2008

Flaming June posted:

sounds like a very high L6/ lower L7. i have a friend over there as an L7 and gets 700k iirc

yeah once you hit principal (or staff at google, i think google came from sun levels and amazon came from microsoft?) comp starts to get very out of control. its also a pretty high bar to get over as you either have to be pretty drat accomplished outside of the company OR have the luck to have an org put enough trust in you to give you the kind of projects that get you to that level

FamDav
Mar 29, 2008
one weird tip to having a great commute into SLU: take public transit

FamDav
Mar 29, 2008

Fart Johnson posted:

I graduated a decade ago. I don't even remember what classes I took in college, lol

This is the question I was asked by Amazon:
https://www.hackerrank.com/challenges/kingdom-connectivity/problem

If that's considered reasonable for an hour-long code screen, I need to move into management real quick. Even non tech companies send you this poo poo now.

if thats also the question others saw, then a MST isn't really the answer here. the problem is p rough though because you have to realize that the "infinite paths" bit means you're solving two problems

1. is there a cycle on a path between A and B? if so, detect cycle and print "infinite paths"
2. if there isn't a cycle, print the right number of paths

we can detect the former with a DFS, because if we ever link back to a node we've already seen when exploring the graph, we've found a cycle. if we can show that any node in that cycle is also on a path to B from A, then we know the answer is "infinite paths"

option 2 can also be solved with a DFS, and since we're assuming the graph is acyclic (at least w.r.t. the part we care about) we can memoize results since we know the graph never backtracks.

FamDav
Mar 29, 2008

The Management posted:

an L6 in Sunnyvale starts at around $500k total comp.

yeah, becoming a staff at google/facebook or principal at microsoft/amazon is $$$

FamDav
Mar 29, 2008

Jimmy Carter posted:

interviewing post-mortem:

I've had a bunch of conflicting thoughts as of late about new job, which boils down to "job good, Bay Area not good".

Then my manager told me during my annual review they misjudged me and that they should have brought me in at a higher pay-grade, so to make up for it they unloaded the RSU truck on my face and now my thoughts about the matter are even more conflicting.

did you end up staying at the same company? I assume no, but sounded like that was your path awhile back.

FamDav
Mar 29, 2008

Gentle Autist posted:

in my team and region it’s fine, people are nice. it’s a bit fart smelly but it’s not like a crazy aggressive backstab fest like that nytimes article reported. Pretty much everyone I’ve dealt with at AWS has been solid

It’s a pretty good place to work

i find it funny how people have really leaned into the "well i'm just a simple country engineer" stchick of being super humble about architecture choices, but the alternative like a few other big tech others would be quite a bit worse.

FamDav
Mar 29, 2008

Gentle Autist posted:

i don’t understand this post really

trying to phrase this in a way that doesn’t sound mean spirited.

in the past two or so years we’ve really started tooting our horn about how we don’t toot our horn about how we chose to build things, or how we choose simple answers to problems rather than chase complexity. these kinds of choices are absolutely right (at scale solutions not scaling down, preferring strict isolation vs complex machinery, etc.) but there’s a performative aspect to it that i find funny. part of my opinion might be because i’m more adjacent to the twittery parts of aws.

this is independent of thinking it’s a great place to work, which imo it generally is. if you’re not ok with a document/meeting heavy culture then you may not like it, and there’s a high degree of risk aversion technically while also demanding a lot of feature velocity. this manifests as competing efforts to improve efficiency and safety, as you’re continually trying to derisk more changes written by more (and less experienced) people going out to more (and weirder) production environments.

and obviously if you aren’t into operations then you will almost certainly hate it.

FamDav
Mar 29, 2008

HappyHippo posted:

also from a quick google search, it looks like washington passed a new non-compete law at the start of 2020 that's pretty restrictive to employers.

lol, the compensation threshold for non competes to be a-ok in WA is 100k

FamDav
Mar 29, 2008
if you don't have a promo doc being written by you or your manager, then you are nowhere close to being promoted. this is true anywhere that has any kind of formal process for promotions.

