Hacker News Reader

Comment by inferiorhuman | Hacker News Reader

I've been doing the look for work grind off and on for a few months. I've had one okay, one great (Render), a couple comically bad, and then a bunch of leetcode type places… for an SRE role. The best of the leetcode fans actually had the self-awareness to ask why I declined the interview request. One recruiter begged me to go through with it because they were working hard on getting an exemption for SRE hires so it wouldn't matter if I passed. One of the worst was a company that's been posting on HN for nearly a year looking to fill a bunch of spots, I can't imagine why they've been looking for so long…

If there's a good filter to avoid that nonsense I'd love to know what it is. Somewhere around a decade ago I interviewed with Apple and it was nowhere near as obnoxious as what I've seen so far.

View on HN

> I've been doing the look for work grind off and on for a few months.

ok i may be living in a bubble or something. where in the world is looking for work in tech a grind?

I probably have a lower tolerance for bullshit both compared to my younger self and compared to most other people. So it's not just the effort of filtering out ridiculous job postings – I'm not going to work for a blockchain equipped, NFT based dog therapy app company, nor do I share your passion in bringing social media to defecation tracking, etc. Now I'm spending some time and landing right into the leetcode queue. Or going through a decent interview process only to get met with a hiring freeze. The whole process is just tedious.

Nuance is everywhere. We all have filters and goals and its important to apply them. If the leetcode queue will get you where you want then thats best. As a matter of principle i dont like it, because i think its too junior - no insult intended. Usually the types of companies that employ this interview technique also suffer from hiring freezes now and then. I skipped all that and went for the go getters. Can you do it? Sure if you pay enough.

The first time I looked for a job, it took about 11 months. 11 months of learning about companies that I'm not interested in just so that I can pretend to be excited to join them, pretending to be interested in the field they're in, of practicing leet code questions, of being asked to redo my resume in a specific way, of being asked to build web apps and do code challenges before being able to have a discussion with someone in their IT team, of showing up at interviews where a recruiter oversold my profile, and so on...

Reply on news.ycombinator.com