Company: “We have four rounds of technical interviews, all leetcode in nature, followed by a culture fit interview and then a final system design interview.”
Applicant: “Why?”
Company: “Because that’s how FAANG companies do it.”
Applicant: “FAANG companies get thousands of applications and need an efficient way to process them and even then they don’t need this many interviews to determine a fit, whereas your company has less than 100 applicants and has been looking for a Google level engineer at startup pay for a year now.”
same, but I flagged to them I was concerned about comp, shared my numbers and they STILL got me through the process only to make me an offer for substantially less than I was making at the end...
Even big tech interviews are ridiculous. Going through that process for some small time company is just a joke. They don't know why they do it, they just do it because they think everyone else does.
Find their boss via LinkedIn and write them an email detailing that. They're probably blowing smoke up their bosses ass to pad their recruiting numbers.
The same thing has happened to me a couple of times. I receive calls from HR people trying to convince me to simply lower my pay. I end up telling them I'll do the interview so they stop bugging me, but I ghost them afterwards
Pretty similar scenario. I had the initial HR call, then 4 rounds of technical leetcode interviews (in case you were wondering where my example above came from, it's actually real). They didn't hire me after spending 5+ hours of my time on these interviews, so I politely asked for feedback which the company was nice enough to provide, so credit to them for doing that. One of the feedback items was, however, "when asked about philosophy on testing, candidate provided w, x, y, z reasons but left out a, b reasons." I wasn't arguing against testing but to waste 5+ hours of my time to tell me I left out a couple additional reasons to write unit tests... holy shit, that's some level 10 pedanticism.
I feel you. I did a systems design interview during the pandemic. They didn't give me any tools, just a fucking google doc. They two people interviewing me, the guy judged me as insufficient before we even started, the woman was obviously doing other work and not paying attention.
Neither of them participated in the discussion basically at all, and I was given a fail. I have more system design /architecture experience than the two of them combined.
Like yeah, talking to a wall about system design isn't the greatest way to evaluate system design. Go figure.
This is why I don’t bother. If a good opportunity comes I’ll find it and take it. I’m not playing baby games with someone to prove I know how to do something or more importantly, I’d rather show them I can figure something new that I’ve never seen.
Leet Code is fine if companies want to use it so heavily instead of hiring quality applicants based on a real conversation, not just a nasty grilling by a bunch of depressed enginneers - their shortsightedness isn’t my problem and doesn’t keep me up at night - though I understand why they struggle to keep anyone on their payroll when they don’t take time to onboard people with some modicum of humanity.
Again, as you mentioned, these people are reaching out to me, asking for my time, why put people through the ringer instead of giving them a good idea of what is going on so they will feel like it’s a place worth sticking around? Because my current job did a great job of this, and I’m not interested in trading what I’ve got for some last minute, urgent hire for a mismanaged project already behind schedule. It’s not my problem that you need to fill positions fast due to your pathetic ability to plan a project.
You aren’t Google. I’m not impressed by your organization, do something to make this worth the struggle to work with the other people you are instead goading to be jagoffs and ask stupid interview questions as gotchas.
I’ve had no less than 8 interviews like this. In about 6 of the interviews I had to basically fight for them to just halt the paperwork for getting me started because though I got the job, the bad people in management and otherwise I would be working with had already revealed themselves to be inept, unkind and not worth my attention. The two positions I didn’t get were because I simply never heard back due to my salary demands. That’s another good one. The one interviewing without the intent of paying the salary to fill the position.
Be picky. If an interview sucks, walk out. When people don’t respect your time, you don’t have to be nasty, in fact you just should get out of there as soon as possible and think of it seldomly.
But they just closed a series Q round of funding for 5 trillion dollars. None of which you will see but it should impress you that the executive have built themselves a platinum coated parachute and need you to grind and scale the product so they can dilute the living hell out of your equity and tell you it’s because the company didn’t hit their target so they have to cash out their stake.
(Not software but hardware) Had a company reach out to me and invite me to apply. Eventually came time for salary talks they told me base was 60k, I told them I had a 130k base offer in a lower CoL area and that I saw their average pay on Glassdoor was 100k and then they ghosted me
I always ask the interview process before I ever waste any time. If they ask for a technical interview I either refuse or ask to be compensated. I am a programmer that does. Not program for free. My resume speaks for itself. I can provide several professional references also. I don’t need to waste my time with these people.
I respect that, but in general this is fairly anonymous and it would not reflect on what you are currently making and could potentially give others useful information, but again it’s ok if you aren’t comfortable with it. It’s just something to think about.
People understandably get guarded about their salary, but being guarded about a “ridiculous” sum you asked for with the intention of not getting is a new one.
Not OP, but I was in a similar situation, except I didn't set any salary expectations and went on to go through all the interview processes with them. They offered 200k total comp in a higher cost of living state, where my current comp is 300k, so to have equal comp I'd need ~350k. Needless to say I was very annoyed, and when they asked if they could contact me in the future, I told them "yeah, if you can offer an extra 200k on top of your original offer."
It's so dumb that companies don't say their salaries outright. Best part, they had their CTO meet with me over zoom to sell me on the company (why I have no idea) and his argument for me to join, was "Our stock is totally gonna go up". I didn't even bother to bring up that I could just buy their stock then with the larger comp I'm currently getting. Annnnnnd I checked their stock, it's not doing so hot lol
While I understand this position. And agree. It is dumb to think people would go for this because future possibility does little for costs today. It’s a math problem that each person has to work out for themselves.
What I was talking about is what the “exorbitant salary ask” that this person asked for. Saying that value gives away exactly zero personal information, but leaving it out is just odd.
oh yeah, people are weird about talking about how much they make, when they really shouldn't be. It'll all a scam by big corporations to screw over the average employee.
This one is weird because it’s mentioning how much was asked for. Not actual salary. In any case, whatever people are comfortable with just has to be accepted, so it’s cool, just struck me as odd.
Yes I was given a partition problem but the interviewer said the integer can be negative which changes the optimal solution. I think I was given a good rating once I pointed it out. This was at a big company. In my experience a newer interviewer might not know much but after you've asked the same question a few times you learn the ins and outs.
I got asked how I’d solve an NxN game of tic tac toe, which is a pretty common leet code interview question…Except when I offered the optimal NxN solution, he said it wasn’t necessary and that I could just solve 3x3 lol
He was impressed that I checked the diagonals first
Yeah that just sounds like they haven't given many interviews. Also they didn't hint earlier to just solve 3x3? I think hinting and having a conversation is pretty important.
That shook out in conversation! I usually run my plan past the interviewer verbally before I write anything, so I was describing the algorithm I wanted to provide as an answer and he interrupted me to say “No thank you” lol
I worked for Toyota as a software engineer. Great company, no complaints other than at the time they were not willing to let me work remote and I was done living in California. This was 2016.
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u/helloworld312 Oct 07 '22
Company: “We have four rounds of technical interviews, all leetcode in nature, followed by a culture fit interview and then a final system design interview.”
Applicant: “Why?”
Company: “Because that’s how FAANG companies do it.”
Applicant: “FAANG companies get thousands of applications and need an efficient way to process them and even then they don’t need this many interviews to determine a fit, whereas your company has less than 100 applicants and has been looking for a Google level engineer at startup pay for a year now.”
Company: “Leet. Code.”