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A comment on Ask HN: What advice would you give for “breaking into” top-tier companies?.

Re:Ask HN: What advice would you give for “breaking into” to... by bsvalley on Sunday July 23, 2017 @04:51PM (#14834317)
If you're targeting companies like google, facebook, etc. They're looking for excellent algorithm solvers. Ideally, people who can right a complex function on a whiteboard in a very short amount of time (under 15 minutes).

That's it.

Your past experiences don't really matter. My best advise is for you to memorize as many algorithm problems as you can and to make your Resume look like you'd be someone who could easily crack a "technical" interview. They usually look if you've already worked for one of these companies in the past, if you've graduated from a prestigious institution, with an excellent GPA, if you've won a hackathon and things like that. Forget about buzz words, technologies, prior projects and open source stuff. We all do that by default. Unless you're someone like Guido van Rossum, they don't really care.

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Re:Ask HN: What advice would you give for “breaking into” to... by ccdev on Sunday July 23, 2017 @05:39PM (#14834555)
That's been the experience for me. I have built a portfolio of side projects less related to my job, and have been through the interview process with Amazon. And I've mainly worked for small web shops who build websites for local businesses that don't care about scaling massively.

You really have to be on top of the algorithms knowledge. First time I was tested on HackerRank where the problems were usually a twist on familiar puzzles.

The only big gripe I have is that if you don't pass the interview the company will probably have a required "cooldown period" lasting a few months before you can apply again. This is frustrating when the solution to a problem you failed hits you in the face a couple days later, but you gotta wait several months before you can have a go at interviewing again.

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