Most Tech Interview Prep is GARBAGE. (From a Principal Engineer at Amazon)
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- čas přidán 14. 05. 2024
- Most software engineering prep videos on CZcams are only good for entry-level jobs. You deserve more than that. Let me share my mental model for how to successfully prep for a senior, staff or principal role at a FAANG company.
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I totally agree that the interview process should not just be focused on leetcoding interviews - especially for Sr+ engineers, but from recent experience with FAANG as an engineer with 25+ yrs experience, what I found was ... screening calls .. 100% leetcode (HARD in my case) .. so if you can't pull leetcode hard Q's out of your backside (perfectly) in 25 mins you don't even get to the 'onsites', where, you get another THREE leetcode HARD interviews, followed by a System Design and a behavioral ... this was the pattern across the board. The focus, no matter what your seniority, seems to be leetcode .. which is what takes 90% of the prep time going in .... as I Sr guy I can do Sys Design all day long, because it's closer to what I actually do as a Sr engineer .. but the leetcode stuff.. well that's never been part of the dayjob and requires practice..and luck! Such a terrible and contrived way to evaluate Sr engineers IMHO
I found the same sadly
100% agree
I don't know how AWS hires, but as one of the senior engineers in a FANG company, there is NO WAY you can get away with 30% coding in your studying time. Things asked of a senior engineer is still so code heavy that you will definitely fail if you only allocate 30% time and are not a coding genius by birth.
totally agree
I hear you, if you can't get past a phone screen it this advice doesn't work. My point was once you get an interview loop stop over-focusing on leetcode questions.
The irony of most of the interview prep courses out there is that they were almost all created by ex FAANG engineers who turned out to be much better at creating CZcams videos that they were at being software engineers.
@ScienceVideosFan Touche´
lets be honest here we still need people like them for the juniors. seniors developers don't even care which makes it hard to learn
i agree, lmao.
TechLead types?
so… you forgot to add "ex-engineers" there
Video: stop doing leetcode
Me after watching the video: Guess I better go do some leetcode
Video: it costs ONE MILLION DOLLARS to hire a developer and not give him the resources it takes to succeed!!!! Me: I'm not charging enough.
Its all about leetcode to pass.
Lovely what you said, and thank you for that. I worked at Amazon, an according to my buddy I was expected to code like him, design like him and think like him because I started in a L5 role (as him). Language was not a barrier because we both speak Spanish. In fact after one week working on a project he stopped joining any meeting because I was supposed to answer all questions (no writing documentation exist because he worked alone, in fact I must say SIM tickets were poorly documented if you try to find out why some technical decisions were done that way). I recall once my manager told me to get more info about a process and when I asked my "buddy and mentor", he says that it was not my work and I need to spend more time coding. I ended up quitting, because you could be a good technical developer (I am not consider myself the best but I do my best) but the lack of business info and the lack of support was a nightmare. In fact, in the starting training sessions when they tell you you must rely on your team in order the avoid that feeling of the impostor syndrome, well my lovely buddy made feel that way.
My big advice, those companies (FAANG) like any other companies have their pros and cons (like any other job). Do not idolatry them (in my case the salary was not that high, a 10% raise in compare to my previous job, so it did not pay off the nightmare I experienced). And I am the kind of person that do not mind working extra hours as long as I am learning (in fact the project was quite interesting). Try what you think it is best for your career (and probably you realize these kind of companies are not meant for you, and you know what.... It is OK)
The fact that this guy keeps talking about firing every 3rd sentence is a give away about amazon culture :)
It's not that bad.
@@ALifeEngineered You're not fooling anyone. I have a staff engineer freind at Amazon. He has told me of the horrors. Everyday, all the top management gather around a secret underground statue of bezos, they have to chant "come on jeffrey you can do it" while they sacrifice an important part of their souls. My friend had to eat his adopted child's goldfish.
@@daruiraikage i atttest to this i was there
@@daruiraikage 😂😂😂😂
@@daruiraikage is this really true?
This video is a godsend. Thanks for explaining the proper context, and how to use that context in prep.
