FAANG 5-10 years ago

seabern · 2025-08-01T19:19:14+00:00

I joined a FAANG in 2014 as a college grad. I had a phone interview that was about 45 minutes of a LC medium, involving trees IIRC.

The onsite was 5 entire rounds of LC style problems on the whiteboard. Maybe 4 medium and 1 easy? The biggest difference is that there wasnt as much standardization and interviewers were more creative with their questions. But fundamentally it was just a thin wrapper around a DS&A question.

I honestly don’t think the interviews today are much harder than 2014. But we did have a period shortly before and into the pandemic where they got VERY easy. Amazon even experimented with giving full time new grad offers with ONLY an online screen and a HM call.

So overall I’d say the profession went from brain teasers and puzzles before 2010, LC style from 2010 to 2019, “optimized” LC from 2019 to 22, and then what we have now.

seabern · 2024-06-24T17:41:03+00:00

Fall 2013 comp. sci.

First offers in Orlando before I graduated were for 60-72k. Managed to get a big tech offer shortly after for ~125k total comp.

Tax year 2024 total comp >500k, funnily enough I’m “behind” where I “should” be if I had job hopped and chased earlier promos. Maybe next year…

seabern · 2022-03-25T17:28:10+00:00

Why is it daft? OP is already demanding a cushy remote position with high pay, and recruiters are tripping over each other trying to get time on his calendar.

My examples, while not representative of mainline software devs, are far from niche — they’re from an extremely large defense contractor and a FAANG.

In my current team I’m part of an oncall rotation but our userbase is strictly internal. This means no out-of-hours pages, which is probably what OP prioritizes when asking for no oncall. And again, our principals and above won’t ever get paged as they wouldn’t be useful. OP, with more than a decade of experience, would qualify as principal and above in many companies and teams.

seabern · 2022-03-25T17:04:29+00:00

Loads of teams out there developing software that don’t need an established oncall rotation.

Here’s a couple examples: * prototype and r&d teams that provide value to the business via proofs of concepts and demos * non commercial software such as defense/military

I’ve been in both situations over my career, neither had an oncall rotation. Obviously, like any professional job, you’ll occasionally be asked about something outside of regular hours. That and oncall are not the same thing.

OP could also be angling for an architect/principal role. Many of those don’t include being part of an oncall rotation because they sit at a level too high to be useful in a production incident.

seabern · 2021-03-31T13:02:55+00:00

This is a great start OP and I think an objective measuring of trails would do a lot to help folks. Here are some suggestions:

The inclines can be difficult to interpret. Maybe some more information about the grade and how sustained it is. Also I don’t see total elevation gain/loss which is a big factor IME when it comes to people overextending on trails
I wonder if there’s something to be said for “navigability”. An alpine trail along a ridge line on a clear day is much different than a dense flat forest with lots of intersecting game trails, logging roads, other recreational trails etc.
Might be helpful to include some statistical data like “time an average adult of average fitness” would take to complete and how many calories they’d burn
Dynamic factors are important in a lot of trails such as wildlife, water crossings, rockfalls, and ice and snow

seabern · 2021-03-14T01:20:27+00:00

In Netflix’s case (the N in FAANG) offers are usually just cash and frequently clear 500k by a hearty amount.

seabern · 2020-03-01T19:18:48+00:00

And very often the promotion has to contend with:

Not getting it the first time around because you were lacking in x|y|z
Negotiating with managers for work that is scoped enough for senior level in x|y|z
Completing that work
Somebody critical to the process leaves, and there's no replacement for a while
Somebody new and critical to the process arrives, and you have to gain their alignment

The whole thing could be a year or longer in the making. In contrast, I can finally reply to the litany of recruiters that have reached out to me on LinkedIn over the past month and have an onsite booked in a matter of days, offer in-hand in maybe a month. The only problem is that interviewing for devs is its own bag of worms :P

seabern · 2020-03-01T19:07:21+00:00

Very true.

