SHouldn't we make a life purpose to serve these companies? And serve them well? Especially if we can improve our lifestyle by the wages we receive (as long as we are deemed relevant).
Why am I, as a developer with 10 years of experience, being asked academic questions about difficult algorithms, time and space complexity, and detailed, inner operations of how databases store read and write efficiently to disk. I don’t do that as a web developer.
Because Google did it in 1992 and We’Re eLiTe TecH juST juMp WhEn we SaY sO buDdY. But seriously it’s so dumb. It’s the monkeys and the ladder thing. Companies can’t even tell you why they’re asking you to regurgitate random info. Find me someone who is hungry with passion and grit. I’ll make a dev outta them.
@@evanswildrants i see this "monkey see, monkey do" mentality a lot in companies with software engineering, lets take the AWS crowd for example 5 days a week in the office, every other company, oh well go back to "hybrid" working now ....
Great video, Evan! I agree with every bit of it. I'm a software engineer with over 20 years of experience. I've been out of work for over a year and live in Toronto, Canada. I'm still relevant (an experienced .NET developer) and keep myself up-to-date. However, passing the technical interviews gets harder when you get older, and interviewers usually try to knock you down with their questions. Last week, I lost an opportunity because they asked me to do the live coding at age 52. They didn't tell me that it would be a live coding interview. They told me it was going to be a technical discussion. I tried to be friendly and accepted the challenge. They gave me one hour, but the entire thing would take 3 hours. I couldn't finish it in one hour and couldn't take the job. Why is it so hard to get a job to pay my bills?
Crazy after 20 years there isn’t more of a focus on what you’ve been doing for your entire career. Probably could have tremendous impact on the team through mentorship and sharing your experiences and firms are beating you with the leetcode stick. So dumb.
Sometimes, I rethink why I even went into this profession just for my interviews to be luck based on if I’ve seen a leetcode question or not. Argument for it being okay in Big tech since they’re throwing u the money, but for small companies and firms, having these kind of interviews is just absolutely ridiculous man.
@@alexdarby3717 in my experience some of the smaller companies have the craziest expectations. Leetcode style stuff up front then a wild take home. FWIW these have always been very highly compensated positions but still it’s always been a head scratcher for me why we’re doing the luck based thing. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ I still code a lot, but honestly I’m probably never gonna go back to the insane asylum!
You need to do enough leetcode to learn the patterns, which allows you to solve most problems without seeing them. If you try to just memorize problems its a losing battle
@@evanswildrants true, but in my experience a vast majority of questions are medium or below. If you are unlucky enough to get a hard (I got alien dictionary for Uber), they are usually one of the well known ones. And even then maybe the interviewer’s expectation is not that you have to 100% solve it. Perhaps just explaining your thought process as much as possible with the patterns you know can help. Interviewers can also give hints but obviously that is a small penalty
@@destroyer-fr4dz yeah lol, I’ve been through the leetcode grind as a new grad. I just personally think as you grow with experience, leetcode knowledge is not relevant to a candidates actual knowledge and concepts relevant to any job description. There’s no other profession in the industry that’s like ours in that sense.. and sometimes like I said it’s just tiring to go through. Having to do >= 4 interview rounds should not be a norm, the interview process is completely broken.
Everything you mentioned I have faced these past two years since graduating with my CS degree. Currently doing Uber while I live in my vehicle. The goal of me going to school was because I want to escape poverty by not working in warehouses and restaurants. I thought that by completing my education was going to open doors and work with more intelligent-able individuals and gosh how wrong I was. The recruitment process is absolutely a complete shit show. I have personal projects and I can do algos no problem. The issue I notice is the complete lack of communication and complete disregard for my time. These kinda issues I never faced in getting hired at the dead end jobs I worked for. My take is why interview me in the first place if you clearly see that I will be a junior at your firm granted I have the acquired education and self attained skills if you can’t effectively communicate back to me to say listen we can’t be bothered / afford to have a junior onboarded. Ghosting and engineering teams that I have interviewed with at certain places these past two years seemed like they couldn’t articulate or know what they wanted is absolutely baffling. I never expected tech industry to be so damn disorganized. Am I just interviewing with the wrong places?
Get a sales engineering position. If you’re technical you will breeze through interview process. Read the book “the qualified sales leader” by John McMahon. It will tell you everything you need to know about how tech sales functions and what to tell the sales managers that will be part of your interview loop. If you like it great, stick with it and you can make a ton of money. If you don’t like it you should still be able to parlay experience into a traditional software engineering role. Try for a pre sales position vs a post sales position first. Dm everyone local to you with the title sales engineer and ask for a networking chat. Just ask them “hi I’m interested in becoming a sales engineer. Wondering if you’d be willing to have a short informational chat to share your journey.” Take the calls from a coffee shop. Best of luck my friend. Luck is coming your way. I can feel it!!
There's just not enough jobs. Trust me, if companies had jobs, they would be clambering for candidates, even bad ones who at least know their head from their foot. The problem is, the industry is no longer in a hyper growth cycle. My suggestion would be that we make the most of freelance or make creative projects on our own. Your own video games or something. That seems like the only way.
@@evanswildrants this is a great idea now that you mentioned this. Tech sales are performance metric based with very real money to be made. I used to do sales for Verizon Fios division so speaking tech to lay people wouldn’t be an issue for me. I really need an immediate money solution and not just pipe dream suggestions like many people state. Developing an app or waiting for the job market to somehow magically fix itself ideas with the hope of it translating to money in the present day doesn’t pay the bills.
Nah dude, do NOT let these morons gaslight you. Technology is built on the shoulders of giants, you would be suprised how many incompetent, leetcode memorizing scum bags there are out there. Also, do not take rejection personally, some of these high paying jobs are often reserved for nephews, colleagues, family members so they will make you jump through hoops so their friends can get the job. It happens more often than you know. Best of luck and keep trying until you can get in. Look in government, job fairs, college job counselor, HANDSHAKE is ok, and by all means, avoid incompetent recruiters. You do not owe them anything! If they could do the job, they would, instead, they become recruiters!
I did a take home that took me 80 hours. it was for minumum mid level. I had a senior role on my resume. the recruiter texted me a few days afrer I submitted asking if I wanted to interiew for a junior role. I already interviewed for the midlevel role. I never heard back after I said to her "I already interviewed. I dont understand what you guys are trying to do"
Recruiting is sales position. The recruiter is just trying to fill a role with anyone with a pulse that will take it so they can make commission. Wait for my rant on recruiters, I’m not a fan!
It’s really insane, I failed at Google interview because I couldn’t solve some complex graph related algo problem! I did great in everything except that because I run out of time. It’s crazy.
Crazy. I remember when google came to my schools career fair, they had a whole event where the head of recruiting ran a powerpoint to a room of like 300 kids where they literally said most of google gets in after multiple failed attempts and that its normal. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Algo problems are actually awful for the company getting what they want. I don't need to know if a frontend web dev can count the foo in the bar and peak efficiently. I need to know whether the frontend web dev knows ReactJS, HTML, and Javascript intimately; and whether they have the art chops to make it look good. If you're algo-testing, you are pre-screening to only have candidates that cheat the system (memorize answers rather than working on the needed skills).
Worst engineers i've ever worked with were experts at gaming the interview loops. Wild stuff really. Like they had absolutely no intention of building anything. Ever? Just in it for the TC & hoping someone else on the team would pickup the slack for 18-24 months until they vested/got fired and could do it all over again.
@dweckevan same. The ability to regurgitate large amounts of memorized text is rarely ever a good sign. Real engineering is mostly synthesis, not memorization.
@ right on dude! The only people who will remember long days and nights at the office are our children! The most important thing we can do on the earth 😎. I’m sure I will go on a wild rant into the void about that soon.
I’ve noticed the amount of tech learning people are expected to do know demonstrate is like literally Mount Everest compared to where we were fifteen years ago. They were just happy you could code and had a passion for development
As a CS student that just graduated, I've seen the mega hype that was getting into tech during the late 2010s and then the disillusionment after 2022. I think a lot of the supposed "demand" is not really true. I recall president Obama and a lot of news media telling kids to study something like CS because it's in demand, now a lot of those kids are dejected because it's so crowded to find entry-level positions. Now they're being told that they shouldn't be in it if they're not passionate. If there really was a tremendous demand, such as the one in Cybersecurity, then employers should be more lenient in training up recent grads. Of course you'll hear many say that those who complain aren't putting enough work (i.e. CS major that does the minimum with no certs, side projects, etc) and I partially agree that they're not helping themselves. But it's silly to tell everyone to just grind enough and they'll get something, because if everyone did that, there still wouldn't be enough jobs. The cold harsh truth is that demand isn't as strong as the government, tech, or media would lead you to believe.
Demand is definitely part of the problem. The field is become more competitive than ever also as people continue to flood into the industry (or at least are trying too).
I'm 40 years old with a computer engineering bs and masters. I just get up and walk out of these interviews. Even in a down job market. Why? Because I can and one day you will too.
Even for people who have a tech job there's sharks circling in the water looking for someone to let go. There are people in the company that would dunk your head under water just so there's an easier target to get bit.
I think a lot of the issue with using algo question for interviews are the expectations from both sides. If they are simply used to showcase your problem solving method live and you are not solely "graded" by the exact solution you implement I think they can give some insight into how you as an engineer tackle problems. If the problem is completely unknown to you beforehand then that should be taking into account and how far you go with the problem and the different perspectives you highlight during the process might matter more than someone who has seen the type of problem before and can conjure up a solution real quick. I think its all in the application of the questions and how they are evaluated. Good video and I believe its to share perspectives on these types of situations, especially since they can feel isolating when you're looking for a job.
I remember interviewing candidates to help with a job I'd worked on for about 6 months, and the elders wanted to give a bunch of downloaded questions and tests that weren't really relevant to the work we actually did. When I showed them my questions based on the tech stack and jobs we actually were hiring for, I was mocked and refused. The interviews ended up being fluff and surface-level feel-good shit, and they hired effectively someone random off the street. He was a terrible coder, but kissed the boss's ass better than anyone, and ended up in charge after the company got acquired and dozens of workers got axed. The whole thing fizzled anyway so I never really found out what happened because i never liked the guy or the boss anyway.
Sometimes I wonder why I'm working so hard on my CS degree. I won't be done until 2026, so I can only hope the economy/job market will be better by then.
@@Slowly_We_Rot control what you can and I promise you will find opportunities. They say luck is the intersection of preparation and opportunity. Stay tuned & subscribe - I will make a video soon on what I would do if I was struggling to get interviews. I’ve been there and was able to headbutt through. Only fail if you give up!
Wherever you choose to be eventually, it’s to your advantage to have cloud computing skills as an add on…. Even if you want to be a “tech dry cleaner” (made up some stuff). Companies will still ask you for cloud AWS/Azure/GCP knowledge. Choose one today and LEARNNNN
Aim for second-best case scenario. Ofc your best case is to get a dev job. But your second-best case is probably getting a job you would have otherwise never got without a degree. Something cushy at least, even though the pay may not be great.
@@monterreymxisfun3627 I’ve seen this happen but only with very small companies. You can usually tell when they’re trying to do this when they push the timeline on the take home assignment.