FamDav
Mar 29, 2008

Xik posted:

They're just following the industry standard and making sure only insufferable pricks fill architect roles.

make org charts public

edit: i also find it insufferable because its now how things work; by the point where you're "tech lead" on XYZ you should also be able to demonstrate how you guided other teams that were adjacent to your expertise and that's equally important. if you can't talk about that, its because you weren't actually the tech lead.

FamDav
Mar 29, 2008
so after not interviewing for near on ~5 years due to a whole barrel of self esteem issues, i decided to go interview and snagged a staff engineer position on my first go around. i can wait around to see if my principal promo goes through but honestly i'd probably just leave afterwards anyways.

FamDav
Mar 29, 2008
also go to therapy seriously

FamDav
Mar 29, 2008
RSUs at non-obvious meteoric startups are nebulous, RSUs at obvious meteoric startups are know but won't be augmenting your true income anytime soon, and RSUs at public companies are obvious and impacting your comp.

also holy lol this offer package. I was expecting to have to negotiate but I'm getting 3x'd off of my good but maybe stale sr engineer total comp. I think even if I'm promoted in 3-6 months I'd still make 200-300k less a year.

FamDav
Mar 29, 2008

raminasi posted:

what region/industry are you in? are you moving to a faang?

I live in Seattle and have worked for a public cloud provider for over 6 years, and am on track to hit the first post-senior job level in about 6-12 months (i.e., if there's a gap in the promo doc then it will probably take 6-9 months to fill it). This would be from a FAANG to a non-FAANG.

FamDav
Mar 29, 2008
so i told work this morning that i've decided to accept the offer and now i've got meetings with the GM and VP.

FamDav
Mar 29, 2008
so received my counter offer, which would put me near the top of the band for the next level (in theory getting promoted in q1) for at least this year and next. it's still less than 2/3 the offer i have in hand :/.

FamDav
Mar 29, 2008
well, just signed the offer. this interview season was a whole lot better than the last one i did

code:
* 3 phone interviews, all thumbs up
  * 1 decided to interview me at the higher level i wanted, decided to do full loop
  * 1 was compelling but at the same level i'm at, deferred full loop until i finished up with the above
  * 1 would've probably resulted in a level up just to match current comp, declined full loop
* 1 full loop, got offer and and decided to cut things

FamDav
Mar 29, 2008

Achmed Jones posted:

Hell yeah, congrats! Do you mind sharing where you landed? Totally fine if you'd rather not say (e.g. I am OK saying I work at google right now, but my previous companies were small enough that I'm not comfortable naming them on the public internet)

another dystopian tech company, but at least one with perks, good vest schedules, and superlative pay. i decided to explicitly avoid google/facebook/microsoft because i didn't want to work for another megacorp for awhile. apple was interesting because they wanted me to lead a project to build something in my niche but after learning more about their ops culture i realized we would be incompatible.

FamDav
Mar 29, 2008

RokosCockatrice posted:

Check out levels.fyi if you want some total comp numbers for faang. Equity ends up being the lions share of comp with it being rare to see base going over 200. I think that's tax advantaged but :shrug: I'm a ones and zeros kind of numbers guy so I have no idea.

base is going higher, mine is 270 + ~60k bonus.

FamDav
Mar 29, 2008
https://twitter.com/chucktingle/status/1435280565691826177

FamDav
Mar 29, 2008

RokosCockatrice posted:

what the hell can one person do worth 330 a year

i dunno ask your mom and dad they like my vibe

FamDav
Mar 29, 2008

Gazpacho posted:

(USER WAS PUT ON PROBATION FOR THIS POST)

this feels right

FamDav
Mar 29, 2008
imo all of the situational optimizations are pretty meaningless to just answering the q, unless you can explain what kinds of situations they are/aren’t valuable. being able to explain the nlgn in place and n extra space solns is good stuff

FamDav
Mar 29, 2008

qsvui posted:

every single interview i've had with a "big boy" tech company (and those aspiring to be one) asked about Big O to some extent. probably some faang started it and everyone else just cargo culted

i mean its been true for years? though what i find particularly hilarious is how few places by comparison will ask "why is it correct?". this is not and probably was never a good interview q, but i used to ask years ago something like the following

code:
Given an input string S and an alphabet A, find the length of the shortest substring in S that contains all the letters in the alphabet at least once 
some percentage of people would get the right answer, but what was really surprising is that only ~60% could actually explain why their answer was correct. presumedly these people had memorized the answer or the pattern for this kind of problem but didn't actually learn why the pattern guaranteed the correct answer.

