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I’m Michael. I was a principal engineer at Facebook from 2009 to 2017, where I was the top code contributor of all time and also conducted hundreds of interviews. I recently co-founded Formation.dev, an engineering fellowship that trains and refers engineers directly into big tech. Ask me Anything!

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u/CodeTinkerer wrote (the comment Michael replied to):

I've seen less specific questions or questions that say what the want, but not *why* they want it. In a way, asking "What language should I learn" is much better than "I want to learn C++, how should I do it". The second says they've made a decision, but they don't explain why.

u/michaelnovati replied · ★ FEATURED
It sounds a little random yeah. One thing I've noticed is that smaller companies tend to have less consistent and less well organized interview processes, which makes it more confusing for you as the candidate. A lot of companies won't tell you why unfortunately because it opens them up to legal liabilities if any of those reasons are interpreted as being because of you identify as being in a "protected class" in the state you live in/the company is in, or federally.