Here in Canada, I was working in a company, and the CEO told me to assign a task "a new functionality" just to to do the job for free even he said to me is not going to hire this guy. For that reason I decided to assign a simple task not related to the company. Just something he going to do always, a CRUD using 2 microservices. In my 20 years of experience in IT, and 14 years as Full-stack Java Developer, what companies are doing is good to hire Junior, the only thing they know is algorithms. I never in my life I need to use merge sort created by myself; If I want to sort something I will use SQL or ORM to delegate that. Now with AI, this type of task like algorithms need to change, because you can copy and paste, AI is good solving this problems and explaining step by step. What companies needs to do is focus what values bring to the company related to the position. Beside of that (12 years experience in a telecom). But because I don't have experience in Banking I'm not a good candidate. 🤣😂 at college/university you don't learn a domain, you learn at the company reading the manuals or asking question. I miss the old school interview 10 years ago.
To be honest, interview process was kind of detached from reality even few years ago. Yes, the difference was the constant demand etc. for software engineers but still, there were tons of companies, interviews where you apply for some "casual" software engineering job - like you'll build some API (in node js / typescript), you'll build some frontend in React, Vue or whatever, you'll have some infrastructure (lets say based on containers, kubernetes etc.), databases, saas, terraform, github / gitlab pipelines etc. and even with such quite common tech stack, some interviews WERE like they were trying to find the chosen one who will save the whole human kind on planet earth from some disaster ;) I know it's tough now, but in the past I didn't hesitate to drop interview if I didn't like it, if it didn't match , in my opinion, job description. I also was doing tech interviews in my company (we don't do it anymore because we don't hire anymore ;p) and I always wanted to know if the person understands the project he/she was a part of (like the last project in CV, maximum two last). It was more like a game - "let's say that I am a software engineer that joined your project. please tell me a bit more about it, how did you work". And then you dig deeper, you can check if person understands how such software is built, if he understands the deployment process, continous delivery, pipelines, concepts like containers etc. And of course if there was a need for specific skills, for specific project I was more focused on this. I never asked about algorithms If i knew that nobody will implement any "ground-breaking" ;) algorithm because ... the project is not about it. If he was supposed to ie. write code in javascript then I asked about some core javascript concepts etc. If the project would be about inventing some hmm compression-algorithm, then yea, I would be interested in people with such skills. I think that the process is the hmm most-dehumanized in big tech corpos, because they look like factories. They don't need a human who has it's own strengths (like in RPG game) - they need a ROBOT to manage by the endless armies of managers etc.
8:00 I genuinely think this process was put together by non-technical people. It’s like the HR article a few weeks ago, where a manager at the company puts in his own CV and it gets auto rejected because their system was broken. Now it’s funny why that system may have been broken in the first place.
I think it's pretty fair. The interview is a two way process and if you find the process is unfair, that's exactly why you should refuse the company. If the company continues doing this, they will fail. As simple as that.
Jobs I'm looking for, Back-end Web Development focusing API and Database design and implementation. Questions I get asked on a tech interview: "How can a robber efficiently rob houses for maximum loot on a street but he can only rob alternative houses"
Thanks for sharing your thoughts! The tech industry is becoming a hub for a quick cash grabs for investors hence this turmoil. Developers pay the price, and it is a vicious cycle. I got laid off twice within 1 year due to funding and corporate shenanigans. Overhiring during covid back fired, so bailing out is not an option. I just realized that dream of working a SWE is no longer what it is lool. Just build something, sell it, repeat haha
It's simple. Don't do coding tests that will benefit the company as a hiring process. When they ask me to do something that is clearly work for free i reject politely, opt out of the process and find companies that don't do that. If everyone start doing what i am doing then the industry will change but some people want to be the "good kids" and damage us all
The industry is not growing. There's not enough jobs at these big companies anymore. If there were loads of jobs, trust me they would hire junior devs.
@@evanswildrantsThink like a businessman. If you were the CEO at ... and you had 20 million contracts from different clients that totalled 20 gazillion dollars, all of a sudden you wouldn't be doing 5 stage interviews. You would be doing whatever it takes to fill those roles otherwise you risk losing 20 gazillion dollars in whole or in part. The problem is there's no jobs. Unless tech companies find a way to grow again, nothing will change.
@@ultravioletiris6241 The truth no one wants to admit. Bringing in millions of people who will work for 1/10th the cost into the West certainly will have no downstream effects, right? 🙄
Lots of good points! I'm still struggling to find the balance between coding after hours to improve my career marketability, and just simply enjoying life... As a self taught developer, I grinded so damn hard to get to where I am in the industry and it's still really hard to just enjoy what I've already accomplished. Maybe one day I'll figure it out, I think my main concern is I know how hard it STILL is, so complacency is not really an option - or at least that's how I feel.
I've just took 2 months off between jobs to cram a load of learning. It's been great, if you can financially get yourself into a position where you can do this, you can get a lot achieved. In this time I've done cloud networking, high performance coding and how to identify performance issues all in prep for my new role. It's been an absolutely great use of my time but it is obviously 2 months unpaid, however the confience I have now going into my new role is sky high. Maybe if unhappy in current role try to work towards something like that as a plan and don't burn out, it's very hard to find motivation after a 10 hour day
If you can afford to take off some time to learn that’s a fantastic approach. Context switching is very difficult so I always tell people keep learning as much as you can but try to expand your horizons slow and steady starting with adjacent topics so that you don’t get overwhelmed and get frustrated.
Hi Evan. You addressed most of my frustrations with the SWE interview process, so I won’t repeat, just know I fully agree haha. Possible Solutions: 1. SWEs should probably reinstate our version of the Professional Engineering license. It existed at one point, but was dismantled because no one took it seriously. This one time certification could theoretically do away with these random, puzzle/algorithmic interviews. IMO, anyone with an average or somewhat above average IQ and determination can perform this job. This exam would certify, that the examined has an understanding of critical & foundational CS topics. Maybe people don’t like exams, so there should be no stipulation on how many times one can take the exam. 2. Software Engineers should probably unionize in the USA, then globally. Because right now, like you said, it’s just a “Jump when I say jump [code monkey],” scenario, corporations have all the power and don’t know how to properly asses SWEs. If there even is such a thing. Just my current thoughts. LMK what you think.
1. I like this concept, feels similar to the bar exam for lawyers. 2. I don't have a formulated opinion on unions yet to be honest, as I have no experience with them, and don't feel like I have enough information to properly have an opinion.
Why are they making us do all these interview stages? It's because there's too much demand from candidates and not enough supply of jobs. Jobs are very few. Trust me if 20 billion tech jobs were created overnight, the interview requirements would be non existent since companies need numbers to do these jobs or they will lose money but not filling those positions. They would hire even bad devs at that point because they wouldn't want to lose those contracts. The problem is there's no jobs in tech anymore. And if you unionise, that will lead to even fewer jobs, since the companies are the ones who create these jobs. So putting more pressure on them will implode the industry.
Not Evan obviously but i'll share my thoughts if anyone shares a different thoughts. Lots of people say "unionize" or "professionize" as if it can magically be done. In order to do ANYTHING you need leverage. SWE is a job that can be done from home and is a VERY popular career path. This two things combined kills most leverage. A global union doesnt work because too many people exist that can do the job, someone will want to jump through more hoops and less pay and benefits. COL is a thing and for someone in Eastern Europe, Latin America and South Asia, they would be more than happy to do the job for less than half of what you do. There's no actual reason for them to join the union unless the union can guarantee all of them jobs, but them wanting to work for a lot less DOES pretty much guarantee jobs get shipped over and contracts for decades to come. I agree with you that anyone with an average to above average IQ can do this job, it's not as insane as some people make it to be because leet code is honestly 5x harder than the actual job itself, but that is what makes unionizing impossible, the job itself really isn't that high of a barrier to entry for junior developer. It may not be a total zero-sum game cause of growth, but it is close to it since growth and zero interests like we had during covid isn't sustainable, everyone can't be guaranteed jobs. Other jobs have some kind of gate keeper like working in person or having YEARS of schooling to have an effective union/ guild or some kind of apprentice program where you have to "know a guy" to get in. People don't understand this concept of supply and leverage, if we could easily have a union people would have long had one, there's a reason why none of them have been successful, just look at the recent NY Times one where they basically went right back to work with nothing changed. On another note, the engineering license only works if companies WANT to gatekeep for some reason like liability such as law, medicine, accounting and so on, this way they can take away your license if they need to. But tech is slightly different in that regard where you can't force a company to want to hire only people with licenses especially if their goal is to have an employee's market with as much supply of people doing the job as possible, there's a lot less of liability and more of "please work as much as possible" mentaility. Having as many qualified potential candidates as possible gives companies leverage and allows them to have lay offs, PIP and so on. The only way a license works is if more SWE's start companies and decide to only start hiring like this and do no more leet code. The business executives do not care about hiring practices, just that they are getting the most value from an employee.
I think it's also important to note that as big tech has matured, a lot of the "shine" and prestige has been lost. They are now the modern walmarts of the world. Only now, it's with a rigorous hiring process. I'd rather find a startup that pays decently where I can develop real skills, trying to solve a true problem, without organizational red tape and ego contests.
yeah i agree and personally I've found much higher success with small startups too with having impact in the work i'm doing. Would much rather write 100k lines of code and get my hands dirty than debug 70 lines of some legacy project at some mega corp.
I rant a little bit about side project and refer to the take home assignment and side projects as sort of the same thing at certain points of the video :)
I don’t know. Knowing about networking, databases, etc… can be an indicator of a well rounded engineer. React Andys that only know react and are completely helpless if a pipeline breaks or can’t figure out why they can’t reach their UI in dev or something suck to work with. This is more relevant to smaller companies tho, where the eng org will be smaller and you won’t have an army of SREs. Side projects, they can be a good way to gauge whether a person truly loves what they do, or if it is just a job. I can tell the differences between the two easily. Again, at smaller orgs you probably want the true zealots because most startups fail and you really need solid engineering to be successful. The 9-5er probably won’t put in the extra time necessary to meet the deadline or whatever. Your life doesn’t need to be computers, but some extra emphasis is not necessarily a bad thing. I also think that the hiring practices between Google and some small startup with 5 engineers are quite different because the needs between the two are different. Large orgs suck. Small orgs can be the best places to work, provided the right people were hired. Otherwise, they’re even worse.
I literally told a firm they need to pay me for a take home assignment and I gave them a rate. You could tell it was to solve a task for one of their clients and they hardly denied it.
I left the arts to pursue Software Engineer to only realize that SWE is just like the arts 🫠. You have to constantly keep learning new things, you work outside of work similar to practicing your craft, and the industry isn't as stable. Not to mention the gatekeeping which is heavy In the creative arts industry. Guess now I have to pivot and add programming into my list of hobbies along with drawing, music, and writing.
Not a SE, but am graduating in Data Science this April and looking for my first full time job has been insane. I've had a few 3rd round interviews, ghosted a couple of times, lots of coding interviews and yes, lots of weird algorithm questions that I know I would never have to consider in the position I'm interviewing for. I was paid $20 for spending an hour on one of the "take home" assignments as a "second round" interview -- pretty surprised I actually received the money because I was informed I wasn't under consideration pretty quickly. Side projects/portfolio work has been a difficult one for me to navigate as well... sadly my program hasn't given much of an opportunity to create things that I am proud of outside of some assignments that everyone else works on as well + I feel like I rarely have time that I want to spend on them... I'd rather hangout with my friends, my wife, or go watch my school's football/basketball games. Thanks for the encouraging advice at the end -- I have a big "superday" coming up this week.