Thank you so much for your content. Just with this video alone I have learned plenty. Definitely following your channel since within the next 5 years I hope to be able to reach senior or (hopefully) a principal level :).
I could not disagree more. System design and behavioral interviews are easy if you are already a good senior engineer. I have 10 YOE and I barely need to prep for these to be moderately successful in most interviews. Coding problems, on the other hand, require countless hours of study time. If you can solve "Leetcode #4 - Median of Two Sorted Arrays" optimally with no study time, you deserve a Nobel Prize (and yes, Amazon asks this in interviews).
Great content, really helpful tips for more senior candidates. Thanks a lot for making this video!
Thanks for squashing the notion of leetcode..i was so anxious around it. Cant wait for more prep on senior engineers
Thank You! This information was so helpful for me. I have a big interview for an engineer role later today. Glad I found you!
Thank you so much for the video. Still just a beginner in coding, but it really shed some light on what you might need to succeed, going down the path!
Thanks a lot! This talk is pure gold!!! And it's available for everyone. Super detailed and knowledgeful. Thanks a lot for sharing,
I appreciate the thoughtfulness and clarity of your content. I like the perspective you take on using proxies to help make a decision to hire with very little time. I'm wondering if you have advice on proxies that candidates can employ to gauge if a potential employer is the right place for them? Awesome channel, thank you for the advice!
Hey Steve, I really like your videos thanks a lot for the good work!
I am not an Engineer that has a dream company to work at, so I find myself in a situation where I need to find which is the right company for me, and during the interview process I am switching roles between being the interviewee and being the interviewer. Therefore, it would be really nice to see a video with tips on how to find a good company, and how asset if the engineering environment is suitable for me, if the code-base is healthy, if the coding mentality and practices overlaps with my preferences, etc. Obviously, everyone has different goals and ambitions when it comes to picking a work place, but I believe that there is a common layer that covers most Engineers (at least for Staff/Principal level). Just an idea..!
I am completely in agreement with the content, this is helping me change my mindset for sr position preperation
Great stuff! I’d be interested in more system design questions and how to approach and formulate an exceptional type of answer. 👍🏽
Thanks for sharing, the last section about how answer shows your seniority really makes me rethink about my answer before.
Hey meta, thanks for providing this awesome content and it is sorely needed in this space.
Your wig game is strong 😂 Would love to see more system design videos!
it's cool to find someone who gives advice that isn't for "COMPLETE BEGINNERS". I enjoy the senior/principle mindset.
This was an excellent video. I would point out that a lot of senior/principal engineers focus on coding so much because the LC game has come up while they were busy building things over a decade+ career. It's the hardest thing for them to do because it's the most removed from their actual job. LC interview questions have you draw on DSA concepts you may not have seen for two decades, while behavioral and system design questions often draw from your actual experience.
Especially when LC is used as a gate keeping before a system design interview.
well said
Yep Buddy after 14 years of experience I'm like ... year DS and Algos .. i'm too old for this ... (don't get me wrong .. i can figure out a solution ... but won't be as fast as I'm prepared for it)I think I will retract from my Amazon interview :/ (Senior Cloud App Architect)
You've hit the nail on the head here. Writing function-level code while talking about it was very alien to me. I had to practice that skill because I was tripping over myself on otherwise simple algorithms.
Totally agree w/ this comment. Behavioral, system designs type, and knowledge domain questions more reflect the years of experience. Leetcode style questions are a completely different skill set not reflective of the day-to-day, so they typically need more time to prep for.
On system design: "These questions are easiest to answer if you have the experience, if you don't, it will be exceedingly apparent".
So all senior engineers have experience actually scaling systems to millions/billions of users? I think not.
Sys design is also total bs
Many senior engineers have experience scaling systems in general. Doesn’t have to be for millions, the concepts are much the same. Once you know what to look for, you know it.
I don't think he means the experience of scaling to billions of users. I think he means that you have experience scaling systems and understand it.
Hey man amazing video. Please post more your info is extremely insightful
Quality and actionable advice. Subscribed. Thanks a bunch.
this was really good, as a principal engineer i totally agree on your clearly described points. subscribed!
