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Comment by cryptoboy2283 | Hacker News Reader

Signals I've got from this post:

- Steve's company got acquihired by Amazon, granting him a free ticket in without all the torment of the multi-stage interview pipeline.

- It's a well known fact that it's easier to jump from one FAANG to another, so while interviewing at Google he had significant advantage, plus the blog gaining popularity.

- All of this has caused a deep down imposter syndrome, which resulted in an attempt to "improve" an interview process from the inside - but the wings were clipped pretty quickly by the corporate politics. It turns out that lawyers are not planning to reinvent anything there and hence are somewhat more important than engineers.

- The post itself is an self-applause over essentially a failed effort. "I've tried"

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Well, not exactly. He did say that the hiring process at Geoworks was incredibly rigorous, and that he passed that.

I know this author’s name but not his whole life story, but it reads like he got hired at Amazon before they acquired Geoworks and brought all of his former colleagues over.

Yeah, if you read the older blogposts he talks about interviewing at Amazon multiple times.

We must've read 2 different posts.

And even if you're interpretation is correct, you sound pretty rude. You're really gonna mock someone for not liking the interview process and trying to make it better?

An equally rude and aggressive response.

In what way? I didn't attack his character like he did to the blog author.

Steve Yegge writing a self-applause post? Well, I never! =)

Don’t worry he probably got an agent to do it. Maybe ten.

- "This attracts strong candidates to you, because even your rejections are worth something to them."

That's some solid gaslighting right there! You're right Steve, I would rather be rejected by your team than wasting my time by doing something positive with my career.

Yah this was the part that really threw me as well.

"People would be pleased to have a rejection from us. They'd be proud to carry it sounds with them. Lucky them!"

It's funny, I see an article from Yegge and thought "I like that writer, I haven't read any of his stuff in a while, I'll see what he has to say." Then got to the end and see the links to gas town and gas city and remembered it was the same Yegge that while having accurate foresight about orchestration of agents also was a bit off the deep end in gas town.

But the biggest thing I see in this article is it really sounds like "here is the new company I landed at, and rather than make a post about its product, I'm going instead make a post about how terrible the problem it solves really is, and a post on a proposed solution. And the cues what I'll pop up in a few weeks and just coincidentally post about this new company that just happens to solve this problem in the way I've convinced everyone is the right solution."

While I don't have any evidence of this that's the feeling I left with. And if so, then "thought leaders" are a lot more interesting when not "talking their book."

Counter: I failed a rigorous interview at Facebook years ago and the project lead of their mesh internet Aquila was one of my interviewers. I still was pleased to not have the job because I didn’t really want to be marked with being a Facebook employee.

I interviewed at Google last year and they said something similarly magnanimous: that they rejected people who wouldn't have been successful at Google and that the rejects actually thanked them for the wisdom. My eyes rolled all the way back in my head. I cancelled the rest of my loop and went to a different FAANG. When I sent the cancellation email I thanked the recruiter for sharing his wisdom.

He specifically mentioned that Geoworks got Acquired shortly after he was already at Amazon

So, he actually did go through the multi-stage interview pipeline.

Just because you can’t read well, you don’t have to be so cynical.

This is correct. GP hid a lot of unfounded and speculative negativity behind "this is a signal I'm getting". Not only did Yegge interview at Amazon, he also interviewed at Google and was very successful at senior levels of engineering leadership for the better part of a decade in both roles.

As for imposter syndrome: Yegge graduated from high school at 14 and studied nuclear reactor engineering with the US Navy in addition to his roles at prominent Silicon Valley companies. He is not my pick for somebody with imposter syndrome.

I am a fan of his because I've been reading his blog since the Stevie's Drunken Blog Rants days, and he was quite active in the Emacs community for some time. I also worked at Amazon and so his experience there became particularly interesting to me during that time.

Per TFA Steve got hired by Amazon and then kicked off the acquisition of his former company.

I read through it and that’s not the impression I got, it was a thought experiment and not much more.

However, a few companies do have a co-working day, where you work with various people on the team to solve a business problem. I wonder if he could have proposed that instead.

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