@@evanbartholio dude hang in there it’s a giant mental battle but you really just need 1 to get the ball rolling. Best of luck with the super day. I’m rooting for you man. If you can find me on LinkedIn, feel free to add me and comb through my network. If there’s anyone I can intro you to, happy to facilitate and try help you secure that first role. Positive vibes, Evan2Evan!
Possibly, the funding has reduced and the companies aren’t able to come up with great business models. The ones that were funded have a long downward glide slope and everyone working there knows it. So the feel pressure to perform out of fear and that causes all these negative attitudes. Also in India companies are pretending to hire for roles that don’t exist to show investors that they’re actively hiring.
Alll this on top of the fact that a junior role requires the experience of a mid/senior role, not to mention that the same role that you applied for will be outsourced in less than a year without notice. I saw a sudden influx of all of this post covid
Yeah I’ve noticed this too. Definitely expectations creeping up. FWIW perfect candidates don’t exist so I’d say always throw your hat in the ring and see what happens. Just need 1 job! Miss all the all opportunities you self select out based on perceived lack of experience!
I recently got laid off and found a new job as a front-end developer. All I can say is that the whole hiring process is a matter of luck, not real-life knowledge. Some nerds who think the company they work for is the next Meta or Google, so they hire the same way, but somehow the company doesn't offer the salary or benefits like Meta or Google. I think it's really important to understand what kind of job you want and who you are. For example, I'm not into algorithms/live coding. I can do it, but I don't enjoy it most of the time, so I figured I don't want to work somewhere that judges how good of a developer you are because you know how to create 'for loop'. Same goes for take-home tasks at the beginning of the hiring process. I don't want to work for a company that throws tasks around and wastes 90% of the candidates' time. I'd rather not have a job than feel like shit after going through the recruitment process.
In Australia I’ve found that whiteboard/live coding interviews aren’t really much of a thing compared to the US, I think it’s due to a different culture
Ah, I applied for 200-300positions throughout my final year of my undergrad Companies would shortlist based on prestige of the university, then on the major (only CSE would get through) even if they allowed certain other majors (electrical ones), they would have a hard cutoff on the GPA, solely due to the sheer number of applicants. Once at the interview round, it's easy to clear as most of the questions are pretty popular ones, and one can easily understand the underlying concepts of Operating Systems by simply interacting with the systems (which most undergrads have a decent exposure to) oops is something one can learn through projects, questions from CN and DBMS are repeated and even the interviewers expect the standard answers.
Atleast now I feel hiring for recent grads in India is okayyish, at most we'll get to see a telephonic round, followed by 2 technical rounds, then a final round with the team-manager No take home assignments here haha, online assessments are pretty popular though Everything you said about algorithmic questions was spot on, most of it is luck-based
@@newbie8051 yeah this is totally insane and counter productive. Yes OS knowledge can be helpful over time but I guarantee most of these jobs are literally stitching together 3rd party api’s to create a web app thats sold as b2b software. Sorry it’s been so difficult. The best unsolicited advice I can give after reading this is start cold dming people on LinkedIn and ask for a short networking chat to hear their story. Tell them you want to do what they do and want to learn. After a bunch you’ll get better at asking if there are any opportunities on the team. You’ll start the interview loop on a stronger foot with an advocate on the inside.
@@zikomo8913 yeah I think the dirty secret is you have to play the game and pretend like you have N + 1 side projects. And with technical interviews you just need to pass them. It’s really about seeing as much as possible in prep phase so you can pattern match on the fly. Hang in there dude 🫡
I think the take home projects that take hours is completely ridiculous. I just don't do them. The reason being is that you're going to spend so much time doing it and at the end if you don't get a job that whole experience was really a massive waste of time. Usually the only time this was given is if I am applying to join a start-up. I get why they're doing it, but its ridiculous to expect so many potential candidates to be willing to just give up their time like that instead of applying for other jobs and prepping for their other interviews. The last company that game me such a project also wanted me to work 12+ hours a day 6 days a week for less than 150k a year in NYC. Yea they promised good equity but this that's ridiculous. I might as well camp in the office and sleep there.
Was chatting with a buddy about this literally yesterday. The worst part is not when you aren't able to secure the position. Its when you realize you don't get the time back! Theres an age old sales joke that applies here - there are only 2 winners in a deal. The person who closes the sale and the person who gets out first.
Bro I'm not even done your video yet but you're preaching to the choir 😂 I feel the exact same way and have also made videos about it. It's ridiculous, I don't think I'm gonna last in this industry
Software engineering is getting easier. With all the tools we have, with all the libraries that have been written. It’s never been easier, especially with LLMs to assist. And for this reason the interviews are getting harder. Why? Because everybody wants to be a software engineer, a lot of people went to school hearing that it’s a good career and they can make a lot of money and there’s an over supply of candidates
I agree with the Leetcode part (first ~6 mins), but I disagree on the open source contribs and side projects. It's probably the only thing that I've ever seen which can show that a person knows how to program. I suppose the alternative could be interning or temp hire
You said that candidates are expected to maintain side projects while also doing their job / job search which is not a real expectation in other professions. Kind of, not really. For example, a lot of doctors usually work crazy hours. I'm not saying this is good, or quite the same with the side projects situation. But it is directionally correct in that we aren't the only trade expected to bust ass.
Of course other professions have long hours. Do you feel like most doctors are expected to showcase independent medical "projects" as part of an interview loop when searching for a new job?
@@evanswildrants No, definitely, I get your point about side projects and I agree. It's just that if it all comes down to long hours, does it really matter what they're spent on? But I think you also got my point and agree with it. Mostly a matter of semantics here,
I agree with Alex, yes technically doctors aren’t expecting to work as doctors on the side after work. But they are expected work long hours, side projects are just apart of growth once you’ve completed a few it’ll all start to make sense.
6 years ago I was interviewing. They asked me to write a quicksort and gave me a laptop not connected to the internet and I couldn’t use Google. I forgot the syntax for arrays since I haven’t used an array for 15 years and asked what the syntax was like square brackets then commas right. I use objects, lists, linq, and foreach; not arrays. I asked why would anyone write a quicksort, just do .sort(). They thought I didn’t know how to code but I’ve coded for 35 years, just not that type of code so I didn’t have it memorized. They said I didn’t know how to code. I told them I’ve written 2000 lines this week and their test of my abilities is not accurate. Another job interview they asked me to design IMDB. I said what kind of database is that. Never head of it. Then they explained it holds movies and movie stars. Oh, so I designed something very simple and quick that I knew was basic and got dinged because the design was too simple. But the interview only had 10 minutes left, I thought I had 5 minutes to design it and gave a simple 5 minute answer. He didn’t like it. I mentioned I wasn’t finished with the design, that is what I completed in a few minutes,and I need several hours to do the basic design a system like that. Who designs a system like that in a few minutes? I don’t know what’s happened to interviewing in the past 10 years, it’s crazy and unlike actual dev work. I had to study things I haven’t done in decades for 100s of hours to retrain myself to quickly solve these silly coding challenges in interviews but did what I had to do to get the Principal Developer role. Interviews cannot measure anything else so they focus on coding puzzles and trick questions.
Yeah I've had many experiences like this. Worst part is a few of the worst interview loops I've experienced have been at companies working on problems/industries I REALLY wanted to be a part off. Sigh lol
Corporations don't want exceptional developers because they can become lynch pins. They constrain engineers to isolated swim lanes to ensure everyone stays replaceable. But they want to hire the most well rounded 10x Einstein possible just to put him in a box.
Definitely had less creative flexibility i expected when i got into development. Originally thought i'd have creative freedom but i was expected to build things to a spec that someone else had designed for me.
@@13odman A single developer could realistically do the job of an entire agile team in many companies. If someone is that motivated and skilled to actually do that they become a lynch pin. Management will fight this, and say you're not a team player, your messing up the burn down charts whatever...
May I ask who do you think comes up with these recruiting strategies and hurdles? Do these ideas come to recruiters as a result of consulting the developers themselves?
Recruiters have nothing to do with it, they're literally just sales people trying to fill quotas. I'm not sure the acute origin of this mess. Its gotten worse over time for sure.
its basically fashion based on what "big" companies do. recruiting is hard so instead of thinking critically about how to test someone, you just copy someone elses methodology and the most prominent ones are from faang
spot on. everywhere its the same approach by interviewers same kind of stupid questions and expectations. you can work on side pprojects anytime but when asked about side projects, during interviews don't tell them and don't do take away to home assignments. its all fake and free work.
Back in the day, i guess people you used to get to certain level of skill and then they are expected to start working and then learn as they gain more experience. Is this not a thing anymore ? I am getting annhilated in the AI market, i have 4 years of experience and i have done some good projects and worked for good companies yet it feels impossible. I mean the sheer breadth of skills they expect you to know is ridiculous. They are asking for things that their own tech stack does not even use. The previous company i worked at, interviewed me on some technical stuff and since i did great, they gave me a tought but small assignment which was more like something you get at uni to solve and gave me a couple of days and then interviewed me about how and why i did it . It made so much sense to do it that way and it was such a great process. Tech is cooked and we need a rapture a clean slate wiping out the middle management bullshit and start over. They are willing to hire only the top 1% or some shit like that. Sorry, i started ranting.
You’re good dude this channel is for me to rant into the internet. I, wild Evan, hereby permit you emotional safe space to rant to your heart desire in the comments. You’re not crazy and I’ve seen this scenario many times over across peers, friends and my own situation. Hang in there!!
5 YOE here ml/data. I pass technical interviews, take-homes, I pass 5-6 rounds total, get ghosted or they say No. Absolutely no questions asked about my years of experience implementing real projects, it’s all based on the random exercises and invisible preferences of the interviewer.
The problem is it's the top companies(magnificent 7) who set the interview trends. Companies like Microsoft, Amazon has been like that for years. They don't have anotherbetter alternative to filter out candidates.
If you work in tech, you should consider the “tech-ish” industries like large consulting firms. May not pay as well as FAANG, but AI has increased the need for web devs, infra, and others. They don’t have these types of interviews. You will be a rockstar if you are indeed proficient at what you do.
Definitely a great way to make money and a fantastic career option for those who are looking for a little more of a formal and established industry that you can build a real career in.
I saw on one ad that they were looking for a swift developer, but that he/she should also know cypress as a test tool... they literally ask that you know everything... what does cypress have to do with ios programming
isn't cypress a js framework for web only? I randomly have a lot of experience with cypress and remember struggling with it doing weird stuff related to build pipeline we had set up. Few jobs ago so would have to really rack my brain to remember what was flaky about it.
Short answer: Too much demand. I've seen both sides more than once. If demand drops, the requirements drop considerably. Source: hiring a backend engineer took nearly 3 months because literally nobody could successfully explain what ACID was, why it's important, race conditions and methods to deal with them, scaling, etc... I would think that would be important for a backend engineer to know and understand, no? The requirements fell a little because that role needed to get filled. The person that hired was the first candidate I would consider "qualified" for the role. But boy could all the other candidates bang out perfect leetcode as if they were tying their shoes. Both employers and employees are having a tough time find quality candidates/work. AI is making almost everybody's job harder due to the increased noise.