It would be great if "Senior Role" was also mentioned in the Thumbnail.
Lol then he wouldn't get as many clicks!
10:28 He gives steps for each roll
That's why he is senior
I guess it is kind of randomly asking but do anybody know of a good website to stream new series online ?
@@moisesreid283 youtube ofc
Thanks for all your vids. Glad this came up in my recommended.
The story telling recommendation is gold. I’ll remember that. Thanks for the content!
Generally speaking this video is spot-on, however, for FAANG, the level evaluated for the coding sections at ANY level (specially for Google) is tremendously high, hence the need (for most candidates) to over-prepare for that part alone. And just like you mention in the video, the baseline or minimal test that you need to pass in order to be considered for a position will always be an Algo & DS exercise. But overall good advice to not skip System Design and Behavioral for those of us who are more experienced. Great video!
Lots of good information here, thanks! I have 14 years of experience as an engineer, of which 5 as a senior, 1 as a software architect, and overall during these periods the last 2 years I've been a tech lead. My last 6 years have all been at a well known tech company too.
That said, if I got a question like "Tell me about a time you strongly disagreed with your team" I probably wouldn't know what to say as I feel that in all my experience I have NEVER seriously disagreed with any of my teammates - in all the teams I've been I always had a surprisingly good rapport with my teammates and the things we did disagree on were small and inconsequential, hardly worth mentioning. However I have disagreed with engineering managers and even our head of engineering, and in some of those disagreements I was able to make a compelling case and get what I and the team wanted, whereas in other situation my opinions were acknowledged but the course of action set.
I left the company recently and I've been interviewing. I found that I am very bad at interviewing, because I was often stumped by behavioural questions such as that one - where my immediate answer was "never disagreed", or I just couldn't tell them of a time I did X because I just couldn't remember specifics. To the point where somebody told me they thought I was a beginner. Cool, but if I'm such a beginner then how was it that I have all these achievements - managed to lead teams, run critical projects, deal with stakeholders and deliver things that were loved by our customers?
Well it's because I wasn't prepared for these types of interview questions. Now I am prepared, I have identified a set of stories that I can tell these people, but now I feel like this is also disingenuous, because anyone can prepare and give good sounding stories during an interview, yet that doesn't mean they will actually be good at doing the job.
Well yeah, reality is that the managers and recruiters interviewing don't know shit about how the work gets done. They're just idiots.
Oh, you can prepare good stories and you should. But a good interviewer will ask you very specific questions and it will become apparent really quick if you were a protagonist in the story or just a bystander. Imitation only brings you so far.
@@j.metzger1730 Not really, it's all about perception. Most hires are based on perception of the candidates and not their skill. Even absolutely incompetent people will get hired and given a good salary.
@@j.metzger1730 That's if the interviewer is paying attention. I've found that the best interviews have been those that felt like conversations rather than interrogations.
I've had conversations about projects and systems I've worked on, and I also asked about some of the interviewer's projects and gave my thoughts on some of their issues. These discussions do go into details, but that's good because that can further clarify the extent of your expertise.
At the other end, the worst interview I had was one that had the interviewer asking rapid fire questions about specific theoretical models, design patterns, and acronyms, scoring me on how many I got right and how many I got wrong, with no discussion around any of these topics. That interview stage could have been replaced by an online form.
@@ssjcosty I agree with this because you can’t prepare for this kind of interview style. It’s whether you know it through experience and you can also see how the person come up with solution and be able to support it even go deeper to clearly see how much they know. I think this would be a good way to assess a candidate
bloody good. many thanks, mata. Could you please make more about how you as principal handle different situations in your daily work: handle difficult persons (include other principals:), have visibility at senior level, manage to get the work having biggest impact etc.
This is a great video, thanks for making it!
This is great. It's about time someone with real-world principal-level experience at FAANG disrupted the scammy coding prep resources. Wishing for a product manager to make a similar channel 🙏
This is great content, I would like to know more about how to perform well in the tech industry! and also many things about systems design!
Finding this could not have come at a better time. Thanks so much, I'll revise my strategy asap.
Yes, I was focusing too much on just coding challenges.