FamDav
Mar 29, 2008

Corla Plankun posted:

is it illegal in america to get a job at a company you find morally repugnant and then not contribute anything of value to said company while collecting a paycheck?

it’s called at-will brother

FamDav
Mar 29, 2008
senior video game people being able to double their comp based on their skillset is something i think is absolutely justified. while i dont know much about peoples "leadership" skillset as senior engineers in video games companies, their technical skillset is definitely worth at least twice as much to facebook in vr than it is to ea on madden 2k22

FamDav
Mar 29, 2008

CarForumPoster posted:

I just checked the very latest salary data for a sw engineer 4, in SF, in the 95th %, at a unicorn or larger valued company. $220K total cash ($215k base), $2-$5M equity presumably vesting over 4 years.

So yea...I can't believe I am typing this but if you:
-are a SW engineer 4+
-live in SF
-join a unicorn that goes public
-are paid in the top 5% of sw engineer 4s in SF at unicorns. You outearn almost all AI PhDs at Google. This is hard to do.
-fully vest your options and sell at a market cap substantially greater than the strike price

You can bring home $750k per year for a 5 year stint after you sell the stock.

Now those are some narrow-rear end conditions...50th% of a SW4 is still $1M stock and $190K cash tho. So $500K/yr if you picked a winner...but youre picking when theyre already valued at $1B so thats not that risky and I have to imagine theres a secondary market for unicorn options.


All that to say...that tweet isn't WRONG wrong and I really thought it HAD to be.

are these grants options or rsus? and is the dollar amount the grant at the beginning or end of its vest?

FamDav
Mar 29, 2008

Plorkyeran posted:

if you have equity grants from before 2020 then you're in very good shape because the whole industry saw stock prices triple in 2020 but i haven't seen any indications that companies are tripling _new_ grants after that

also lol if you worked at one of the companies that switched to 1 year grants around that time

FamDav
Mar 29, 2008

CarForumPoster posted:

I cant get over those loving figgies.

Physicians go through a decade of absolutely BRUTAL schooling. They save lives.

If I quit the company I started with my partner, I could be making more base than middle-of-the-country pediatricians.

How? poo poo is hosed.

wait til you find out how much the people who educate our nations future make!

FamDav
Mar 29, 2008
also, like, doctors wages are already held artificially high by reducing the number of slots available to onramp into the profession and refusing foreign credentials. which also helps contribute to brutality of schooling and residency and just being a doctor in general.

FamDav
Mar 29, 2008

Blinkz0rz posted:

i'm expecting most of my comp bump this cycle to be in equity. probably like 3-5% raise but a few hundred k over the next 4 years in rsus

gonna come back and quote this when it's 3% and another 10k a year in stock lol

who gets refreshers over four years.

also this is the first comp cycle in like 8 years where i legitimately don't care because i joined 3 months ago. woo!

FamDav
Mar 29, 2008

aeflux posted:

the place i'm at now is falling apart, we've had three high-profile leadership departures in the past six weeks. revenue is flat, forecast outlook is dismal, material + freight costs are way higher and we can't push the full costs along. our remaining management seems intent on playing the same song as this ship takes on more water

i'm glad to be interviewing and now is the time

ngl outside of the manufacturing-specific bits this sounds like every single tech company over the past 6-9 months

Adbot
ADBOT LOVES YOU

FamDav
Mar 29, 2008
lol mr "didn't know what cache coherency was" thinks hes not getting tech jobs because he's too honest

edit to add: "I've never taped out an out of order superscalar processor nor have I ever debugged a hardware issue that resulted in a recall."

  • 1
  • 2
  • 3
  • 4
  • 5
  • Post
  • Reply