When job requirements and interviews constantly focus on leetcode over ACID, yup this is the type of focus that will be instilled in those trying to get jobs. Project Managers and MBAs kinda did this on purpose
definitely a good idea and practice to add a license to ANY `work you do so theres no confusion. Just can be difficult to manage expectations when the dynamic is you're interviewing for a job that you want.
Every tech UA-camr - "tech market sucks, AI will replace you, this is how to avoid layoffs, blah blah blah" I appreciate tech youtubers who document how they code,tools use,feelancing tips-not this garbage we've been hearing for the last3yrs....damn!
My channel is pretty much me ranting about stuff. I will probably rant about the stuff mentioned eventually but it’s really just stuff that’s on my mind. Unfortunately the topics listed are always on my mind!
This is an employers market so they have no incentive to make things easier. Big tech companies get 70k applications for some positions, they have to weed them out somehow. Imo leetcode (and system design) makes sense in this case. Big tech hires first and matches to a team later so general knowledge has to be what interviews are based off of. If it wasn't leetcode they would focus on school prestige like they did in the past so i'll take leetcode lol. For small companies I agree it doesn't make sense for them to copy this process for anyone other than new grads. Also there are no tests like the bar or mcat in swe so companies have to administer their own. Not all degrees are equal, for example you could have taken only easy classes or cheated your way though. I hate take home projects too though, complete waste of my time.
Hi! Currently in the process of looking for a position(DevOps Engineer) after a layoff(1 month ago). Do you have any tips for resume building? So far I am getting 0 reaction(0 calls) from my resume…I have no idea what is going on…
I would grab a buddies resume from former job and try to see if any glaring differences. If you’re getting no interviews you’re having a presenting yourself problem most likely. Have you also tried in person networking vs just applying online?
@ hi! Thank you for responding! Haven’t tried in person networking(socially awkward + it feels so weird). Also to be fair I am not really tailoring the resume to each and every job application. But my resume seems to be fine, because I hired a person to make it last time. This time I kept almost everything and just enhanced it, plus added the most recent job to it.
Alright, what would you tell me if I told you that I'm, who has 1.4 yoe, worked as a contractor for 2 companies, being asked to solve algorithms during live coding, medium difficulty tasks from leetcode. If other programmers on tech interviewers ask me for Junior position fundamentals from Computer Science, questions about performance, optimization (that senior devs are usually working on), method dispatch (how the compiler works under the hood), how the compiler works with RAM memory and so on. I dunno what is going on, but it looks like people went crazy. And I'm not talking about Google, Microsoft, or FAANG companies alike, just little firms. How is that? BTW I'm an ios developer, and it has been already 3 interviews when companies did what I described.
Just a numbers game that you have to play with volume if you want to work at some of the places with these style interview loops. If you practice enough you will pass them. Alternatively you can search for roles at places that have a different style of interview approach. They do exist although they're harder to find. Networking is probably the best way to find these types of interview loops. Finally, the absolute best thing to do is find someone you worked with previously that would work with you again and vouch for you. Sometimes they will bring in for a position they think you'd be excellent at and your previous work experience is basically your interview. Every day WAS the interview vibes.
Well i dont MIND the coding interviews themselves, you gotta figure out if your applicants know how to code and understand basic core CS/Maths/sometimes Physics concepts. What drives me insane is when we reach 4+ rounds. After 3 rounds there is literally no reason for you to doubt my abilities anymore, you have to make a choice and stop wasting your and other people's time. I remember interviewing for a bloomberg internship, 6 fucking rounds! For an internship! I felt honestly disrespected I didn't bother showing up to the last round, now I make 140k at a startup. But it'll backfire eventually, the "10x engineers" I know are all switching to building micro startups with their project and make money off of it, others work on a contract/consulting basis with different companies and get to set the rules once they have enough recognition, some even go back to school for a masters or PhD in a different field and use that to pivot into another career, only the tryhards who usually lack talent and only bruteforce their way through big companies hiring processes will keep on playing this game, and is that the kind of candidate a company really wants? Someone that optimized their skills for the interview process but has actually never shipped anything?
Yeah 6 rounds is insane. It’s like at a certain point we are not being productive in evaluating candidates anymore. Many engineers in my network are pursuing solo ventures right now and/or consulting on a contract basis. Finding work from word of mouth referrals. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
1) Doesn't require a degree or hard-to-get certificates 2) Easy interview process 3) Good pay You can pick 2. That's unfortunately just how it works. We were in an anomaly the past few years where in tech we could have all 3. That just isn't sustainable in the long term. Now that the bubble popped, we have #1 and #3, unfortunately that means we don't get #2.
Programmers need to stop falling on their knees and accept this BS hiring process. I rejected 2 companies when i knew there's more than 3 hiring rounds and one of them told me they do written testing i said i dont have time for that BS it doesn't make sense im a senior developer see my resume what project i built ask me about them tell me what you want to do in the job ill tell you if i can do it or not, i only applied to this job because it fits my skills and im confident about job description, why wasting my time with this long process BS
This totally works when you're a mid to senior dev who has experience and options. When you're just starting out you have no leverage (and optionality) to effectively do this. Love that you're doing this and sounds like finding success though. Right on man.
@evanswildrants The real issue is that those who enforce these ridiculous hiring practices are negatively impacting us, the experienced professionals. In 2023, I gave up on applying for jobs due to the chaotic hiring processes these companies are implementing. Instead, I focused my energy on building a small business. Since then, I've been developing an app aimed at taking a piece of the pie from one of those unicorn companies that perpetuate this nonsense. If they won't give us jobs, we'll create alternatives that compete with their businesses. I'm actively working on this, and while I haven't disrupted them yet, my app has reached 100,000 downloads, generating around $2,000 per month, which I reinvest entirely into advertising. Unlike these companies, I don't have venture capital funding, but I'm determined. I'm driving for Uber to make ends meet, but my app's growth is steady. It's time for programmers to take a similar approach. We should start building alternatives to these companies that hoard wealth and refuse to hire us. Let's challenge the status quo.
Thank you Evan. First of all, most of these jobs are basic reading comprehension. There is not one piece of software written, that you must know for a job, that does not have documentation. The biggest torture is having to explain simplistic crap like SQL and Python to some moron interviewer WHO HAS NO CLUE about the technology and how simple it is. Then, we have the elephant in the room, AI. You (interviewer) are raking me over the coals for a simplistic job which I can do accurately, and with the assistance of AI ? Asking me the same dumb ass questions. The even WORSE insult? THE PEOPLE WHO WRITE THE JOB LISTINGS!!! They tend to not have a flying clue about the technology, no clue about the tech stack, and act like gatekeepers for jobs they don't understand or know anything about. The bigger insult, they give you a take home exam, with unclear instructions as part of the hoops to jump through. I have never met more arrogant, idiot engineers in my life. They have a new fad stack every other week, in light of seeming like Gods, they tend to overcomplicate what they do, and half of them do it wrong anyways. Half of these people are passive aggressive knowitalls, with no common sense and HORRENDOUS communications skills. Sometimes I feel like selling out and becoming a recruiter. Ha!
@@NP-hj6qm hang in there. You only need 1 to get started. Once you get the first one it gets easier to get the next one. If you can get 1 you can get 2. If you can get 10 you can get 10 :)
Really a shame that so many people who have been working in industry (especially for so many years!) are self selecting out due to this lunacy. Be kind to yourself. Wish you all the best friend.
Dude my name's Evan too holy shit that's fucking insane oh my fucking god I can't fucking believe there's another person named Evan on the planet holy fucking god damn shit I'm not alone greetings brother!
Oh, one more rant! These jackasses, recruiters, put you through countless interviews, ask you redundant questions, AND NOT ONE OF THEM READS YOUR RESUME THOROUGHLY OR REVIEWS YOUR GITHUB!!!!!! What is the point of putting together all this work, effort and sacrifice, if some jackass who makes 80k salary and 40 in bonus, still gets paid for NOT paying attention to details. Recruiters are the worst. Apply direct or only through internal recruiters. Network. Then, you finally get the job, and work with dinosaurs who still use Excel and don't even know how to program. Baaaaaaaaaah!!!!
Guys I'm not the ceo shooter!! I'm just a random guy on the internet 🙈
I'm afraid your 'Random guy on the Internet' policy has expired so we're still logging you into our system as the shooter
😂
😮💨
Prove it
The court will decide that 😂
I clicked because i thought you're ceo killer
Lmao. It’s easy to quickly rule me out - I didn’t go to Penn!
me too lol
@@KrazyKrzysztof so many friends are texting me this 🙈
Same lmaoooooooooo
@@RandomShowerThoughts brutal. I usually get the “you look like nieve from catfish” 🙈😅
if everyone starts refusing to do these technical interviews, then companies would stop. If you give them power, they will abuse it.
Copium.
Enough of people will still participate in the process to still continue.
SHouldn't we make a life purpose to serve these companies? And serve them well? Especially if we can improve our lifestyle by the wages we receive (as long as we are deemed relevant).
These companies pay multiple six figures, no one is refusing shit 😂
Why am I, as a developer with 10 years of experience, being asked academic questions about difficult algorithms, time and space complexity, and detailed, inner operations of how databases store read and write efficiently to disk. I don’t do that as a web developer.
Because Google did it in 1992 and We’Re eLiTe TecH juST juMp WhEn we SaY sO buDdY.
But seriously it’s so dumb. It’s the monkeys and the ladder thing. Companies can’t even tell you why they’re asking you to regurgitate random info.
Find me someone who is hungry with passion and grit. I’ll make a dev outta them.
@@evanswildrants > It’s the monkeys and the ladder thing.
Exactly what it is, lol
Love that story 😅
@@evanswildrants me too!
@@evanswildrants i see this "monkey see, monkey do" mentality a lot in companies with software engineering, lets take the AWS crowd for example 5 days a week in the office, every other company, oh well go back to "hybrid" working now ....
Great video, Evan! I agree with every bit of it. I'm a software engineer with over 20 years of experience. I've been out of work for over a year and live in Toronto, Canada. I'm still relevant (an experienced .NET developer) and keep myself up-to-date. However, passing the technical interviews gets harder when you get older, and interviewers usually try to knock you down with their questions. Last week, I lost an opportunity because they asked me to do the live coding at age 52. They didn't tell me that it would be a live coding interview. They told me it was going to be a technical discussion. I tried to be friendly and accepted the challenge. They gave me one hour, but the entire thing would take 3 hours. I couldn't finish it in one hour and couldn't take the job. Why is it so hard to get a job to pay my bills?
Crazy after 20 years there isn’t more of a focus on what you’ve been doing for your entire career.
Probably could have tremendous impact on the team through mentorship and sharing your experiences and firms are beating you with the leetcode stick. So dumb.
Sometimes, I rethink why I even went into this profession just for my interviews to be luck based on if I’ve seen a leetcode question or not. Argument for it being okay in Big tech since they’re throwing u the money, but for small companies and firms, having these kind of interviews is just absolutely ridiculous man.
@@alexdarby3717 in my experience some of the smaller companies have the craziest expectations. Leetcode style stuff up front then a wild take home.
FWIW these have always been very highly compensated positions but still it’s always been a head scratcher for me why we’re doing the luck based thing. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
I still code a lot, but honestly I’m probably never gonna go back to the insane asylum!
