FAANG Engineer fails interview with Snapchat + more.

I failed my interviews with Snap, Bloomberg, and Square. Life goes on. I used to have feel like trash whenver I failed these interviews. I thought passings interviews at Google would make it easy to pass interviews at other companies. That's not the case. I have some interesting revelations for you.
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[@braxtonjackson9216]

The market itself is horrible. I'm an engineer with 4 years of experience. A solid understanding of data structures and algos. I can't even get an interview.

[@theblacktechexperience]

I wonder if there is light at the end of this tunnel or AI around the corner

[@tercial]

Same I'm an IT Project manager with 5 years experience but it seems it doesn't matter to employers

[@denisblack9897]

8 years here, can’t pass the tech interview 😅 Not that I’m really trying like I would in my 20s, but it feels like they don’t need an engineer, they need a guy who prepared for the interview😅 I blame non technical people getting into IT and corrupting it with their management bullshit

[@jonasbaine3538]

Is it worth learning coding currently? I’m a manual qa tester currently employed but looking for next direction and opportunity.

[@theblacktechexperience]

@@jonasbaine3538 I think coding is worth learning. With the rise of AI, it easier to learn. You may not get a job soon, but it will give you a better chance to use AI tools of the future

[@JoeBlunt]

I'm an IT consultant with years of experience at the c level, I'm also a business owner. I did 2-5 interviews a month since Sept 2022. I just got a real offer. The worst and most unprofessional interview was at AWS where the interviewer was not professional and just asking gotcha questions. His face turned red when I asked what the average tenure on his team was and how much turnover he has. I really believe a lot of hiring managers are doing interviews to kill time.

[@nicelypenn]

Kind of makes sense, no? If they hired all the right people, they wouldn't have a job anymore because nobody retires 2 years after they get hired.

[@ehza]

It's getting tougher man

[@0xggbrnr]

Bro, great video, great observations. Look at the camera lens. It was annoying hearing you stop and adjust the camera and the fact you weren’t looking in my direction - who are you talking to? lol

[@theblacktechexperience]

I have a content creator group say the same thing. I think I was little shy from the feeling of talking about my failures. It will be better next time I promise ;).

[@BigScaleBaller]

as someone that used to work as a senior swe at Snap, I'd say you dodged a bullet.

[@danieldeda3188]

bro can you give me some tips on how to get a job in this market as an entry level engineer

[@theblacktechexperience]

I told the SNAP recruiter the reason I am interviewing is due to work life balance. She told me that snapchat has a "startup" culture. I thought switching was going to be like jumping out of the frying pan and into a oven.

[@theblacktechexperience]

Let me know how your job search is going?

[@Sarwaan001]

I tracked my 2022 application cycle and my current application cycle 2022: 50 applied 10 interview 4 offers 2024: 100 applied 4 interviews (still going) 1 offer (that I won’t even take since the tc addition is not worth the risk) Yeah the market is mid rn

[@ctjmaughs]

Good luck.

[@iggytt]

You keep talking about famous companies - all the famous crap companies are getting a million applicants. Go fishing in a stream nobody knows about if you wanna catch some fish. The super hard questions are there to just weed people out because so many people apply to them, it's not to find the skilled people. To look for famous companies to work for is to treat the company as a decoration on your resume, those companies rightfully don't want to hire this type of person. They are terrible.

[@grimm_gen]

Been a developer for almost 4 years now, it's crazy how interviews are harder than the actual job

[@themichaelw]

Failing happens. I failed a Netflix hiring manager round last week. The EM asked like 8 or 9 situational work situations and was heavy on business impact. I failed to take control and show my abilities through my stories. But it's alright, I learned and I got a different offer that week. But I'm also happy in my current role. That's probably 750 - 1,250 applications to get 1 offer at the end of the day. Rough market for sure.

[@nicelypenn]

You applied at least 750 times. wtf bro.

[@themichaelw]

@@nicelypenn applying for jobs is a full-time job

[@bryanenglish7841]

One of the best things I learned in my decade of being a professional software engineer is that interviewing itself is a skill, and probably the most important one.

[@Dan-hs8lb]

facts

[@NobleSpartan]

I'm a Black person graduating from Cornell as well and I had a similar experience with my recruiting last fall. Spent about a month practicing for my Netflix interview and ended up not making final round bc I had errors in my optimized solution. It stung bc I ended up having to retake a class this semester due to neglecting the course for these damn interviews! Fortunately, I have a return offer at a big bank, so I don't have to worry about interviews for now. However, it has me concerned about my future career growth. All g tho, going to take this time to build something of my own before I start my job later this summer. Glad I found this channel!

