I think people consider it gaming because hackerrank is not accurately representative of day to day as a FAANG engineer.

That being said I don’t think there’s a really great way to assess that in a 5 hour onsite interview. So hackerrank ends up being the best they’ve got.

If you can’t assess a candidate in 5 hours, you’re doing something wrong or don’t know what you want.

Predicting the success of an employee and how well they will perform on a brand new team/stack over the course of potentially several years is very challenging and likely impossible especially when the people interviewing you aren’t even on the team you’ll work on. Hence this is why leetcode interviews are the best they’ve got.

No doubt. That’s my point — if you have a process that’s easy to effectively game with coaching, what’s the point?

A company could probably save lots of time and money by cutting some of the fluff in the process. From the pov of a candidate with a good job already testing the waters, these companies come off as trying to hard to add objectivity in situations where it doesn’t exist.

Motivation to game and being coachable seem like desirable skills.

These are also the things that we are looking for most in CodeBreakers students.

Saying that tiny puzzles are the best you can do is a very large leap from saying that you can't predict an employee's performance.

Someone's job performance over time depends on lots of different factors, many out of the control of the company. Understanding someone's potential and risk can be the result of conversations about what they have already done and possibly looking at what they've done. No irrelevant puzzles needed.

It is gaming if some online class and/or few weeks of prep give you an edge.

I don’t think it’s just a few weeks of gaming. Maybe if you do 60 hours a week.

We’ve found that an average undergraduate or masters in CS or STEM field who just knows how to code basic Python will require ~250 hours of total work to become interview ready for FAANG. That’s a lot of time which is why I wouldn’t consider it gaming a system.

“An average” is not what google is after (at least officially).

"Average" is the starting point. After learning data structures algorithms and how to communicate, they are no longer an average candidate (by FAANG standards)

I guess if you really think 250 hours is what separates average from faang level that answers it.

250 hours is a lot of time!

It’s not. It’s about 30 full time days. 6 weeks unpaid leave gets you there.

It's unrealistic to expect someone to spend 30 full time days (6 unpaid weeks) on that kind of material in one go. I've done it myself and gave up multiple times in the process. More than 2-3 days full-time and I burn out immediately. Even doing it just on nights and weekends is incredibly tiring (especially after a normal days work). It's incredibly tiring to do leetcode or similar for 8+ hours/day every day. Especially in the beginning when you start out - because you will feel completely hopeless with the process.

Just FYI - this interview process isn't a one and done thing. You have to refresh yourself at least every year with ~80 hours of prep. Otherwise, you're going to be really bad at it when you search again.

Definitely not one and done! But I doubt you will be searching every year? Maybe once every 5 years hopefully on average. And in the sister comment I mentioned taking unpaid leave to do it, which will be paid by the next company paying you more salary. If I lived in the US where this would make a difference I'd be doing it now. However where I live there is only Google (not FAAN etc.) and they don't pay as much as in the US, so probably not worth it.

I agree, that's actually how I prepared. Unfortunately, most don't have the luxury to dedicate 30 full-time days. Many that we work with our university students with courses or full-time employees. This is why the 250 hours if a pretty big barrier to entry.

Those 6 weeks where you're studying full-time unpaid seems like a lot of time to me. That's 250 hours that you can't spend on what is actually important in your life (maybe friends, family, relationships).

Ok, lets say you earn $80k a year. Google will pay you $120k. So you stand to make $40k in 1 year extra if you get the job. And if you don't get the job the skills transfer to other interviews anyway, so you'll get some kind of job at, lets say $100k.

You ask for 6 weeks unpaid leave. Could be one block, or 1 day a week for 30 weeks. This will cost you $10k gross by my calculations.

Even if you get the $100k job, you are $10k up after 1 year, with no friends and family time sacrificed at all.

As a bonus you were effectively paid for 6 weeks to learn CS skills rather than bash out features and not learn any new computer science skills.

Thanks for the breakdown. I appreciate the chance to see your perspective. When you attach those numbers to it, taking that 6 week unpaid leave makes sense financially. Your comment makes me consider a 6 week sabbatical sometime in the future.

Yeah it sucked, but when I was living at home with my parents I had to put those things aside.

I'm always impressed when I hear stories of quiet, but strong dedication to reach critical long-term goals.

I have a friend that is in his late twenties and is now a partner for a boutique investment shop. About four years ago he made a commitment to pass the CFA 1 in nine months. Studied a little each day after work, and then studied more on the weekends. 180 hours total. Passed the CFA 1 without any fan fare. Hardly told a soul. Did the same for the CFA 2 the following year. Didn't tell any colleagues. No fan fare. Boss was pleasantly surprised when he listed the new qualification on the firm website.

He does the exact same thing the following year for the CFA 3. His wife tells someone at the firm, and when he walks into work they throw a surprise celebration for this very impressive accomplishment (many people spend a decade reaching CFA 3).

A couple months later the managing director moves to have the firm make him a partner. Easy decision. You had a junior analyst quietly dedicate themselves to substantially improving their skills.

Now, while his salary is certainly quite impressive as a partner and for someone that young, the true freedom he has achieved is being given responsibility of a new order of magnitude to establish things he wants to establish in that world (internal values maybe, many new types of clients, new employees he can then bring up through the firm, etc.).

Point is: good on you. You're a lesson for most of us.