Comment by jd115 | Hacker News Reader

Comment by jd115 | Hacker News Reader

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I interviewed for a software engineering position with Goldman once (in London). The process spanned several weeks of phone interviews with people in the UK and US (I lost track of the count), followed by a full day of back-to-back interviews on-site with 12 different people - some via video conference with New York. Questions were extremely diverse, both wide and deep. Early on in the process I decided to look at this like a game and try to actually have fun, which I did... I had fairly positive feedback along the way so I thought I was doing well ALL the way until the next-to-last interview with someone in NYC on video link. I was sitting there in a room, waiting for that next interview... the person on the other side was taking longer than the others to show up. About 20 - 30 minutes into my waiting, someone I had not seen before walked into the room and informed me very matter of factly that we will not be proceeding with the last interview and he will escort me on my way out of the building.

To this day I have NO idea what happened. I never heard back from them and the recruiter wasn't able to provide me with any further feedback when I asked.

I thought maybe they saw me on camera taking a photo of the Goldman-branded water bottle on the table while I was bored waiting... Or someone was digging and saw an anti-Trump tweet of mine. Or whatever.

Would have been more fun for me to turn them down after this whole madness (which I fully intended), but I didn't get that pleasure :)

The software industry interview process is such a disaster. The worst part of every job I've ever had (including FAANG) is hitting the LeetCode grind when I want to leave. It's so fucking worthless. Just a giant waste of time. This entire fucking industry has its head up its ass.

I can't think of a single other high-paying profession that pulls this shit.

It's not that stupid from company's point of view - they're preselecting for people who really want the job, and have enough energy to pursue it. These are the people you want to for your company.

Strange that this only seems to be necessary in the software industry while literally every other industry seems to be getting along fine without these dehumanizing interview processes.

Software industry is also paying much more that most other industries. Maybe it's special in some way?

I think to the fact that other "engineering" industries do have licenses. There is no way legally they could get away with these types of interviews.

I used to be a software developer and an architectural firm (that designs buildings). The architects plus engineers had to go through 5 years of college, do years of on job training, all before they can be licensed.

I felt kind of bad for them though because I made more then most of them before I was 21.

The interviews are crazy though. The last big company I worked at had a "probation" period. For Sr Software Engineers we would only do a single 1 hour interview. But if they did not do well in the first 90 days we could fire them.

Seems much better than telling people to study leetcode hours per day for 2 months prior to an interview.

Yeah the process always struck me as just as much a barrier to exit as a barrier to entry (maybe even more so).

Totally agree! I've been getting hit up by FAANG recruiters (and other companies) non-stop this year.

I live in Los Angeles where companies never did this type of interview when I last got a new job (4+ years ago) so I had to grind LeetCode for several months then didn't get the job I studied for even though I got all questions right (I was a little slow on some of them). I kind of resent it because I know my time can be much better spent (keeping up on security topics for example).

The process is so bad it makes me hope to be no longer doing software development as a employee sooner than later.

I once had a weird interview at an investment bank for a backroom sysadmin position. I went to the interview in a smart cotton tennis shirt, black trousers, and was interviewed by a bunch of techie people wearing pretty much the same kind of clothes. The interview covered many technical issues and seemed to go really well.

When I got out and was on my way home, the recruitment consultant phoned me up and quite literally screamed at me for about 5 minutes down the phone about why I hadn't worn a suit. He didn't mention this interview requirement beforehand.

So yeah, weird things happen at investment banks :-) I didn't get the job obviously.

For one of my first job interviews I called to company whether they wore suits. They said yes. I bought a suit and got a haircut, and was interviewed by two techies in smudgy polo and sweater. I felt way overdressed, didn't get hired, and decided to never do this again. A neat button-down shirt is plenty.

Don't feel bad. It's entirely possible that they filled that position somewhere along the way and some departments didn't communicate to figure that out in time.

Or the position was cancelled during the interviews.

Not every reason has to be personal.

Hey! Did I just get some downvotes from Goldman junkies? Ahahahaha That's adorable.

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