u/hello-codesmith wrote (the comment Michael replied to):
Totally get the sarcasm here 😅 but in reality, most companies (especially mid-to-large tech firms) have pretty rigorous interview processes, including technical assessments, and system design interviews Even if someone exaggerated their experience, it would be incredibly diffic
u/michaelnovati replied · ★ FEATURED
I couldn't disagree more and this comment demonstrates a lack of understanding of how top tech companies work. Maybe it's how other companies work though. Like I know Capital One, which isn't like a top tech company but is a good company, has a very gamble process. Codesmith has so many people there that feed each other questions to prepare and game the process, specifically the System Design round which is very fact based and a small number of questions there. Codsmith grads have a document that contains these questions and they practice them with previous grads who work there. They also have a channel at Capital One to support each other because most have to lie to get past the resume screen and work with more junior peers who outperform them at first, and they use this channel to support each other.
Anyways, the interview process isn't a game of leetcode and saying what you need to do pass.
The entire process at Meta (which I contributed to designing and trained interviewers for) was intended to evaluate your INDUSTRY EXPERIENCE and measure you against current engineers at Meta at various levels.
So system design wasn't about faking an answer but it was about evaluating the systems YOU HAVE ALREADY WORKED ON AND HOW YOU APPLY IT TO A PROBLEM.
New grads didn't do system design as a result because they had no experience to evaluate.
Meta hardly hires any new grads directly because and hires interns instead who they evaluate for months and then convert to new grad offers.
So by definition, anyone with no SWE experience should be able to pass the SD process and if they do they are basically lying in some capacity to work the system.
At Meta specifically you'll either get fired eventually for not keeping up performance, or you will somehow work your ass off and are a special person who fills in the gaps in real time and gets lucky that they don't need all of that experience in whatever team they are matched to.
Google looks more for raw intelligence for early career people, even at the mid level, but experience comes into play hard at the mid and senior.
Amazon has the same philosophy as Meta but they have a more gamble system because they aggressively fire false positives.
Nothing is perfect and people get through the cracks, but this is the intention of these processes and they have performance review processes in place to catch people who make it through for the wrong reasons.
If you squeeze through and perform well, you are an edge case that broke the system and won, and it's not attributed to Codesmith's systematic way of teaching or the community that helped them initially beat the interview process.
So if you think Codesmith grads deserve to get jobs that require experience and are evaluating experience and they are so special they deserve to break the system and skip it, then you need to focus on changing the system and that starts with trying to understand deeply why it is the way it is from the people who CREATED THE SYSTEM. It's not gatekeeping and there are actual practical reasons! Those of us who created the system understand the flaws of the system too and you will get farther addressing those than supporting people faking it through and celebrating them.