You need to do enough leetcode to learn the patterns, which allows you to solve most problems without seeing them. If you try to just memorize problems its a losing battle
@ this totally works for easy problems and mediums. If you draw a hard the likelihood of you solving the problem in 30 minutes is low.
@@evanswildrants true, but in my experience a vast majority of questions are medium or below. If you are unlucky enough to get a hard (I got alien dictionary for Uber), they are usually one of the well known ones. And even then maybe the interviewer’s expectation is not that you have to 100% solve it. Perhaps just explaining your thought process as much as possible with the patterns you know can help. Interviewers can also give hints but obviously that is a small penalty
@@destroyer-fr4dz yeah lol, I’ve been through the leetcode grind as a new grad. I just personally think as you grow with experience, leetcode knowledge is not relevant to a candidates actual knowledge and concepts relevant to any job description. There’s no other profession in the industry that’s like ours in that sense.. and sometimes like I said it’s just tiring to go through. Having to do >= 4 interview rounds should not be a norm, the interview process is completely broken.
Everything you mentioned I have faced these past two years since graduating with my CS degree. Currently doing Uber while I live in my vehicle. The goal of me going to school was because I want to escape poverty by not working in warehouses and restaurants. I thought that by completing my education was going to open doors and work with more intelligent-able individuals and gosh how wrong I was. The recruitment process is absolutely a complete shit show. I have personal projects and I can do algos no problem. The issue I notice is the complete lack of communication and complete disregard for my time. These kinda issues I never faced in getting hired at the dead end jobs I worked for. My take is why interview me in the first place if you clearly see that I will be a junior at your firm granted I have the acquired education and self attained skills if you can’t effectively communicate back to me to say listen we can’t be bothered / afford to have a junior onboarded. Ghosting and engineering teams that I have interviewed with at certain places these past two years seemed like they couldn’t articulate or know what they wanted is absolutely baffling. I never expected tech industry to be so damn disorganized. Am I just interviewing with the wrong places?
Get a sales engineering position. If you’re technical you will breeze through interview process. Read the book “the qualified sales leader” by John McMahon. It will tell you everything you need to know about how tech sales functions and what to tell the sales managers that will be part of your interview loop.
If you like it great, stick with it and you can make a ton of money. If you don’t like it you should still be able to parlay experience into a traditional software engineering role.
Try for a pre sales position vs a post sales position first. Dm everyone local to you with the title sales engineer and ask for a networking chat. Just ask them “hi I’m interested in becoming a sales engineer. Wondering if you’d be willing to have a short informational chat to share your journey.” Take the calls from a coffee shop.
Best of luck my friend. Luck is coming your way. I can feel it!!
There's just not enough jobs. Trust me, if companies had jobs, they would be clambering for candidates, even bad ones who at least know their head from their foot. The problem is, the industry is no longer in a hyper growth cycle. My suggestion would be that we make the most of freelance or make creative projects on our own. Your own video games or something. That seems like the only way.
@hanzo7616 stardew valley a great example of a solo project that went wowza!
@@evanswildrants this is a great idea now that you mentioned this. Tech sales are performance metric based with very real money to be made. I used to do sales for Verizon Fios division so speaking tech to lay people wouldn’t be an issue for me. I really need an immediate money solution and not just pipe dream suggestions like many people state. Developing an app or waiting for the job market to somehow magically fix itself ideas with the hope of it translating to money in the present day doesn’t pay the bills.
Nah dude, do NOT let these morons gaslight you. Technology is built on the shoulders of giants, you would be suprised how many incompetent, leetcode memorizing scum bags there are out there. Also, do not take rejection personally, some of these high paying jobs are often reserved for nephews, colleagues, family members so they will make you jump through hoops so their friends can get the job. It happens more often than you know. Best of luck and keep trying until you can get in. Look in government, job fairs, college job counselor, HANDSHAKE is ok, and by all means, avoid incompetent recruiters. You do not owe them anything! If they could do the job, they would, instead, they become recruiters!
They want you to know 10 programming languages and 500 frameworks.
FAQ them!
The problem is as a young software engineer is that US companies want to pay India rates for 10 years of experience.
I did a take home that took me 80 hours. it was for minumum mid level. I had a senior role on my resume. the recruiter texted me a few days afrer I submitted asking if I wanted to interiew for a junior role. I already interviewed for the midlevel role.
I never heard back after I said to her "I already interviewed. I dont understand what you guys are trying to do"
Recruiting is sales position. The recruiter is just trying to fill a role with anyone with a pulse that will take it so they can make commission.
Wait for my rant on recruiters, I’m not a fan!
Name this company so we all can fucking avoid like the plague
It’s really insane, I failed at Google interview because I couldn’t solve some complex graph related algo problem! I did great in everything except that because I run out of time. It’s crazy.
Crazy. I remember when google came to my schools career fair, they had a whole event where the head of recruiting ran a powerpoint to a room of like 300 kids where they literally said most of google gets in after multiple failed attempts and that its normal. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
it's called competition
Algo problems are actually awful for the company getting what they want. I don't need to know if a frontend web dev can count the foo in the bar and peak efficiently. I need to know whether the frontend web dev knows ReactJS, HTML, and Javascript intimately; and whether they have the art chops to make it look good. If you're algo-testing, you are pre-screening to only have candidates that cheat the system (memorize answers rather than working on the needed skills).
Worst engineers i've ever worked with were experts at gaming the interview loops. Wild stuff really. Like they had absolutely no intention of building anything. Ever? Just in it for the TC & hoping someone else on the team would pickup the slack for 18-24 months until they vested/got fired and could do it all over again.
@dweckevan same. The ability to regurgitate large amounts of memorized text is rarely ever a good sign. Real engineering is mostly synthesis, not memorization.
@ taking a break from tech right now but man I would work with you 🫡.
@@evanswildrants I'm pretty close to also taking a long break TBH. Doing the "focusing on raising a family" mentioned in the video.
@ right on dude! The only people who will remember long days and nights at the office are our children! The most important thing we can do on the earth 😎. I’m sure I will go on a wild rant into the void about that soon.
I’ve noticed the amount of tech learning people are expected to do know demonstrate is like literally Mount Everest compared to where we were fifteen years ago. They were just happy you could code and had a passion for development
crazy times eh. Wish i was around 15 years ago to experience that!
As a CS student that just graduated, I've seen the mega hype that was getting into tech during the late 2010s and then the disillusionment after 2022. I think a lot of the supposed "demand" is not really true. I recall president Obama and a lot of news media telling kids to study something like CS because it's in demand, now a lot of those kids are dejected because it's so crowded to find entry-level positions. Now they're being told that they shouldn't be in it if they're not passionate. If there really was a tremendous demand, such as the one in Cybersecurity, then employers should be more lenient in training up recent grads. Of course you'll hear many say that those who complain aren't putting enough work (i.e. CS major that does the minimum with no certs, side projects, etc) and I partially agree that they're not helping themselves. But it's silly to tell everyone to just grind enough and they'll get something, because if everyone did that, there still wouldn't be enough jobs. The cold harsh truth is that demand isn't as strong as the government, tech, or media would lead you to believe.
Demand is definitely part of the problem. The field is become more competitive than ever also as people continue to flood into the industry (or at least are trying too).
We need more of such video to spread the word and bring some change in this broken industry.
@@MayurPatilishere really hope it changes over time!
Totally agree. The levels of obstacles in the process are weird and random
I'm 40 years old with a computer engineering bs and masters. I just get up and walk out of these interviews. Even in a down job market. Why? Because I can and one day you will too.
Even for people who have a tech job there's sharks circling in the water looking for someone to let go. There are people in the company that would dunk your head under water just so there's an easier target to get bit.
yup totally real. especially in competitive environments
I think a lot of the issue with using algo question for interviews are the expectations from both sides. If they are simply used to showcase your problem solving method live and you are not solely "graded" by the exact solution you implement I think they can give some insight into how you as an engineer tackle problems. If the problem is completely unknown to you beforehand then that should be taking into account and how far you go with the problem and the different perspectives you highlight during the process might matter more than someone who has seen the type of problem before and can conjure up a solution real quick.
I think its all in the application of the questions and how they are evaluated. Good video and I believe its to share perspectives on these types of situations, especially since they can feel isolating when you're looking for a job.
I remember interviewing candidates to help with a job I'd worked on for about 6 months, and the elders wanted to give a bunch of downloaded questions and tests that weren't really relevant to the work we actually did. When I showed them my questions based on the tech stack and jobs we actually were hiring for, I was mocked and refused. The interviews ended up being fluff and surface-level feel-good shit, and they hired effectively someone random off the street. He was a terrible coder, but kissed the boss's ass better than anyone, and ended up in charge after the company got acquired and dozens of workers got axed. The whole thing fizzled anyway so I never really found out what happened because i never liked the guy or the boss anyway.
Many such cases. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Sometimes I wonder why I'm working so hard on my CS degree. I won't be done until 2026, so I can only hope the economy/job market will be better by then.
@@Slowly_We_Rot control what you can and I promise you will find opportunities. They say luck is the intersection of preparation and opportunity. Stay tuned & subscribe - I will make a video soon on what I would do if I was struggling to get interviews. I’ve been there and was able to headbutt through. Only fail if you give up!
Network, leetcode and do some comprehensive projects. Your grades dont matter much
Wherever you choose to be eventually, it’s to your advantage to have cloud computing skills as an add on…. Even if you want to be a “tech dry cleaner” (made up some stuff). Companies will still ask you for cloud AWS/Azure/GCP knowledge.
Choose one today and LEARNNNN
Aim for second-best case scenario. Ofc your best case is to get a dev job. But your second-best case is probably getting a job you would have otherwise never got without a degree. Something cushy at least, even though the pay may not be great.
First you finish your degree, then you become a programmer. Why not become a programmer WHILE finishing your degree??
I wonder if companies are using tasks by interviewees to get work done with no intention of hiring.
@@monterreymxisfun3627 I’ve seen this happen but only with very small companies. You can usually tell when they’re trying to do this when they push the timeline on the take home assignment.
Here in Canada, I was working in a company, and the CEO told me to assign a task "a new functionality" just to to do the job for free even he said to me is not going to hire this guy. For that reason I decided to assign a simple task not related to the company. Just something he going to do always, a CRUD using 2 microservices. In my 20 years of experience in IT, and 14 years as Full-stack Java Developer, what companies are doing is good to hire Junior, the only thing they know is algorithms. I never in my life I need to use merge sort created by myself; If I want to sort something I will use SQL or ORM to delegate that. Now with AI, this type of task like algorithms need to change, because you can copy and paste, AI is good solving this problems and explaining step by step. What companies needs to do is focus what values bring to the company related to the position. Beside of that (12 years experience in a telecom). But because I don't have experience in Banking I'm not a good candidate. 🤣😂 at college/university you don't learn a domain, you learn at the company reading the manuals or asking question. I miss the old school interview 10 years ago.
told a recruiter who has been pestering me that i aint interested cause interviewing is nonsense right now.
Love that. Take care of yourself ❤️
To be honest, interview process was kind of detached from reality even few years ago. Yes, the difference was the constant demand etc. for software engineers but still, there were tons of companies, interviews where you apply for some "casual" software engineering job - like you'll build some API (in node js / typescript), you'll build some frontend in React, Vue or whatever, you'll have some infrastructure (lets say based on containers, kubernetes etc.), databases, saas, terraform, github / gitlab pipelines etc. and even with such quite common tech stack, some interviews WERE like they were trying to find the chosen one who will save the whole human kind on planet earth from some disaster ;)
I know it's tough now, but in the past I didn't hesitate to drop interview if I didn't like it, if it didn't match , in my opinion, job description.