[@Justauri-asdfghjkl]

This isn't even engineering - it's just life. Real af. I spent some time working on Wall St and saw first hand how ordinary and unremarkable the world's wealthiest people are.They just have people doing things for them. Entreprenuers that wouldn't even make their own business plan and would just hire the bank to get the entry level analysts to do it. Then the business would fail and everyone would say "wow how did this happen" whole time wouldnt give venture funding to viable businesses with healthy revenue models simply because of the identity of the founder .... blah blah blah. The point is - yes. It's not success that gets funding. It's funding that gets success.

[@PhoxKiD]

Saying don't be discouraged from a person being rejected from interviews takes courage. Good luck on interviews since it really is numbers game

[@theblacktechexperience]

Thanks, this video had terrible production, but like all things, it is a journey

[@Dan-hs8lb]

you get better once you job hop a couple times. the algos start to get hardwired deep in your brain after enough job hops, to the point where you don't have to study a ton anymore.

[@theblacktechexperience]

I hope so. I think I was distracted by work obligations and growing my channel. This is life

[@Dan-hs8lb]

@@theblacktechexperience yeah makes sense. its pretty exhausting studying algos for sure.

[@squid84202]

Companies not wanting to teach you anything or give you a fair shot is sooo true. I had a Jr. Android Engineer interview. They passed on me because I didn't have experience using some Android library.. I had built an Android app in the past. I could pick it up and learn as I go even without help, but they reallyyy just want you to hit the ground running and fix their mistakes. It's pretty ruthless right now. Because of the economy, employers want to play it safe. They're not really giving people a chance for now.

[@SoFreshBlaze]

It really is a numbers game. I got passed on because the next guy had more AWS knowledge even though I had a good interview.

[@relaxedswede]

The current job market for engineers is down bad! I've heard of perfect with perfect GPA struggling to get internships. Looking for a jobb now must be an insane experience

[@LeeK301]

When you spoke on some google engineers you know saying that they don’t even think they could pass the LC-style questions they asked candidates, this goes to show if current FAANG employees had to take annual LC-style exams to stay at the company, I’d like to think a lot of them would be out of a job 😂 Failed 3 interviews (1 FAANG) so far this year but I am just blessed to have a dev job in the current market anyway; my time will come 😂 💯

[@victorvillacis6764]

Bloomberg didn’t even hit me back up, I did interview with Gusto and I think I did great. Don’t know why I was passed on. Hot take is it because we are not Asian or Indian?

[@Dan-hs8lb]

L take lol. being asian or indian actually significantly hurts you when interviewing at big tech.

[@victorvillacis6764]

@@Dan-hs8lb you know how many Indians I interviewed with? Quite a few. There’s def a lot of nepotism.

[@Dan-hs8lb]

​@@victorvillacis6764 I actually agree. There is a lot of "indians hiring indians, chinese hiring chinese". But there's also a systematic and top-down driven push to hire underrepresented groups. So, yeah, there's multiple factors at work and depends a lot on the company too how strong the top-down push or the nepotism you mentioned is.

[@Dan-hs8lb]

​@@victorvillacis6764 from my experience, at a place like microsoft or google (or even amazon), the top-down push for diversity quotas is extremely strong as VPs/directors are given larger bonuses if they have high diversity. at a place like Uber or smaller start-ups, the nepotism force is very real which is equally unfair/wrong.

[@Jamesgalc-gs8wu]

​@Dan-hs8lb haha you're delusional

[@StarSuperStatus]

Yeah you're dead on the interview bar vs being an actual competent developer/engineer bar are two different things. Some interviewers are good enough to be able to sniff out someone who is a good developer with these question but honestly a vast majority of interviewers just test on if you can answer the question and not the actual process of answering the question. Like you said the prestige and name of working at a faang type company is nice but honestly I think having real ownership of the product and development from devops to cloud infra to database to even coding language is way more fun. Being at a company with a super high head count often means a lot of changes are locked behind layers of different teams and people and that slows development down a lot as well as removes developers from layers that would ultimately make the better and allow them to transfer easier to different aspects of tech without having to spend their own unpaid time learning these concepts.

[@slover4384]

Effort x Knowledge x Intelligence x Luck Multiplication of those 4 factors.

[@theblacktechexperience]

I used to think effort was enough.

[@slover4384]

@@theblacktechexperience Luck is a multiplicative factor for every aspect of life; in fact for every aspect of anything that happens anywhere.

[@lionelthebuilder]

I feel extremely lucky to have landed my position at a startup without having to do a technical interview man i better study now incase I have to hit the market again

[@theblacktechexperience]

What you do in that startup will be 10x more useful than a interview. Still, keeping your skills up to date is important too

[@denisblack9897]

Had a similar experience😅 I showed up to their office, we ate pizza with CTO, discussed StarCraft 2 and I got the job) didn’t appreciate it at all😂

[@MayorSom]

How on earth is Snapchat still operating is mind blowing. Am I that out of touch with the gen z?

