I have deep knowledge of the underlying technologies, mostly deep knowledge of the languages. But my experience is that most interviewers do not care about this. They want to hear about your last project using their laundry list of libraries. Everyone wants me to assure them that I am a "React expert" or that I have "used AWS" and no one cares about the papers I've read recently or the first-principles, ground-up projects I've done. The only time anything approaching specialized knowledge comes up is when people ask trivia questions.
I think that's a concrete area for you to explore. When I hire, I'm often looking to hire to fill a specific skill gap on a project. I look for the specific skills I need right now and for skills I think will help the employee grow into other / more senior roles. But in the initial assessment I'm look for indications that the candidate can hit the ground running and be productive in a relatively short period of time. Of course sometimes I can't find the exact right candidate end-up broadening the filter. The learning for you here is to focus on selling you abilities in what the hirer is looking for. The rest are nice-to-haves.
I've got the same experience. It's weird how similar our experience in this interview process feels while we're literally years apart in work experience.
Lots of my friends in this point of their careers are having a hard time moving. Everyone is looking for a senior SWE. No one wants to really pay for it.
Also, as a recently returned American expat. It was really, really hard. Things that were important to me while working in Europe, like GDPR, had no equivalent in the US. I turned to old alumni friends to get me in the door. That proved more effective than spraying resumes.
> I'd expect to be more hireable as my career progresses. But this doesn't seem to be happening.
As people progress in their careers, some have valuable experience and acquired skills to show for it, others only have a few additional gray hairs to show for it. That's why there's always skepticism about people no matter what stage their career is in.
The questions all of us need to ask ourselves is: "What in my resume shows that I'm in the former category rather than the latter?" and "How can I prove it?"
I've had a couple people review my resume but they were all non-technical. That's a good suggestion.
In the two technical interviews I failed, one was an algo question that I bombed. I choked and everyone understood it was no-go. The other was a practical coding exercise that I failed but I didn't get any feedback. I can guess why but I'm not sure what was expected. I don't think anyone could have done the exercise perfectly in the time given, so I went with one set of trade-offs. Maybe I'm wrong and I'm just too slow, or maybe I chose the wrong trade-offs.
I've actually started turning down places that do leetcode-style interviews unless I'm really interested in working there. There are a fair amount of places that do other kinds of interviews, if that's any comfort. But the compensation will probably be less than FAANG, with some exceptions.
I’ve never gotten a response from companies that claim to not do leetcode esque screens. How do you identify these companies? I’ve just used the GitHub list of “interviews without whiteboards”.
I applied to a lot of the companies on that list. I also focus on fullstack roles. I think my experience is that 50% of the tech interviews end up being leetcode stuff.
One of the companies apparently used TripleByte for the tech screen. They gave me a multiple choice test that I scored highly on (don't know the exact score) and after that I started getting emails about completing the TripleByte process. Is it worth it? I tend to assume these things are scams.
I had a pretty negative experience with TripleByte. This isn't to say that you shouldn't try them out, since it's a pretty small time investment, but I wouldn't do them again, in large part because I believe that simple networking is way more effective for job hunting.
First, I got a multiple-choice quiz, which wasn't too bad except there were at least a few of those "spot the problem with this code" questions that actually had multiple problems but you could only pick one. That sucked, but I still passed it.
After that, I got a technical interview over Skype with some stonefaced dude who asked me almost nothing but computer science questions. I applied as a web developer, so it really shouldn't have been surprising that I know the difference between a binary tree and a binary search tree. The interviewer was stone cold and had no sense of humor. The following day, I got a rejection email.
Seems like yet another SV startup run by bros who want to disrupt an industry and have no regard for their "human capital".
Hopefully that was a fluke or they've changed since. Keep in mind that my experience is from 2 years ago.
All in all, I'm glad that I didn't get hired through Triplebyte because I probably wouldn't have gotten my current job, which is an awesome one in terms of the kind of work, the benefits, and the people.
I (practice) interviewed with TripleByte a few months ago, and no, the interviewer was not particularly warm. But on the bright side, it was quite clear they are not evaluating you on your small talk skills. The feedback I got was quite useful, so I highly recommend them as, if nothing else, a free interview coach.
I was told I needed to polish up on some data structures and algorithms topics, which of course I knew already after the interview. More helpful was the feedback I got on the coding portion of the test. I was told I appeared to lack familiarity with Python since I shadowed a built-in function name with my own variable. I knew what I was doing. I didn't need the built-in function in that scope, naming things is hard, and under the pressure of coding under someone's watchful eye I made a quick decision. I won't do that anymore.
The email was actually pretty long, which is to Triplebyte's credit. Although who knows how much of it may have been algorithmically generated.
Here is an abridged version the sake of brevity:
Hey [Ravenstine]
Unfortunately, we're not going to move forward with your application right now.
You did well in the Kanban problem. You talked well about HTTP. You write really nice, idiomatic front-end code. You understand how to build the front-end of a web application, and explained it well on our used car API problem. And you were friendly and we enjoyed talking to you.
We didn't see the depth of knowledge that we look for in front end programmers: you didn't show very deep knowledge of security or data structures. On the used car problem, you didn't seem very knowledgeable about backend web systems.
You might benefit from studying some of the following topics: Classic algorithms and data structures. Basics of HTTP. Advanced Javascript things like the ES6 features, async/await.
We recommend you study algorithms more deeply.
We think you're really high potential, and we'd love to talk to you if you're still job searching in four months (we of course hope for your sake that you're happily employed by then), or next time you want a job.
Best,
Triplebyte Team
---
Again, the fact that they provided this kind of feedback is actually pretty good.
