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Comment by atleastoptimal | Hacker News Reader

Is Google the new Microsoft?

Eh, I interviewed for both a GCP and multiple Azure teams simultaneously and the difference in talent level was astounding.

The latter team leads were anywhere from disinterested, asking basic level leetcode questions I could breeze through, to fucking incompetent who didn't even understand the coding questions they were asking. I was shocked at how different they were in terms of thoughtfulness and intelligence.

It's a little scary that Azure team leads are that clueless.

I would really, really love to hear more about this if you would indulge us. If not us, then certainly send me an email, please.

Did you pass the Azure ones then?

lol no, I got into a big argument having to explain recursion, tail call recursion, etc.

The dude asked me a leetcode hard (that I hadn't seen before!) that I was actually able to code up, and he didn't understand that memoization and bottom up dp are equivalent with the exception of stack space.

But at that point I was so annoyed in general at the experience.

My recruiter quit the day I had an interview, my first interview rescheduled the time and no one told me, etc.

It was a fucking joke.

Also, I interviewed at Netflix as well, and I didn't get the job (passed technical interview but didn't get selected after Director level interview. Just wasn't a good fit in terms of interests) and I can't say enough good things about netflix, everyone I met there, and the overall interview process.

So I'm not just annoyed at Azure folks because I didn't get the job. I'm annoyed cause they're mostly morons.

Sounds like you were rejected due to your snippy attitude.

I was outright hostile by the end. My point was, in my very long history in tech, it was only Microsoft that pushed me to that point. I’ve bombed hard interviews, passed easy ones, bumbled medium ones, and never once lost my cool.

This was my experience too as well as some of my college friends who work at MSFT and GOOG. Microsoft engineers aren't stupid (of course they weren't) but there tends to be more dumb people and fewer very very smart people.

This could also be incentives at the companies. I have a buddy who went to Microsoft, worked 30hr weeks, and was bored. Dude is brilliant and level headed. The team was lazy AF. Worked there for 5 years and went to Facebook and is thriving, going from Senior to Staff rather quickly.

Yep. I quit after a year in 2015 because it already felt like that.

and Microsoft the new Google?

Looking at the innovation of the former and the lack thereof of the latter, it sure seems that way. Even after almost half a century, Microsoft still endures.

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