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Comment by bmitc | Hacker News Reader

I just went through an interview cycle at a FAANG, and I'm pretty sure only one interviewer out of five was directly involved in the actual position. And I'm somewhat certain that it was the others who were the nos. I actually didn't find out anything about the position until the final interview. Additionally, no one in the panel was a software engineer ... for a software engineering position.

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That sounds unlike faang interviews (the only one person being a swe part). Which one was it and what were the interviews like?

The non-team thing is common but they do it to bring “objectivity” to the process and since it’s leetcode or system design questions, it usually doesn’t matter unless you’re applying for a highly specialized role.

I can speak for google and Amazon - you might not even apply for a specific team till you’re in, and do that afterwards. Facebook also did team match post boot camp.

I read as “only one person on the team I was interviewing for”, not “only one person was swe”

The interview revolved almost 100% around their leadership principles, of which humility is not one, so that should pinpoint it. And I said no one was a software engineer. All six were management.

Leadership principles means Amazon? Humility is not exactly in great supply at any of the FAANGs

What level were you? I've never heard of managers interviewing software engineers at AMZN.

From that I would guess Google, who are known to be douchebags in the interview process and in the peer-eval process.

Hell, they admitted as much a few years ago... and claimed they were going to try to be better.

Google told me the interview would be in my choice of language. I chose C#, passed the first interview, then the second interview was in C and was based on language trivia. The kind of stuff you won’t know unless you work with C on a daily basis.

Needless to say I was pissed.

That is right in line with the experience of a good friend of mine.

He went on a Google interview, and they said he could solve a problem in the language of his choice. They gave him the assignment and left the room. Since we were at Apple at the time, he was coding daily in Objective-C. So he solved the problem in that.

Despite having said "use any language," the guy came back and said, "Oh, not THAT one."

And that's not even covering the douchebaggery that reportedly occurs once you work there. Another trusted friend, who worked there for years, reported being forced to rank coworkers with a graphical tool that shows pictures of them... and requires you to move them up or down on the screen to put some above others. It makes it impossible for you to put people on an equal level.

This is not from someone who makes stuff up, not to mention that this would be an oddly detailed thing to make up.

Wow, guess I dodged a bullet then.

> The interview revolved almost 100% around their leadership principles, of which humility is not one, so that should pinpoint it. And I said no one was a software engineer.

"Leadership principles" sound like Amazon. As far as I know they purposely get all their SDEs involved in hiring, and the bulk of their interviews is based on hard-skills, even when the interviewer's goal is to assess "leadership principles".

Also, one of their explicit interview goals is to have the candidate leave the interview round with a good impression of the company.

Nothing in your story adds up. Either you're embellishing it too hard or you're misusing the FANG keyword.

> Additionally, no one in the panel was a software engineer ... for a software engineering position.

None of the FANGs I know ever had non-software engineers interview candidates for SDE positions, specially when software development managers are primarily software engineers themselves and interviews have a considerable software development aspect.

I'm sorry to say but your story doesn't add up.

Honestly, it sounds like you dodged a bullet.

The bullet would have paid well, lol, and the domain area was pretty damn interesting (only reason I considered it in the first place), but yes. Although, it's honestly a little unclear. I really enjoyed speaking with the hiring manager and thought it went well enough, but the other parts and the overall process was not enjoyable. It was nothing but A-type people and subtlety hostile (?), if that makes sense. Like the others weren't interested or I was untrustworthy or not capable or wasting their time or something. Just a weird feeling. But I wouldn't have worked with those people? Either way, I guess they're looking for a very specific type of engineer, and I am not that engineer I suppose.

Overall, I somewhat expected such an experience and am glad I ended up where I did. The place I am going is filled with great people, and honestly, more intelligent and curious people.

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