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Comment by paxys | Hacker News Reader

Assuming you are making it to final rounds, 40 interviews, at an average of 6-8 per company, means you have been rejected by 5-7 companies. If you are aiming for only FAANG-equivalents then competition for the open positions is obviously intense, and your experience isn't too out of the ordinary. I'd wager the best programmer on the planet will have a <50% success rate at leetcode-style interviews. Remember that you are aiming for $300K-500K/yr salary at age 32. That puts you in the top 0.01% of the global population. It isn't meant to be easy.

You have two paths forward. Either double down, do more coding prep, more mock interviews, keep applying, and eventually you will get that offer. Or aim for one tier lower and find a smaller company or startup that is a good fit for your skill set.

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> I'd wager the best programmer on the planet will have a <50% success rate at leetcode-style interviews

This made me wonder, is it true? I've often stumbled on LC tests, in ways that I (funnily enough) wouldn't have failed myself for. Off-by-ones, went down the wrong path initially but found the right one and ran out of time, that kind of thing. I suppose it depends on where you set the bar.

What are people's experiences? The worst cases for me is when it's an ambush. Talking about architecture or experience and then suddenly the guy wants a DP solution in python.

Somehow when it's just been a test with no person there, I've actually done fine on it. Having the person there in the interview throws me off. They take me down the wrong path, or they get impatient. I did 4 online questions in an hour once, then I thought I was through to a human being, and instead the guy didn't want to put any effort into interviewing me at all, started doing other work, no feedback or anything on a question I hadn't seen.

I've heard that some people just go nuts with the Leetcode. Hundreds of questions done. I've never thought it was a great use of time since there's always more questions you haven't seen, but I wonder how good the return on effort is there.

There's a lot of positions in the 200-300k range that aren't as petulant in hiring and probably better places to work anyway?

Yeah, I guess my main gripe is that if absolutely every job did it, I would just hunker down and study LC for a month and then apply. With my recent interviews it's been a mixed bag, enough that it doesn't feel worth it.

  at an average of 6-8 per company

Based on what?

1 recruiter call

1-2 phone screens

Maybe a take home test

4-5 onsite interviews

1 call with hiring manager

This is the standard process in big tech recruiting.

It's exhausting just reading this, let alone doing it with multiple companies.

How did it get so crazy, or is this only for the most elite companies, and positions? I can't imagine going to all this trouble for a java programming position at a regional insurance company or something similar.

This is the process for almost every company, not just FAANGS.

Cool shit you folks have to go thru there.

In last year in eu Ive been in talks with 3 companies and all of them needed just 1 or 2 15min phone calls and one 1.5h talk over Teams.

So, if you want to do 3 or more tech rounds you better be fucking Microsoft or Apple

Even no name companies are doing at least 4, sometimes 7-8 rounds.

I am sick of it, but what can you do when they all do the same thing.

If you are just interviewing for sport, not actually for job, then you can tell them that you are rejecting them due to rounds count

And is this the process for other roles; marketing, sales, finance, etc, or is this a tech self-inflicted curse?

I don't know about others. I know a few doctors, like a friend who is an emergency physician.

He was hired after 1 hour long interview, and he could start next monday.

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