My problem is not only that I believe I was interviewed on the wrong things(over half my questions were CS and algorithms but I was applying as a web developer), but the feedback also isn't entirely accurate.
Could I shore up on algorithms? Sure.
But look at this:
> You talked well about HTTP. [...] You might benefit from studying some of the following topics: [...] Basics of HTTP.
What the hell? Not only is that feedback contradictory, but it's horseshit. I wasn't stumped on the HTTP questions, and all my answers about it were accurate. I've written HTTP servers and have done some interesting things cutting together audio and streaming mid-roll through HTTP, so don't tell me I don't know enough about HTTP. HTTP isn't complicated.
> Advanced Javascript things like the ES6 features, async/await.
I'm not sure whether this is related to the question about promises in JS that I was asked, but I don't see how because I explained their function accurately.
> you didn't seem very knowledgeable about backend web systems
This one blows my mind. I had way more experience doing backend than frontend at the time. I don't know what I could have told them that would have suggested that I effectively know nothing about how HTTP and backend programming works.
---
Maybe my diction was poor, idk. If it was, it didn't seem to stop me from getting jobs outside of Triplebyte.
Perhaps I wouldn't have been as miffed about this if they had included algorithm and CS questions in the initial multiple-choice quiz. I shouldn't have gotten to the point of the interview only to find out that I didn't have the knowledge required.
I used Triplebyte as part of my last job search in 2017, but ended up taking a job not from them. I'd recommend them highly, if only for these two things:
1. You actually get feedback from their interview. In an interview at a company, if you're lucky, you'll get which interview you didn't do well at. Triplebyte sends you feedback like "Finally, $QUESTION[3] was probably his worst: good knowledge baseline, but gave the impression that this is an area where he doesn't feel at home. Didn't lead the conversation, and most items were shallow in details, especially when talking about scalability." This is one of many parts of the feedback I got from my interview.
2. They send you Cracking the Coding Interview. And a light jacket. For free. At least, they did when I interviewed. I think it was post-Triplebyte interview, so at that point they were sending my profile out to companies. They might not send it if they don't accept you; I don't know.
But even #1 is a very good use of your time. You get feedback about your interview that isn't just binary. They also send you links to specific references for the parts you could focus on.
My experience in TripleByte is this: even though I passed their quiz and interview, and was referred to companies, I ended up getting only one interview and no offers through them.
I happen to work in a bank doing boring banking-like things and did not attend university. My experience has been that even if one passes their resume-blind interview, the companies are not resume-blind and are still looking for the hot-topic skills and experience du jour.
The people with that kind of skills/experience probably don't need Triplebyte anyway. And my guess is that if you are being turned away from hundreds of online applications that you do not either--despite whatever programming chops you actually possess.
I have my doubts, having also passed their quiz (and still being pestered to do their full interview). The problem as I see it, is that Triplebyte is only one tier of tech screening. They’ll help you get on-site, but don’t eliminate having to do on-site tech interview BS again and again.
I went through them to get my first tech job. I highly recommend them, though I’ve seen enough negative reports on HN to say your mileage may vary with them. I certainly think they have a much higher caliber crop of companies hiring on their platform than other platforms like Hired.
Its definitely worth it, if nothing else its good practice, and identification of your weaker parts (they cover a wide spectrum) would be super useful.
Also, you would be given an option to schedule a practice mock test for the final interview.
I know someone who got interview invitations after completing a Triplebyte quiz. Just make sure you practice a lot before taking it, because IIRC you can’t retake it.
This is really not true, except maybe in localized situations which you don’t want to work for (and recruiters are not going to want to do work for those companies so the overlap is minuscule). It’s a one time capitalized expense that reduces time (money) spent by on-staff employees.
One thing you do have to look out for is that recruiters get paid after a period of employment (3-6 months in my experience). So that can create a perverse incentive to fire someone you’re on the fence about. This really shouldn’t happen unless you’re working for an extremely cash-strapped place though.
Working from the other end with recruiters, I cannot confirm this. It feels to me, the recruiter I'm working with respects both parties and really tries to find a great fit.
All of the applicants he brought were better, than the ones that applied via an online job portal. Even tough some ask 20%-40% over our budget, we are still considering them.
The gist is that the agency is going to demand a fee for bringing you in. A lot of times it’s a percentage of your offer. Thus, you get a smaller offer to offset or reduce the cost.
As a hiring manager for 15+ years, I’ve never nerfed someone’s offer because they came from an agency, nor have I ever caught a whiff of this happening.
I am conscious of which roles I offer to outside agencies, but once I do, I stop worrying about the cost and focus only on the value I can get from the candidate. Those agency roles are some of the most competitive positions; I don’t expect to be able to hire the best who happen to not realize that $0.75x is smaller than $1.00x for positive values of x.
I always thought it was because the recruiter only cares about whether you accept the offer, not really how much the offer is, and so will either negotiate based on that, or else pressure you to accept whatever offer they can muster. Plus, if the recruiter can bring in people who accept lower offers they're more likely to be used by the employer. Hence, if you accept an offer through a recruiter, it's likely that you're accepting a stunted offer.
Businesses always offer you the lowest offer they think you will accept. They can't offer you lower than you will accept, because then you won't accept it ;-) They will never offer you more than they have to just because they didn't pay a recruiter. Don't worry about that stuff, it doesn't factor into decision making.
I've had a couple interviews that mentioned the blog posts as being a factor in giving me an interview. But I definitely agree that these things are valued very little and that's ok. My resume and what I say in interviews focuses on past work performance. I mentioned these things in an attempt to provide some details to support my claim that I'm an ok developer.