[@vanessalewis1449]

This is the most realistic video I have seen in a while! Thank you! Personally I am trying to break into the data analytics space and I’ve experienced very similar situations while interviewing. Your video is encouraging because you have solid experience, degrees and other qualifications yet as you stated the bar is unrealistic. Wishing you well! As you also stated, it takes time! Thank you for sharing!

[@theblacktechexperience]

I wish someone would have told me this, so I will not have felt like a loser. I wish I spent more time learning how to be a better teammate/engineer than spending years on leetcode.

[@mr.mystiks9968]

Not gonna lie, this was a useless yap session. Couldn’t find a single part where you actually discuss the interview and how it’s changed now cs before. Maybe needing experience is the only insight you added.

[@mathisfi.5593]

One year until I graduate and I am not looking forward to it lol. Couldn’t even find an internship after spending so much time applying and networking. I’m only holding onto hope with the connections of close peers who are landing positions at a few FAANG companies. Quite kinda sad to think but I digress.

[@theblacktechexperience]

Keep grinding, your are still in a better position use AI tech than most.

[@RecapWorldTV]

It is mostly looks based bro. The better you look the more the recruiter likes you. That is why your friends most likely got the jobs easy.

[@timedebtor]

The absolute best thing for my interviewing career was teaching in the student mentoring program for the computer science department as an undergrad. We had a system set up for students who were struggling to come in and ask for help just like you might find in a math department. We had a rule that mentors were not allowed to touch keyboards at all. You had to either describe how to achieve the solution or go to a whiteboard and draw it out with the student. I had 4 years experience doing this before hitting the job market. I will always interview better than my peers because of that work.

[@kengxi]

Yes the process sucks. But we know what to expect and we have the tools to learn leetcode style questions. Its just something that we have to do and we have to suck it up until things change.

[@acm804]

I just graduated and job search seems to be stressful. I also feel like it is even harder to find a job when you are a jr software engineer. Job search is a full time job itself :)

[@theblacktechexperience]

I am on mission to create a network of engineers. People who wish ride the AI wave. Hopefully the next generation will have an easier time because of people like you and me fighting.

[@jameshizon4861]

Failed 3 interviews with 3 companies in past 3 weeks. Didnt allocate enough time to questions asked DFS & BFS question (number of islands with recursion to solve).

[@FabioJakobsen-bk9ls]

The thing with LC style of interviews is that it doesn't even guarantee that the person who does well is a good software engineer. I have seen people who can pass FAANG interviews, but when it comes to building the software for real life use, they are terrible at it. You are right that people with jobs don't really have time to prepare for this type of interviews and it is insane that even small companies think that it is ok to put people through 7 rounds of the interviews.

[@atlfun08]

I don’t get these degree doesn’t matter comments when can matter over a career unless you become some ahole billionaire…then it don’t matter.

[@w9s992]

for a whole year I cant land a single job, tf I am gonna be 40 before I land something fk this world

[@Jamesgalc-gs8wu]

Don't give up. Just a bad market. Keep learning meantime.

[@darioblopes]

You are so humble. Just subscribed. Keep up the videos

[@theblacktechexperience]

Sometimes I am not so humble, so I will try to live up to your expectations!

[@jmbrjmbr2397]

Thanks for sharing your experiences.

[@masteryoda9044]

so when times get tough companies stop caring about DEI 😐

[@MauriceB-zn5pv]

Who exactly do you think DEI benefits

[@Dan-hs8lb]

@@MauriceB-zn5pv DEI benefits DEI candidates lol. nobody else benefits, and other races are hurt.

[@MauriceB-zn5pv]

@@Dan-hs8lb Who are the primary beneficiaries because it seems to get called out the most when it’s a black person. Have you ever looked into the numbers?

[@goesrawr]

@@Dan-hs8lbblack people make up such a small percentage in engineering. What you’re saying makes no sense. Touch grass

[@Dan-hs8lb]

​@@goesrawr what you said is true, but it doesn't refute what i said. you'd benefit from asking questions when exposed to new ideas instead of just trying to fight them.

[@CascadiaNow69]

Sorry, but how on earth does anyone become a Senior SWE without even interviewing?

[@theblacktechexperience]

You do a internship because you know someone. You do a good job during internship and get an opportunity to not interview. You work your way up senior SWE, while people like me had to wait 3-4 years doing interviews.