The wig part is gold!!! The last piece of advice on the ratio of portions gives an exact idea what to do next! Big thanks!
This video is so great. It explained to me in detail how I can be seen in a senior position interview. It is like an expanded version of the humorous "how programmers overprepare for job interviews" video from the Joma Tech channel.
Although I am looking for a Data analyst, I found this very helpful. Thank you!
Extremely helpful breakdown. Whenever I study for coding interviews, I tend to go a bit too deep and spend too much time there. I am in the middle of studying for a few interviews, and often spend hours learning about more obscure algorithms and data structures that likely wont be seen in the coding interview. For instance, I spent hours studying and building suffix arrays and LCP arrays in linear time using the DC3 algorithm, so I could use this for almost any string related question seen in the interview. I tend to just want to know the fastest way to solve every problem, regardless of if the solution is unexpected in a typical coding interview. It was a good thing I watched this today. Love the content!
in other words, you are the overkill warlord
This is probably the best description of the recruiting and interview process AND the expectations of the staff+ engineering roles. Or at least what they should be. Bravo.
Thank you for sharing your experience, this is extremely useful and invaluable.
I was skeptical looking at the title and thumbnail, but I gave your video a shot anyways. Your answer about looking from the companies perspective on hiring was something I never thought about. I always thought getting hired is difficult; but now I know, hiring is way more difficult for these companies.
Really great explanation and I just got the offer for principal. I wish I would see this video a month earlier. Thank you very much. Even now it is good to know for the future. Just want to add a little to the topic, in majority of interviews companies not smart enough to compare adequately all three aspects for desired position. They expect you should spend 100% preparation for coding, 100% preparation time for behavioral and 100% for situational parts. If you demonstrated good coding knowledge but did not solve the problem, no matter how good you are in system design or leadership you're most probably rejected. And as far as coding challenge is most difficult in terms of completing in time (not solving the problem), we still need to spend majority of time preparing for it. And in reality they may see how good I am in preparing for coding but not for coding itself. Obviously new graduates are better in preparation.
so for principal engineer in FAANG companies, did you need to prepare for coding part? i mean DS and Algos? Coz i am preparing for principal engineer roles and i am afraid, you need to be good in coding, low level design (oops) and system level design (high level design). The latter two are comparitively easier for me as they are part of my day to day job, but the coding preperaiton is very exhaustive and consumes almost 80% of my prep time. I dont want to spend 80% of my prep time on code for a principal position, but i am afraid, if i dont, then some hard DS and algo question will come my way and cause my downfall, as at this stage algo and ds seems to be my weakest link
Completely agree. There is a diminishing return for coding preparation, especially for senior positions. Get good enough and make sure you can do a good systems design and tell good behavioral stories.
@@ALifeEngineered "good enough" is particularly difficult for engineers that come through alternative paths. I don't have a CS degree, but I've been coding for 20 years, and can count on 1 hand the number of times I've had to use recursion or design algorithms from scratch (as opposed to just choosing/using a library). Yet most LeetCode/coding interview questions are these sort of "back to CS school" problems. It feels like a huge lift at this point in my career, when I'm focusing on becoming a better manager/director, but 90% of my prep for FAANG is going to be teaching myself "pure" CS, strictly for the interview.
This video is really great. Not only if I want to apply for a new job as a Senior/Principal level but also to interview candidates for senior levels or mentor engineers to get to the next level.
These videos are gold! I watched all of them. Please, please stick with it.
Amazing video. The think is the people will not see the value of these kind of advices til they had some experiencie... Thanks a lot for sharing your wisdom.
Fantastic video! Just as your other video pointed out "Now that I see it... I can't unsee it".
Great advice. When I am in an interview I anticipate what the interviewer is going to ask and tell stories about it. I will often hear them say well you just answered my next question. Telling good stories keeps the interviewer engaged and sometimes even fascinated. Stories can lead to the interviewer discovering something they didn't know before and when that happens they will take a liking to you. When you can story tell you can manipulate the interview and interviewer any way you wish. The degree they allow you to do so is an indication of of your success on that occasion.
Thank you ! Your content is great! i learnt a lot from this 12 min video!please make more videos!
