Comment by xenihn | Hacker News Reader

Comment by xenihn | Hacker News Reader

The spread is insane. I have interviewed at one FAANG three times within the same year (this one does not have cooldowns). On-site DS&A question difficulty capped at two-sum with no twist for the most recent one (extremely easy if you have seen it before, still doable for most people if they haven't), binary tree LCA (impossible within 30 minutes if you haven't studied binary trees, moderate if you have but have never attempted/seen LCA, easy if you have) for the first one, and a keypad DP problem (hard for anyone who hasn't practiced DP imo) for the middle one.

There are people who are extremely good at DS&A interviews and can reliably pass almost any loop at any FAANG company that sticks to conventions. But I think most people don't fall into that group, and it generally comes down to luck and not getting a single question that stumps you.

I was only asked easy/medium algorithm questions at FAANG, the only times I was ever asked hard algorithm questions were at startups.

I think most people should dis-regard what FAANG do. The hiring bar there is so astronomically high that they're only hiring people at the very top of their field. I wouldn't try to take any lessons from FAANG and apply them to the rest of the industry.

I've gotten same interview that GP described from mid tiered tech shops in salt lake city.

I think some places think "we're just as good as FAANG so we should have the same bar."

Your takeaway should be that the spread is huge and there is no guarantee of consistency based on company, team, or even individual interviewers.

> "The hiring bar there is so astronomically high that they're only hiring people at the very top of their field"

The average engineer at FAANG is less than stellar, let alone at the top of their respective fields. People who are actually at the top of their fields can often skip leetcode interviews and only get domain specific questions related to their field of expertise.

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