[@hey_im_him]

Your degree doesn’t matter. There’s always been a disconnect between the business needs and graduates expectations. You’ve pointed out you have an Ivy League degree, I’ll be the first to tell you know one actually cares (not talking down, just being honest). I’ve had colleagues from these schools who can solve code puzzle/algorithms all day, but can’t actually build a good solution to save their life. Not all, but a significant enough portion to where having a degree from one of these schools isn’t a sure shot. Source, 15 years in industry and working at staff level after founding a company a few years ago. Yes I wanted to return back to IC work 😂 As for the interviews, these have been a thing since I came out in 2007, they aren’t that hard. Trust me, there are people who breeze through these (don’t ask how I know 😆). That’s who they are looking for. Does this mean they are better engineers, not at all, but it does mean we are thinking the way they want us to.

[@Jamesgalc-gs8wu]

It depends on who makes a hiring final decision at a company..it could be a director or HR manager who is clueless and wants a degree. It happens. Also black devs need credentials to push back on stereotypes. That may not be your experience but it is mine. I've had a hiring manager ask why I don't have a coding degree even though I scored high or perfect on a coding challange.

[@hey_im_him]

@@Jamesgalc-gs8wu yes, that’s definitely mine. I never had a single company ask. Graduated 2007 with B.S in computer science. Had to learn industry shit on the job since we focused on computational theory at school, that still didn’t affect me. I don’t think your race matters. I’m 35 and have yet to be affected by my skin color, when I hear that, I usually hear an excuse. I wonder if the black folks I interviewed think I skipped them because of their race and not their competence. Your ability to code isn’t as valuable as you’d like to think, the real value is being able to communicate effectively across all orgs while simultaneously understanding the business so you can predict future needs and solve problems that move the business forward. Too often, young folks think their coding ability is all that matters. How’s your written communication skills? How’s are you with writing external facing emails to customers or partners? How good are you are writing internal emails to get the info you need or to share info others need. How effective are you at prioritizing current tasks or finding new tasks to do? How’s your verbal communication. Can you defend your idea against other world-class engineers in a group environment? Can you take a rough feature idea from vague nonsense to delivery that feature in production while also ensuring your system remains resilient? How about writing detailed technical specs for PRDs that outline what needs to happen to build a feature. What’s your ability to triage new work items like or how often are you solving bugs that customers face out in the wild? These are just some of the things I’m looking for when hiring folks and often, the folks I’ve interviewed were just ok at coding, but that’s not enough to compensate for lack of things that matter more long-term.

[@Jamesgalc-gs8wu]

@iamwillshepherd everything you said makes sense and you seem like a solid person. Please remember not everyone is as logical or fair.

[@hey_im_him]

@@Jamesgalc-gs8wu I know that everyone isn’t logical or fair, but I don’t think most people are illogical or unfair. I assume most people on earth are decent people, so when I hear race as an excuse in America, I don’t automatically assume the other person is bad or against me or some cause. Who wants to live life thinking the world is against them?

[@Jamesgalc-gs8wu]

@iamwillshepherd when people say they have certain experiences they're not assuming. And when you see many people identify a pattern it's best not to gas light them and deem them delusional which is what you're doing. There's no victims in this thread. Only peole identifying behaviors.

[@htsadvdsadasd7439]

I think I heard that motorcycle outside...

[@theblacktechexperience]

I almost filmed the video outside, but if you can here that from my apartment then, I am glad I did not

[@surajmandal_567]

I am a new developer learning machine learning. What kind of developer u are?

[@muddassirbari]

Short and sweet!

[@Joseph-uz2ry]

When you’re interviewing with other companies while already having a job are you supposed to disclose that you already have a job to the interviewer?

[@SoFreshBlaze]

I wouldn't suggest it. It's not info they need to know and don't give them to reject you. Ppl interviewing while already being employed is a normal thing so no point in saying it.

[@camscott5755]

Would you say all of this also pertains to interns?

[@theblacktechexperience]

Interviewing for interns is more chill. I find that if your school has connections with a tech company, it is a lot easier to get in.

[@Ricocase]

Start a business. Coding was outsourced.

[@ctjmaughs]

What does Ivy League have to do with anything.

[@bobweiram6321]

It means a hell of a lot.

[@ctjmaughs]

@@bobweiram6321 sorry but Ivy League means nothing as shown in the past

[@Septumsempra8818]

Why are you coding if you don't wanna be a competitive programmer type? Shouldn't you use your Ivy League cred to start a business? Why work for others in the land of opportunity? 🇿🇦🇿🇦🇿🇦🇿🇼🇿🇼🇿🇼

[@theblacktechexperience]

That's a goal of this channel. To free myself from my job.

[@jonasbaine3538]

@@theblacktechexperience but how? Ad revenue?

[@lovely-shrubbery8578]

some ppl just like code bro, we arent always hypercompetetive psychos