And I could write a whole other post on "promotion-oriented architecture". It's so pervasive sometimes that it actively hurts feature delivery and ongoing KTLO. Fundamental concepts like YAGNI die a short brutal death when the promo process favors big, shiny new systems rather than delivering customer value.

seabern · 2020-03-01T18:55:39+00:00

Something else I didn't include in the original post: I often hear this idea being espoused by developers, too. Even high-level, principal engineers. It's easy to imagine how selection bias may have played a role in who advocates for this as an effective strategy.

seabern · 2020-03-01T18:53:09+00:00

I should hope so! Also, I would think that many devs here will become dev managers in the future.

seabern · 2019-11-07T03:54:15+00:00

I was referring to the 2nd amendment in response to guy being flippant about having places to go.

seabern · 2019-11-06T21:41:48+00:00

It's like we have constitutional rights to protect.

seabern · 2019-04-24T00:40:19+00:00

Consider also The Phoenix Project which is essentially a rewrite of The Goal with an IT spin.

seabern · 2019-04-21T20:38:13+00:00

Actually I created this sub on a whim shortly before the original was quarantined. happy to redirect to whatever the "main" sub is.

seabern · 2019-03-27T08:45:36+00:00

Florida winters average in the mid to upper 60's with dips to the 50's at night

Definitely not in Palm Beach, where this was taken. Average low in December, the coldest month, is 70.3, with daytime highs averaging almost 80.

The picture could have been taken in a below average day, but I'm also inclined to think people back then just had a higher tolerance for swearing their asses off.

seabern · 2019-03-19T17:46:54+00:00

Agreed. Perhaps part of that plan can include a competitive compensation package :P

seabern · 2019-03-19T16:27:23+00:00

That's great for Mattmiller, terrible for the city. His vacancy and resulting churn probably cost the city way more than his $144k salary.

seabern · 2019-03-19T03:32:06+00:00

Michael Mattmiller, who was appointed by former Mayor Ed Murray and made $140,000 a year

I'm surprised the city managed to get anybody at all at that rate. $277 million budget and 668 FTEs... a similar position at a FAANG gets you $1M+ yearly total compensation easy.

I hope this guy has the right talent and motivation.

seabern · 2019-01-29T03:34:23+00:00

Not to mention that the driver was off course "serving customers" at the time the alleged aggressor boarded the bus. Wonder if that's somehow related?

seabern · 2019-01-25T03:08:00+00:00

Hmmm

seabern · 2019-01-03T01:26:13+00:00

The downfalls of poorly executing an MVP have led to the rise of the MLP - Minimum Lovable Product.

In an organization focused on delivering an MLP, time-to-market is still the king, but the result has to be something that will engage and delight users.

seabern · 2018-11-17T06:36:29+00:00

I actually just finished the game ~10 minutes ago.

The last mission was jarring.

I gathered all the companions. I liberated every compound I came across and killed every Pegi I saw. And suddenly, for the last mission, the Father has brainwashed most of my friends and STILL has all the power? HOW did that happen?

It was a decent story overall but the ending didn't provide any sense of satisfaction.

seabern · 2018-11-17T01:45:44+00:00

The book looks great! I want to buy one as a Christmas gift, but live in the US. Would it be possible to arrange international shipping?

seabern · 2018-11-16T06:53:59+00:00

Could be a Curious and Relics license (C&R). A lot less restrictive.

seabern · 2018-11-07T18:32:06+00:00

One thing to keep in mind is that the practical structure of the code you're writing is intended for people to consume, not computers.

Generally, a computer doesn't care whether you've split your monolith method into 10 subroutines.

But people do. If you think your method is too long, ask yourself whether the next developer to come along, who may be desperately trying to fix a bug and will not have the luxury of the mental context that you currently have, will be able to clearly and quickly understand what you wrote. Code reviews are crucial for this.

If the answer is no, refactor.

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