Thanks, man!
First time on your channel
Very concise and clear!
really clear explanation, thanks for the content!
Thanks for the awesome video, Meta. I am interested in getting better at systems design.
Love the leadership bit at the end. Very true. Also, nice wig selection.
That is so helpful! Thanks for sharing!!!
I'm in job search and I found this video very insightful!
Thanks for the video. I would love to see more videos from you.
Watched it over and over again. Each word is compacted with golden information. When will you have new videos? Can't wait!!!
Cannot thank you enough for sharing this with us!
Hi, thanks for the truly excellent video, it is much appreciated.
Thank you for this video. Good advices that everyone looking to become a senior should follow.
Meta, Can you recommend a good book or link to learn system design?
Respect brother. Honest and open apart from rest of youtuber crowd, who try to market their channel rather than earn it organically
That was a fantastic tutorial ! thank you Meta
I'm not way near the level to apply for a senior position, but it's good to know these things early on :)
I'd love to see more regarding systems design related questions and the general flow of them, and possibly how to approach them.
Shockingly good. Subscribed :D
I'm applying for senior position at amazon and I'm super happy that I watched this before preparing! Thanks!
This is awesome! Thanks.
Thanks for sharing man. I was in a final round for a junior position with an AWS principal architect interviewing me and rejected. The points you talked about in this video are really inspiring for my future interviews.
Keep on plugging away. Interviews are random, things will work out over time if you put the time in.
Destiny only favours those who works under Labour Under Correct Knowledge . She may close one door but open another.
Forget the content, you had me sold on the background of the dope ass DJ Setup and the Whiskey Collection. The wigs confirmed my gut feeling and intuition!
Worked at Amazon as a senior architect ...this guy basically might have been reading from the interview ' handbook' and I mean that in a good way -- if you're not in the first or second year of your career, watch the whole video... at 1X. Maybe twice. Maybe take notes.
It's a miracle that I found this channel! Thank you so much for this video!
Cool stuff, thanks for the video :)
WOW. Awesome. My AWS interview is in 7 days! Thank you - this video helped me a ton.
How did it go?
subbed! great content
What a great video. Thanks a lot!!!
I am glad that I found this channel. The level of knowledge he provides is out of the universe.
Anyway how many wigs you have :-D
would love more videos from you about system design!
Great video. Thanks for sharing.
This was so detailed!!
Great advice, I agree with all the points
Amazing channel! Thank you
Great video as always. Would love to hear more on system design. System design is hard for me, since most of my time is doing frontend work and seldom touches distributed system. So the system design questions are situational questions for me.
Thank you, well needed advice.
Awesome content!
Great help, man. thanks
This information is pure gold.
Thank you! I would love to see more System design videos!
Looking for more content to grow into a staff or senior position, thanks bro 😊
Definitely would appreciate some pointers on learning system design as efficiently as possible
I love your channel thank you!!
I’m a new senior (not principal) level engineer and your advice is mind opening. I’ve been asked that same “describe a time when you disagreed….” question many times and I’ve always answered at a mid to junior level level without realizing it. I did have examples that match senior/principal levels but I never prepared for these questions.
Take a look at my latest video.
Thanks for this. Liked and subbed.
Damn, You're the cousin I always needed. Just found you, and ♥. Really appreciate your precision, and thoughtfulness. Yes, I would love more system design content. But honestly, not the ones we can google. It would be nice if hard constraints were presented. Day in the life of a real solution. How would you think about it at a start-up -> FAANG. Those sort of exercises.
Thanks a lot, so much important inoformation.
Really helpful video ,thanks a lot
Thank you brother for your awesome guideline. I hope I will reach out to my destiny by following your guides. In-Sha-Allah.
Amazing video ! Thanks,
Thanks for sharing your experience with us
Technical interviews are always a toss of a coin. Anybody can fail anybody based on a random set of requirements.
Yeah, they're actually a blind. In reality, whether or not you're chosen is entirely based on prejudice, bias and discrimination.
Only the people who get constantly rejected say that
It's easier to blame random chance than to actually evaluate your weaknesses and learn from them