Interesting observation. I was under the impression that getting hired into research groups at a FAANG was a different process than getting hired as a SWE, and that you could bypass some of the whiteboard "find all sub matrices with matching determinants in an NxM matrix of arbitrary size" style questions.

Those jobs, the SWE jobs, there's really no degree that will allow you to skip that gauntlet. But I think there might be a different hiring process for PhDs or faculty leaving academia to work in research labs.

I don't really know, though, just something I heard/read somewhere.

Research groups at FAANG are pretty competitive too.

Competitive, yes, certainly. But is it competitive in the same way?

I’m other words, do “cracking the coding interview” style questions play as big a role?

EDIT: I figured, why not do a quick web search. I found this link:

http://matt-welsh.blogspot.com/2014/01/getting-job-at-google...

Just one POV, but it does confirm that PhD graduates do have to go through the same kind of coding exercises (at google) as anyone else. It is worth noting that this is the case if you're applying for SWE positions, where a PhD might not really confer that much of an advantage. Again, I'm not sure if this would be the case if you were, say, getting hired as an AI researcher for a lab.

So, this link sheds some light, thought I still don't know about research positions specifically.

I do know someone who ended up at IBM Research from my lab. He was collaborating with them for his research before he graduated so I'm not sure if he even had to interview after finishing.

According to Glassdoor, Facebook research candidates are given the typical interview questions as part of the process: https://www.glassdoor.com/Interview/Facebook-Research-Scient...

Same at Google: https://www.glassdoor.com/Interview/Google-Research-Scientis...

For what it's worth, though I've never particularly sought out a research position in industry, I haven't really come across too many listings which leads me to believe the positions are few and far in between.

There is some difference in research scientist hiring, both in the method & the criteria. But as I said, these roles are very competitive, and most PhD holders in FAANG companies will be in SWE roles.