I also was doing tech interviews in my company (we don't do it anymore because we don't hire anymore ;p) and I always wanted to know if the person understands the project he/she was a part of (like the last project in CV, maximum two last). It was more like a game - "let's say that I am a software engineer that joined your project. please tell me a bit more about it, how did you work". And then you dig deeper, you can check if person understands how such software is built, if he understands the deployment process, continous delivery, pipelines, concepts like containers etc. And of course if there was a need for specific skills, for specific project I was more focused on this.
I never asked about algorithms If i knew that nobody will implement any "ground-breaking" ;) algorithm because ... the project is not about it.
If he was supposed to ie. write code in javascript then I asked about some core javascript concepts etc. If the project would be about inventing some hmm compression-algorithm, then yea, I would be interested in people with such skills.
I think that the process is the hmm most-dehumanized in big tech corpos, because they look like factories. They don't need a human who has it's own strengths (like in RPG game) - they need a ROBOT to manage by the endless armies of managers etc.
You're the man for this! Thanks for being part of the solution :D
8:00 I genuinely think this process was put together by non-technical people. It’s like the HR article a few weeks ago, where a manager at the company puts in his own CV and it gets auto rejected because their system was broken. Now it’s funny why that system may have been broken in the first place.
Yeah honestly probably part of the issue.
I think it's pretty fair. The interview is a two way process and if you find the process is unfair, that's exactly why you should refuse the company. If the company continues doing this, they will fail. As simple as that.
Yup agree that it’s on the candidate to decide whether or not to pursue a role based on the process.
don't go to mcdonalds in pa. some Karen will call the cops on you
Jobs I'm looking for, Back-end Web Development focusing API and Database design and implementation.
Questions I get asked on a tech interview: "How can a robber efficiently rob houses for maximum loot on a street but he can only rob alternative houses"
wild lol.
house robber - take vs. not take dp
Thanks for sharing your thoughts!
The tech industry is becoming a hub for a quick cash grabs for investors hence this turmoil. Developers pay the price, and it is a vicious cycle. I got laid off twice within 1 year due to funding and corporate shenanigans. Overhiring during covid back fired, so bailing out is not an option. I just realized that dream of working a SWE is no longer what it is lool. Just build something, sell it, repeat haha
thanks for watching! Sorry to hear about the layoffs. Its been a tough few years here, hang in there, up from here man!
It's simple. Don't do coding tests that will benefit the company as a hiring process. When they ask me to do something that is clearly work for free i reject politely, opt out of the process and find companies that don't do that. If everyone start doing what i am doing then the industry will change but some people want to be the "good kids" and damage us all
The industry is not growing. There's not enough jobs at these big companies anymore. If there were loads of jobs, trust me they would hire junior devs.
I think sadly you are right. It feels like it gets harder for new grads to get hired every year.
@@evanswildrantsThink like a businessman. If you were the CEO at ... and you had 20 million contracts from different clients that totalled 20 gazillion dollars, all of a sudden you wouldn't be doing 5 stage interviews. You would be doing whatever it takes to fill those roles otherwise you risk losing 20 gazillion dollars in whole or in part.
The problem is there's no jobs. Unless tech companies find a way to grow again, nothing will change.
@@hanzo7616 Indians
Nah it's that applicant pool is growing faster, not the amount of jobs being less. There's a million extra people looking for CS jobs each year.
@@ultravioletiris6241 The truth no one wants to admit. Bringing in millions of people who will work for 1/10th the cost into the West certainly will have no downstream effects, right? 🙄
Lots of good points! I'm still struggling to find the balance between coding after hours to improve my career marketability, and just simply enjoying life... As a self taught developer, I grinded so damn hard to get to where I am in the industry and it's still really hard to just enjoy what I've already accomplished.
Maybe one day I'll figure it out, I think my main concern is I know how hard it STILL is, so complacency is not really an option - or at least that's how I feel.
I've just took 2 months off between jobs to cram a load of learning. It's been great, if you can financially get yourself into a position where you can do this, you can get a lot achieved. In this time I've done cloud networking, high performance coding and how to identify performance issues all in prep for my new role. It's been an absolutely great use of my time but it is obviously 2 months unpaid, however the confience I have now going into my new role is sky high. Maybe if unhappy in current role try to work towards something like that as a plan and don't burn out, it's very hard to find motivation after a 10 hour day
If you can afford to take off some time to learn that’s a fantastic approach. Context switching is very difficult so I always tell people keep learning as much as you can but try to expand your horizons slow and steady starting with adjacent topics so that you don’t get overwhelmed and get frustrated.
Hi Evan. You addressed most of my frustrations with the SWE interview process, so I won’t repeat, just know I fully agree haha.
Possible Solutions:
1. SWEs should probably reinstate our version of the Professional Engineering license. It existed at one point, but was dismantled because no one took it seriously. This one time certification could theoretically do away with these random, puzzle/algorithmic interviews. IMO, anyone with an average or somewhat above average IQ and determination can perform this job. This exam would certify, that the examined has an understanding of critical & foundational CS topics. Maybe people don’t like exams, so there should be no stipulation on how many times one can take the exam.
2. Software Engineers should probably unionize in the USA, then globally. Because right now, like you said, it’s just a “Jump when I say jump [code monkey],” scenario, corporations have all the power and don’t know how to properly asses SWEs. If there even is such a thing.
Just my current thoughts. LMK what you think.
1. I like this concept, feels similar to the bar exam for lawyers.
2. I don't have a formulated opinion on unions yet to be honest, as I have no experience with them, and don't feel like I have enough information to properly have an opinion.
Why are they making us do all these interview stages? It's because there's too much demand from candidates and not enough supply of jobs. Jobs are very few. Trust me if 20 billion tech jobs were created overnight, the interview requirements would be non existent since companies need numbers to do these jobs or they will lose money but not filling those positions. They would hire even bad devs at that point because they wouldn't want to lose those contracts. The problem is there's no jobs in tech anymore. And if you unionise, that will lead to even fewer jobs, since the companies are the ones who create these jobs. So putting more pressure on them will implode the industry.
@ agree it would shift quickly to “show up at 9am tmo” vs the current state of market which is a sometimes endless loop of hurdles to clear.
@@evanswildrantsdo some research on unions, it’s the only tool workers have to balance power.
Not Evan obviously but i'll share my thoughts if anyone shares a different thoughts. Lots of people say "unionize" or "professionize" as if it can magically be done. In order to do ANYTHING you need leverage. SWE is a job that can be done from home and is a VERY popular career path. This two things combined kills most leverage. A global union doesnt work because too many people exist that can do the job, someone will want to jump through more hoops and less pay and benefits. COL is a thing and for someone in Eastern Europe, Latin America and South Asia, they would be more than happy to do the job for less than half of what you do. There's no actual reason for them to join the union unless the union can guarantee all of them jobs, but them wanting to work for a lot less DOES pretty much guarantee jobs get shipped over and contracts for decades to come. I agree with you that anyone with an average to above average IQ can do this job, it's not as insane as some people make it to be because leet code is honestly 5x harder than the actual job itself, but that is what makes unionizing impossible, the job itself really isn't that high of a barrier to entry for junior developer. It may not be a total zero-sum game cause of growth, but it is close to it since growth and zero interests like we had during covid isn't sustainable, everyone can't be guaranteed jobs.
Other jobs have some kind of gate keeper like working in person or having YEARS of schooling to have an effective union/ guild or some kind of apprentice program where you have to "know a guy" to get in. People don't understand this concept of supply and leverage, if we could easily have a union people would have long had one, there's a reason why none of them have been successful, just look at the recent NY Times one where they basically went right back to work with nothing changed.
On another note, the engineering license only works if companies WANT to gatekeep for some reason like liability such as law, medicine, accounting and so on, this way they can take away your license if they need to. But tech is slightly different in that regard where you can't force a company to want to hire only people with licenses especially if their goal is to have an employee's market with as much supply of people doing the job as possible, there's a lot less of liability and more of "please work as much as possible" mentaility. Having as many qualified potential candidates as possible gives companies leverage and allows them to have lay offs, PIP and so on. The only way a license works is if more SWE's start companies and decide to only start hiring like this and do no more leet code. The business executives do not care about hiring practices, just that they are getting the most value from an employee.
I think it's also important to note that as big tech has matured, a lot of the "shine" and prestige has been lost.
They are now the modern walmarts of the world. Only now, it's with a rigorous hiring process. I'd rather find a startup that pays decently where I can develop real skills, trying to solve a true problem, without organizational red tape and ego contests.
yeah i agree and personally I've found much higher success with small startups too with having impact in the work i'm doing.
Would much rather write 100k lines of code and get my hands dirty than debug 70 lines of some legacy project at some mega corp.
I rant a little bit about side project and refer to the take home assignment and side projects as sort of the same thing at certain points of the video :)
I don’t know. Knowing about networking, databases, etc… can be an indicator of a well rounded engineer. React Andys that only know react and are completely helpless if a pipeline breaks or can’t figure out why they can’t reach their UI in dev or something suck to work with. This is more relevant to smaller companies tho, where the eng org will be smaller and you won’t have an army of SREs.
Side projects, they can be a good way to gauge whether a person truly loves what they do, or if it is just a job. I can tell the differences between the two easily. Again, at smaller orgs you probably want the true zealots because most startups fail and you really need solid engineering to be successful. The 9-5er probably won’t put in the extra time necessary to meet the deadline or whatever. Your life doesn’t need to be computers, but some extra emphasis is not necessarily a bad thing.
I also think that the hiring practices between Google and some small startup with 5 engineers are quite different because the needs between the two are different.
Large orgs suck. Small orgs can be the best places to work, provided the right people were hired. Otherwise, they’re even worse.
Love your username. And think you make some great points. Thanks for sharing your perspective 🙌
I literally told a firm they need to pay me for a take home assignment and I gave them a rate. You could tell it was to solve a task for one of their clients and they hardly denied it.
Good on you for sticking up for yourself. All the best.
I left the arts to pursue Software Engineer to only realize that SWE is just like the arts 🫠. You have to constantly keep learning new things, you work outside of work similar to practicing your craft, and the industry isn't as stable. Not to mention the gatekeeping which is heavy In the creative arts industry. Guess now I have to pivot and add programming into my list of hobbies along with drawing, music, and writing.
Hey I left to pursue the arts 🫡
@ wishing you the best of luck! 🫡
Monkeys and Ladders. Exactly. And senior monkeys eager to push the ladder down for a power-trip
Truth is always in the comments
Not a SE, but am graduating in Data Science this April and looking for my first full time job has been insane. I've had a few 3rd round interviews, ghosted a couple of times, lots of coding interviews and yes, lots of weird algorithm questions that I know I would never have to consider in the position I'm interviewing for. I was paid $20 for spending an hour on one of the "take home" assignments as a "second round" interview -- pretty surprised I actually received the money because I was informed I wasn't under consideration pretty quickly.
Side projects/portfolio work has been a difficult one for me to navigate as well... sadly my program hasn't given much of an opportunity to create things that I am proud of outside of some assignments that everyone else works on as well + I feel like I rarely have time that I want to spend on them... I'd rather hangout with my friends, my wife, or go watch my school's football/basketball games.
