[thw09j9m]

My thoughts from ~ 6 weeks ago:

>> This is the toughest market I've ever seen. I easily made it to on-sites at FAANG a few years ago and now I'm getting resume rejected by no-name startups (and FAANG). The bar has also been raised significantly. I had an interview recently where I solved the algorithm question very quickly, but didn't refactor/clean up my code perfectly and was rejected.

I've since landed one decent offer, but mostly got lucky (the sys design interview was about an obscure optimization problem that I specialized in for years - though I didn't let on that fact)

Between that time, I failed multiple interviews (always solving the question, but never quickly or cleanly enough).

Companies are incredibly slow to respond back (up to 4 weeks from time of application to first interaction with a recruiter).

Some companies are incredibly demanding (recruiter screen -> tech screen -> tech screen -> take-home test -> group discussion about take-home test -> behavioral / culture interview).

Don't think it's about race. It's just an employers' market. And if you refuse to jump through the hoops, somebody else will.

For reference, the last company on my resume is a top tier company that every recruiter has heard of.

[bobnamob]

You can't just mention an obscure optimisation problem without naming it on HN, surely that breaks some site guideline somewhere

[0xfaded]

> the sys design interview was about an obscure optimization problem that I specialized in for years - though I didn't let on that fact

Honestly I feel this situation is an invitation/opportunity to show your depth. I had a similar experience where I was asked to implement a box filter, which I did naively, and then asked to do it the clever way.

I remembered about Haar classifiers https://docs.opencv.org/3.4/db/d28/tutorial_cascade_classifi... which solve the same problem, and I was familiar with the OpenCV implementation. I mentioned this and started to write code, but at that point the interviewer was much more interested about why I knew about some obscure old-school opencv method than finishing the coding exercise.

[vbi8iBEX]

I've had some interviews stretch on for months and multiple interviews only to be rejected in the end. I'm just trying to concentrate on creating video games. I'll probably go get a job at a store in town soon. Pointless to keep trying in this market it seems.

[m_ke]

Yeah the process these days is insane. I went through 4 rounds of interviews with one company, did really well and was expecting an offer but they want me to come in for a full day of onsite work mixed in with more technical rounds.

I’m interviewing with like 10 companies right now and it feels like a full time job, I have full days of interviews lined up for almost every day in the first 3 weeks on January.

[cloverich]

This is actually identical to my experience in 2021/2022 when the market was red hot. I literally did treat it as my full time job, failed a lot, but rarely had less than 4 interviews which it seems most of the good companies do.