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Comment by rkho | Hacker News Reader

A while ago I interviewed for a senior fullstack role with a very homogenous team at Apple -- every single person on the team had been converted from the same consulting company (I believe it was Wipro).

It was a bizarre interview with three of the engineers on the team on the same call asking me very specific programming language trivia and nothing about my experience nor ability to navigate complex political structures -- you know, the things that you would expect a senior fullstack engineer to have before advancing them to the next round.

Unsurprisingly, I wasn't advanced to the next round. In light of this article, I can't help but wonder if it was all a ruse to simply demand another nepotistic FTE conversion from their same consultancy.

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Perhaps, but perhaps the role just wasn't fit for you. A lot of 'senior dev' roles are much more about programming language trivia and much less about leadership.

That could be the case, I just find it difficult to believe that an ICT3 role at Apple of all companies would be about programming language trivia, given that the specific team I spoke with mentioned how they were very cross-collaborative with other LOBs.

>I just find it difficult to believe that an ICT3 role at Apple of all companies would be about programming language trivia

Fully agreed, but I don't think it is like that across Apple at all. It was like that just for that specific team OP was interviewing with, and it makes sense in the context of that whole team being Wipro converts. This is definitely unusual to have a team like that in the first place, so OP just simply got unlucky.

Given a company of Apple size, no matter how pleasant and competent an average team is, there will always be a few outlier teams that are just whack and awful to work with.

I can confidently say the same about my workplace. I like my team and org a ton (in terms of competency, how the responsibilities are assigned, etc.), and I believe that an average team in the company is very competent and high quality. However, I would be lying if I said that I haven't encountered at least a couple of teams in other orgs at the company that I would never want to work on due to similar issues.

You know something about this specific case. I do not. I hope you land the kind of role you want, if you dont already have it yet.

ICT3 is just one step above entry at Apple. It's not a senior role.

Sorry, I misinterpreted leveling. It was an ICT4 role. Can't update my comment, so I will just leave it here as-is.

Note that senior isn't actually rare in a large tech company. It goes something like intern, junior, senior, staff, principal, distinguished, fellow. It's hard to get above "staff".

> A lot of 'senior dev' roles are much more about programming language trivia and much less about leadership.

I am curious - where do you work?

Asking so that I can potentially avoid that company, as this is the most inane and borderline backwards thing I've ever seen written about senior engineering.

Going to guess defense contractor.

Close enough. I work for a 'body shop' and I'm currently working for a european government client.

Ahh europe - where, anecdotally, all startup and eng is done backwards.

Poor take. There are plenty of good engineering organisations in Europe, just as there are more than enough terrible ones in the US.

That being said I agree I wouldn't want to work somewhere like what was described above. It's certainly not a style of interview I would approve of or conduct myself.

Not sure what the jab is about. OP works for a body shop in a governmental org, where does that let you imply that startup and eng are backwards as neither are OP's experiences?

If the anecdote is related to your experiences working on FB then, please, specify it, blanket statements aren't what I expect from HN comments.

Everyone above 30 is senior developer. When they all consider themselves leaders and try to lead simultaneously, it is pretty much political hell.

In some startups, everyone above 25 is senior developers. Everyone else is junior, there is no middle role. So it is not like companies had much choice how to label people.

Imo, most of what people write about "senior engineering" is what they personally admire in this or that senior, what they aspire to be or want others to be. It is not what actually role labeled "senior developer" is.

Make levels private. Now the senior is the person actually demonstrating said skill. Problem solved.

Indeed, levels are private at Apple. And so are the level requirements, probably to stop people thinking they'll get promoted by fulfilling them, when it's all made up anyway.

I can't tell if you're being sarcastic, or if you live in some kind of Kafkaesque dystopia I never want to be part of.

At my employer, the best senior developers are the ones who know they can google the answer to trivia so they don't need to remember it.

> the best senior developers are the ones who know they can google the answer to trivia so they don't need to remember it.

I've +20 years developing professionally. I remember the stuff I use day to day, and know how to navigate the docs of the technologies I use frequently for the less used tidbits. Being a good Senior isnt about knowing the answers to everything, but knowing how to find the answers quickly. Also, how to ask the right questions.

I don't know is always an acceptable answer, but should be followed up with "I'll get back to you in an hour or two.", or something to that effect (obviously for some problems, may need to experiment/prototype).

What, you don't remember the argument order to every common file/memory operation like the back of your hand?! /s

Possibly the GP meant there is not much leadership skill required in their senior dev roles and the amount of programming language trivia is same as everywhere.

While I hate to assume people's position, I would venture a guess that the parent is a junior developer who has had one or two experiences that lead them to believe they are better at programming than some senior devs in their company, and has yet to realise how much of a lead they have in soft skills.

Some people just don't know how to run an interview

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