Thanks for the encouraging advice at the end -- I have a big "superday" coming up this week.
@@evanbartholio dude hang in there it’s a giant mental battle but you really just need 1 to get the ball rolling. Best of luck with the super day. I’m rooting for you man.
If you can find me on LinkedIn, feel free to add me and comb through my network. If there’s anyone I can intro you to, happy to facilitate and try help you secure that first role.
Positive vibes, Evan2Evan!
Mr CEO Terminator LOL
Possibly, the funding has reduced and the companies aren’t able to come up with great business models. The ones that were funded have a long downward glide slope and everyone working there knows it. So the feel pressure to perform out of fear and that causes all these negative attitudes.
Also in India companies are pretending to hire for roles that don’t exist to show investors that they’re actively hiring.
This is totally real.
I hate when you do the take home, job well done, and they ghost you. 😢
Alll this on top of the fact that a junior role requires the experience of a mid/senior role, not to mention that the same role that you applied for will be outsourced in less than a year without notice. I saw a sudden influx of all of this post covid
Yeah I’ve noticed this too. Definitely expectations creeping up. FWIW perfect candidates don’t exist so I’d say always throw your hat in the ring and see what happens. Just need 1 job! Miss all the all opportunities you self select out based on perceived lack of experience!
I recently got laid off and found a new job as a front-end developer. All I can say is that the whole hiring process is a matter of luck, not real-life knowledge. Some nerds who think the company they work for is the next Meta or Google, so they hire the same way, but somehow the company doesn't offer the salary or benefits like Meta or Google. I think it's really important to understand what kind of job you want and who you are. For example, I'm not into algorithms/live coding. I can do it, but I don't enjoy it most of the time, so I figured I don't want to work somewhere that judges how good of a developer you are because you know how to create 'for loop'. Same goes for take-home tasks at the beginning of the hiring process. I don't want to work for a company that throws tasks around and wastes 90% of the candidates' time. I'd rather not have a job than feel like shit after going through the recruitment process.
Glad you found what works for you. Best of luck!!!
In Australia I’ve found that whiteboard/live coding interviews aren’t really much of a thing compared to the US, I think it’s due to a different culture
Glad its less broken out there!!
Ah, I applied for 200-300positions throughout my final year of my undergrad
Companies would shortlist based on prestige of the university, then on the major (only CSE would get through) even if they allowed certain other majors (electrical ones), they would have a hard cutoff on the GPA, solely due to the sheer number of applicants.
Once at the interview round, it's easy to clear as most of the questions are pretty popular ones, and one can easily understand the underlying concepts of Operating Systems by simply interacting with the systems (which most undergrads have a decent exposure to)
oops is something one can learn through projects, questions from CN and DBMS are repeated and even the interviewers expect the standard answers.
Atleast now I feel hiring for recent grads in India is okayyish, at most we'll get to see a telephonic round, followed by 2 technical rounds, then a final round with the team-manager
No take home assignments here haha, online assessments are pretty popular though
Everything you said about algorithmic questions was spot on, most of it is luck-based
@@newbie8051 yeah this is totally insane and counter productive. Yes OS knowledge can be helpful over time but I guarantee most of these jobs are literally stitching together 3rd party api’s to create a web app thats sold as b2b software.
Sorry it’s been so difficult. The best unsolicited advice I can give after reading this is start cold dming people on LinkedIn and ask for a short networking chat to hear their story. Tell them you want to do what they do and want to learn. After a bunch you’ll get better at asking if there are any opportunities on the team. You’ll start the interview loop on a stronger foot with an advocate on the inside.
@@evanswildrants yep, imagine trying to explain why you are grinding leetcode and why it is not what your actual job looks like
@@zikomo8913 yeah I think the dirty secret is you have to play the game and pretend like you have N + 1 side projects.
And with technical interviews you just need to pass them. It’s really about seeing as much as possible in prep phase so you can pattern match on the fly.
Hang in there dude 🫡
I think the take home projects that take hours is completely ridiculous. I just don't do them. The reason being is that you're going to spend so much time doing it and at the end if you don't get a job that whole experience was really a massive waste of time. Usually the only time this was given is if I am applying to join a start-up. I get why they're doing it, but its ridiculous to expect so many potential candidates to be willing to just give up their time like that instead of applying for other jobs and prepping for their other interviews.
The last company that game me such a project also wanted me to work 12+ hours a day 6 days a week for less than 150k a year in NYC. Yea they promised good equity but this that's ridiculous. I might as well camp in the office and sleep there.
Was chatting with a buddy about this literally yesterday. The worst part is not when you aren't able to secure the position. Its when you realize you don't get the time back!
Theres an age old sales joke that applies here - there are only 2 winners in a deal. The person who closes the sale and the person who gets out first.
Bro I'm not even done your video yet but you're preaching to the choir 😂 I feel the exact same way and have also made videos about it. It's ridiculous, I don't think I'm gonna last in this industry
@@jaulpanos hang in there dude!
Software engineering is getting easier. With all the tools we have, with all the libraries that have been written. It’s never been easier, especially with LLMs to assist. And for this reason the interviews are getting harder. Why? Because everybody wants to be a software engineer, a lot of people went to school hearing that it’s a good career and they can make a lot of money and there’s an over supply of candidates
@@99dynasty totally real!
I agree with the Leetcode part (first ~6 mins), but I disagree on the open source contribs and side projects. It's probably the only thing that I've ever seen which can show that a person knows how to program. I suppose the alternative could be interning or temp hire
Or just fire people that don’t workout. Quickly!
You need to remind THEM that THEY are not google.
The problem is that the industry is saturated; so they can be picky
You said that candidates are expected to maintain side projects while also doing their job / job search which is not a real expectation in other professions. Kind of, not really. For example, a lot of doctors usually work crazy hours. I'm not saying this is good, or quite the same with the side projects situation. But it is directionally correct in that we aren't the only trade expected to bust ass.
Of course other professions have long hours. Do you feel like most doctors are expected to showcase independent medical "projects" as part of an interview loop when searching for a new job?
@@evanswildrants No, definitely, I get your point about side projects and I agree.
It's just that if it all comes down to long hours, does it really matter what they're spent on? But I think you also got my point and agree with it. Mostly a matter of semantics here,
I agree with Alex, yes technically doctors aren’t expecting to work as doctors on the side after work. But they are expected work long hours, side projects are just apart of growth once you’ve completed a few it’ll all start to make sense.
lots of truths in that, and very sober advice for both sides, hire this guy while he's still young
appreciate the support and kind words @MrGuttomek
6 years ago I was interviewing. They asked me to write a quicksort and gave me a laptop not connected to the internet and I couldn’t use Google. I forgot the syntax for arrays since I haven’t used an array for 15 years and asked what the syntax was like square brackets then commas right. I use objects, lists, linq, and foreach; not arrays. I asked why would anyone write a quicksort, just do .sort(). They thought I didn’t know how to code but I’ve coded for 35 years, just not that type of code so I didn’t have it memorized. They said I didn’t know how to code. I told them I’ve written 2000 lines this week and their test of my abilities is not accurate.
Another job interview they asked me to design IMDB. I said what kind of database is that. Never head of it. Then they explained it holds movies and movie stars. Oh, so I designed something very simple and quick that I knew was basic and got dinged because the design was too simple. But the interview only had 10 minutes left, I thought I had 5 minutes to design it and gave a simple 5 minute answer. He didn’t like it. I mentioned I wasn’t finished with the design, that is what I completed in a few minutes,and I need several hours to do the basic design a system like that. Who designs a system like that in a few minutes?
I don’t know what’s happened to interviewing in the past 10 years, it’s crazy and unlike actual dev work. I had to study things I haven’t done in decades for 100s of hours to retrain myself to quickly solve these silly coding challenges in interviews but did what I had to do to get the Principal Developer role. Interviews cannot measure anything else so they focus on coding puzzles and trick questions.
Yeah I've had many experiences like this. Worst part is a few of the worst interview loops I've experienced have been at companies working on problems/industries I REALLY wanted to be a part off. Sigh lol
Another meaningful conversation -- thank you, Evan! Btw, which camera / lens did you use making this making please? Awesome angle and quality.
thanks for the support! osmo pocket 3! standard lense
Corporations don't want exceptional developers because they can become lynch pins. They constrain engineers to isolated swim lanes to ensure everyone stays replaceable.
But they want to hire the most well rounded 10x Einstein possible just to put him in a box.
Definitely had less creative flexibility i expected when i got into development. Originally thought i'd have creative freedom but i was expected to build things to a spec that someone else had designed for me.
Exceptional developers don't create lynch pin code. Developers who are imposters do.
@@13odman A single developer could realistically do the job of an entire agile team in many companies.
If someone is that motivated and skilled to actually do that they become a lynch pin.
Management will fight this, and say you're not a team player, your messing up the burn down charts whatever...
May I ask who do you think comes up with these recruiting strategies and hurdles? Do these ideas come to recruiters as a result of consulting the developers themselves?
Recruiters have nothing to do with it, they're literally just sales people trying to fill quotas. I'm not sure the acute origin of this mess. Its gotten worse over time for sure.
its basically fashion based on what "big" companies do. recruiting is hard so instead of thinking critically about how to test someone, you just copy someone elses methodology and the most prominent ones are from faang
@stercorarius recruiting really is a tarpit problem/startup space 💡
spot on. everywhere its the same approach by interviewers same kind of stupid questions and expectations. you can work on side pprojects anytime but when asked about side projects, during interviews don't tell them and don't do take away to home assignments. its all fake and free work.
pretty much!
It's always been broken for a reason.
Back in the day, i guess people you used to get to certain level of skill and then they are expected to start working and then learn as they gain more experience. Is this not a thing anymore ? I am getting annhilated in the AI market, i have 4 years of experience and i have done some good projects and worked for good companies yet it feels impossible. I mean the sheer breadth of skills they expect you to know is ridiculous. They are asking for things that their own tech stack does not even use. The previous company i worked at, interviewed me on some technical stuff and since i did great, they gave me a tought but small assignment which was more like something you get at uni to solve and gave me a couple of days and then interviewed me about how and why i did it . It made so much sense to do it that way and it was such a great process. Tech is cooked and we need a rapture a clean slate wiping out the middle management bullshit and start over. They are willing to hire only the top 1% or some shit like that. Sorry, i started ranting.
You’re good dude this channel is for me to rant into the internet.
I, wild Evan, hereby permit you emotional safe space to rant to your heart desire in the comments.
You’re not crazy and I’ve seen this scenario many times over across peers, friends and my own situation. Hang in there!!
Same here
It means they don't search at all
5 YOE here ml/data. I pass technical interviews, take-homes, I pass 5-6 rounds total, get ghosted or they say No. Absolutely no questions asked about my years of experience implementing real projects, it’s all based on the random exercises and invisible preferences of the interviewer.
This is the main point I try to make. I don’t mind rigor, I just don’t agree with the randomness.
The problem is it's the top companies(magnificent 7) who set the interview trends. Companies like Microsoft, Amazon has been like that for years. They don't have anotherbetter alternative to filter out candidates.
thank u for not calling it FANG 😹
If you work in tech, you should consider the “tech-ish” industries like large consulting firms. May not pay as well as FAANG, but AI has increased the need for web devs, infra, and others. They don’t have these types of interviews. You will be a rockstar if you are indeed proficient at what you do.
Definitely a great way to make money and a fantastic career option for those who are looking for a little more of a formal and established industry that you can build a real career in.
I saw on one ad that they were looking for a swift developer, but that he/she should also know cypress as a test tool... they literally ask that you know everything... what does cypress have to do with ios programming
isn't cypress a js framework for web only? I randomly have a lot of experience with cypress and remember struggling with it doing weird stuff related to build pipeline we had set up. Few jobs ago so would have to really rack my brain to remember what was flaky about it.
@@evanswildrantsyes its for e2e testing, web apps, you can also test APIs but most people use postman for backend API testing
Short answer: Too much demand.
I've seen both sides more than once. If demand drops, the requirements drop considerably. Source: hiring a backend engineer took nearly 3 months because literally nobody could successfully explain what ACID was, why it's important, race conditions and methods to deal with them, scaling, etc... I would think that would be important for a backend engineer to know and understand, no? The requirements fell a little because that role needed to get filled. The person that hired was the first candidate I would consider "qualified" for the role. But boy could all the other candidates bang out perfect leetcode as if they were tying their shoes.
Both employers and employees are having a tough time find quality candidates/work. AI is making almost everybody's job harder due to the increased noise.
When job requirements and interviews constantly focus on leetcode over ACID, yup this is the type of focus that will be instilled in those trying to get jobs. Project Managers and MBAs kinda did this on purpose
It's because of over saturation and high salaries
Have you thought about adding a license to the side project? That would be interesting.
definitely a good idea and practice to add a license to ANY `work you do so theres no confusion. Just can be difficult to manage expectations when the dynamic is you're interviewing for a job that you want.
Every tech UA-camr -
"tech market sucks,
AI will replace you,
this is how to avoid layoffs,
blah blah blah"
I appreciate tech youtubers who document how they code,tools use,feelancing tips-not this garbage we've been hearing for the last3yrs....damn!
My channel is pretty much me ranting about stuff. I will probably rant about the stuff mentioned eventually but it’s really just stuff that’s on my mind. Unfortunately the topics listed are always on my mind!
Don't enable the machine... if you do, you are doomed...
Right on 👍
This is an employers market so they have no incentive to make things easier. Big tech companies get 70k applications for some positions, they have to weed them out somehow. Imo leetcode (and system design) makes sense in this case. Big tech hires first and matches to a team later so general knowledge has to be what interviews are based off of.
If it wasn't leetcode they would focus on school prestige like they did in the past so i'll take leetcode lol.
For small companies I agree it doesn't make sense for them to copy this process for anyone other than new grads.
Also there are no tests like the bar or mcat in swe so companies have to administer their own. Not all degrees are equal, for example you could have taken only easy classes or cheated your way though. I hate take home projects too though, complete waste of my time.
Hi! Currently in the process of looking for a position(DevOps Engineer) after a layoff(1 month ago). Do you have any tips for resume building? So far I am getting 0 reaction(0 calls) from my resume…I have no idea what is going on…
I would grab a buddies resume from former job and try to see if any glaring differences. If you’re getting no interviews you’re having a presenting yourself problem most likely. Have you also tried in person networking vs just applying online?
@ hi! Thank you for responding! Haven’t tried in person networking(socially awkward + it feels so weird). Also to be fair I am not really tailoring the resume to each and every job application. But my resume seems to be fine, because I hired a person to make it last time. This time I kept almost everything and just enhanced it, plus added the most recent job to it.
isn't this guy supposed to be in jail ?
Not that hero!
This is another one.
@@ricnyc2759 yes
Tech hiring is like dating apps, doesn't work for either parties.
Alright, what would you tell me if I told you that I'm, who has 1.4 yoe, worked as a contractor for 2 companies, being asked to solve algorithms during live coding, medium difficulty tasks from leetcode. If other programmers on tech interviewers ask me for Junior position fundamentals from Computer Science, questions about performance, optimization (that senior devs are usually working on), method dispatch (how the compiler works under the hood), how the compiler works with RAM memory and so on.
I dunno what is going on, but it looks like people went crazy. And I'm not talking about Google, Microsoft, or FAANG companies alike, just little firms.
How is that? BTW I'm an ios developer, and it has been already 3 interviews when companies did what I described.
Just a numbers game that you have to play with volume if you want to work at some of the places with these style interview loops. If you practice enough you will pass them.
Alternatively you can search for roles at places that have a different style of interview approach. They do exist although they're harder to find. Networking is probably the best way to find these types of interview loops.
Finally, the absolute best thing to do is find someone you worked with previously that would work with you again and vouch for you. Sometimes they will bring in for a position they think you'd be excellent at and your previous work experience is basically your interview. Every day WAS the interview vibes.
Just say you are willing to accept minimal pay and they will hire you ..... its a matter of money AWAYS!!!!!! MONEY !!!!!
Luigi!!! when did you get out?
Well i dont MIND the coding interviews themselves, you gotta figure out if your applicants know how to code and understand basic core CS/Maths/sometimes Physics concepts.
What drives me insane is when we reach 4+ rounds. After 3 rounds there is literally no reason for you to doubt my abilities anymore, you have to make a choice and stop wasting your and other people's time. I remember interviewing for a bloomberg internship, 6 fucking rounds! For an internship! I felt honestly disrespected I didn't bother showing up to the last round, now I make 140k at a startup.
But it'll backfire eventually, the "10x engineers" I know are all switching to building micro startups with their project and make money off of it, others work on a contract/consulting basis with different companies and get to set the rules once they have enough recognition, some even go back to school for a masters or PhD in a different field and use that to pivot into another career, only the tryhards who usually lack talent and only bruteforce their way through big companies hiring processes will keep on playing this game, and is that the kind of candidate a company really wants? Someone that optimized their skills for the interview process but has actually never shipped anything?
Yeah 6 rounds is insane. It’s like at a certain point we are not being productive in evaluating candidates anymore.
Many engineers in my network are pursuing solo ventures right now and/or consulting on a contract basis. Finding work from word of mouth referrals. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
1) Doesn't require a degree or hard-to-get certificates
2) Easy interview process
3) Good pay
You can pick 2. That's unfortunately just how it works. We were in an anomaly the past few years where in tech we could have all 3. That just isn't sustainable in the long term. Now that the bubble popped, we have #1 and #3, unfortunately that means we don't get #2.
realistically we just have 3
Programmers need to stop falling on their knees and accept this BS hiring process. I rejected 2 companies when i knew there's more than 3 hiring rounds and one of them told me they do written testing i said i dont have time for that BS it doesn't make sense im a senior developer see my resume what project i built ask me about them tell me what you want to do in the job ill tell you if i can do it or not, i only applied to this job because it fits my skills and im confident about job description, why wasting my time with this long process BS
This totally works when you're a mid to senior dev who has experience and options. When you're just starting out you have no leverage (and optionality) to effectively do this.
Love that you're doing this and sounds like finding success though. Right on man.
@evanswildrants The real issue is that those who enforce these ridiculous hiring practices are negatively impacting us, the experienced professionals. In 2023, I gave up on applying for jobs due to the chaotic hiring processes these companies are implementing. Instead, I focused my energy on building a small business. Since then, I've been developing an app aimed at taking a piece of the pie from one of those unicorn companies that perpetuate this nonsense. If they won't give us jobs, we'll create alternatives that compete with their businesses. I'm actively working on this, and while I haven't disrupted them yet, my app has reached 100,000 downloads, generating around $2,000 per month, which I reinvest entirely into advertising. Unlike these companies, I don't have venture capital funding, but I'm determined. I'm driving for Uber to make ends meet, but my app's growth is steady. It's time for programmers to take a similar approach. We should start building alternatives to these companies that hoard wealth and refuse to hire us. Let's challenge the status quo.
Of course seniors can afford to do this , most others cant
And if u find a new job after thousands of interviews u have to move to another city and try to find a accommodation u can afford for that money 🙃
Why would you be compensated for interview? You're not doing any real work for them
Thank you Evan. First of all, most of these jobs are basic reading comprehension. There is not one piece of software written, that you must know for a job, that does not have documentation. The biggest torture is having to explain simplistic crap like SQL and Python to some moron interviewer WHO HAS NO CLUE about the technology and how simple it is. Then, we have the elephant in the room, AI. You (interviewer) are raking me over the coals for a simplistic job which I can do accurately, and with the assistance of AI ? Asking me the same dumb ass questions. The even WORSE insult? THE PEOPLE WHO WRITE THE JOB LISTINGS!!! They tend to not have a flying clue about the technology, no clue about the tech stack, and act like gatekeepers for jobs they don't understand or know anything about. The bigger insult, they give you a take home exam, with unclear instructions as part of the hoops to jump through. I have never met more arrogant, idiot engineers in my life. They have a new fad stack every other week, in light of seeming like Gods, they tend to overcomplicate what they do, and half of them do it wrong anyways. Half of these people are passive aggressive knowitalls, with no common sense and HORRENDOUS communications skills. Sometimes I feel like selling out and becoming a recruiter. Ha!
bro why did you assassinate ceo
Thought this guy was the ceo shooter
worst doppelganger luck ever lol
Not today Luigi
Preach!
🤝🫡
Can you make a junior dev out of me?
If we were working together yes absolutely
@evanswildrants Your company hiring? I'm looking for my first job as a fullstack Java Spring / JavaScript (some experience with Angular) developer.
Luigi ?
Been applying for 1 year now on and off, had so many experiences like you mentioned. Feel so tired.
@@NP-hj6qm hang in there. You only need 1 to get started. Once you get the first one it gets easier to get the next one.
If you can get 1 you can get 2. If you can get 10 you can get 10 :)
same here :( 7+ years of experince. thank god I don't have kids to feed. Have decided not to have any in future due to this.
Really a shame that so many people who have been working in industry (especially for so many years!) are self selecting out due to this lunacy.
Be kind to yourself. Wish you all the best friend.
@@evanswildrantsthanks for your encouragement
Thanks silicon valley CEO! All your videos are a hit!
For lawyers, doctors and bankers it’s more about reputation than how good you are on a day to day basis.
Hi aren't you the guy who shot the Healthcare CEO? you look like him
TBH the europeans have it even worse. Not only is the same shit you listed but also meagre pay + high taxes
To be honest, I don’t understand why Europe is incentivizing their tech industry to move to the US lol
I agree 100%
thanks for watching!
Not me finding out he wasn’t the Serial killer
😔
Dude my name's Evan too holy shit that's fucking insane oh my fucking god I can't fucking believe there's another person named Evan on the planet holy fucking god damn shit I'm not alone greetings brother!
Evan my man! Greetings.
Oh, one more rant! These jackasses, recruiters, put you through countless interviews, ask you redundant questions, AND NOT ONE OF THEM READS YOUR RESUME THOROUGHLY OR REVIEWS YOUR GITHUB!!!!!! What is the point of putting together all this work, effort and sacrifice, if some jackass who makes 80k salary and 40 in bonus, still gets paid for NOT paying attention to details. Recruiters are the worst. Apply direct or only through internal recruiters. Network. Then, you finally get the job, and work with dinosaurs who still use Excel and don't even know how to program. Baaaaaaaaaah!!!!
You might like my rant about recruiters🤣