@md95065
The irony of most of the interview prep courses out there is that they were almost all created by ex FAANG engineers who turned out to be much better at creating YouTube videos that they were at being software engineers.
@miramar-103
I totally agree that the interview process should not just be focused on leetcoding interviews - especially for Sr+ engineers, but from recent experience with FAANG as an engineer with 25+ yrs experience, what I found was ... screening calls .. 100% leetcode (HARD in my case) .. so if you can't pull leetcode hard Q's out of your backside (perfectly) in 25 mins you don't even get to the 'onsites', where, you get another THREE leetcode HARD interviews, followed by a System Design and a behavioral ... this was the pattern across the board. The focus, no matter what your seniority, seems to be leetcode .. which is what takes 90% of the prep time going in .... as I Sr guy I can do Sys Design all day long, because it's closer to what I actually do as a Sr engineer .. but the leetcode stuff.. well that's never been part of the dayjob and requires practice..and luck! Such a terrible and contrived way to evaluate Sr engineers IMHO
@mattlogan1
I could not disagree more. System design and behavioral interviews are easy if you are already a good senior engineer. I have 10 YOE and I barely need to prep for these to be moderately successful in most interviews. Coding problems, on the other hand, require countless hours of study time. If you can solve "Leetcode #4 - Median of Two Sorted Arrays" optimally with no study time, you deserve a Nobel Prize (and yes, Amazon asks this in interviews).
@elmonje5
Lovely what you said, and thank you for that. I worked at Amazon, an according to my buddy I was expected to code like him, design like him and think like him because I started in a L5 role (as him). Language was not a barrier because we both speak Spanish. In fact after one week working on a project he stopped joining any meeting because I was supposed to answer all questions (no writing documentation exist because he worked alone, in fact I must say SIM tickets were poorly documented if you try to find out why some technical decisions were done that way). I recall once my manager told me to get more info about a process and when I asked my "buddy and mentor", he says that it was not my work and I need to spend more time coding. I ended up quitting, because you could be a good technical developer (I am not consider myself the best but I do my best) but the lack of business info and the lack of support was a nightmare. In fact, in the starting training sessions when they tell you you must rely on your team in order the avoid that feeling of the impostor syndrome, well my lovely buddy made feel that way. My big advice, those companies (FAANG) like any other companies have their pros and cons (like any other job). Do not idolatry them (in my case the salary was not that high, a 10% raise in compare to my previous job, so it did not pay off the nightmare I experienced). And I am the kind of person that do not mind working extra hours as long as I am learning (in fact the project was quite interesting). Try what you think it is best for your career (and probably you realize these kind of companies are not meant for you, and you know what.... It is OK)
@adityaakshay1
The fact that this guy keeps talking about firing every 3rd sentence is a give away about amazon culture :)
@Skynet-Online
On system design: "These questions are easiest to answer if you have the experience, if you don't, it will be exceedingly apparent". So all senior engineers have experience actually scaling systems to millions/billions of users? I think not.
@El3ctr0Lun4
Lots of good information here, thanks! I have 14 years of experience as an engineer, of which 5 as a senior, 1 as a software architect, and overall during these periods the last 2 years I've been a tech lead. My last 6 years have all been at a well known tech company too. That said, if I got a question like "Tell me about a time you strongly disagreed with your team" I probably wouldn't know what to say as I feel that in all my experience I have NEVER seriously disagreed with any of my teammates - in all the teams I've been I always had a surprisingly good rapport with my teammates and the things we did disagree on were small and inconsequential, hardly worth mentioning. However I have disagreed with engineering managers and even our head of engineering, and in some of those disagreements I was able to make a compelling case and get what I and the team wanted, whereas in other situation my opinions were acknowledged but the course of action set. I left the company recently and I've been interviewing. I found that I am very bad at interviewing, because I was often stumped by behavioural questions such as that one - where my immediate answer was "never disagreed", or I just couldn't tell them of a time I did X because I just couldn't remember specifics. To the point where somebody told me they thought I was a beginner. Cool, but if I'm such a beginner then how was it that I have all these achievements - managed to lead teams, run critical projects, deal with stakeholders and deliver things that were loved by our customers? Well it's because I wasn't prepared for these types of interview questions. Now I am prepared, I have identified a set of stories that I can tell these people, but now I feel like this is also disingenuous, because anyone can prepare and give good sounding stories during an interview, yet that doesn't mean they will actually be good at doing the job.
@jlecampana
Generally speaking this video is spot-on, however, for FAANG, the level evaluated for the coding sections at ANY level (specially for Google) is tremendously high, hence the need (for most candidates) to over-prepare for that part alone. And just like you mention in the video, the baseline or minimal test that you need to pass in order to be considered for a position will always be an Algo & DS exercise. But overall good advice to not skip System Design and Behavioral for those of us who are more experienced. Great video!
@ny6u
Technical interviews are always a toss of a coin. Anybody can fail anybody based on a random set of requirements.
@bigkurz
it's cool to find someone who gives advice that isn't for "COMPLETE BEGINNERS". I enjoy the senior/principle mindset.
@ArsenMovsesyan
Really great explanation and I just got the offer for principal. I wish I would see this video a month earlier. Thank you very much. Even now it is good to know for the future. Just want to add a little to the topic, in majority of interviews companies not smart enough to compare adequately all three aspects for desired position. They expect you should spend 100% preparation for coding, 100% preparation time for behavioral and 100% for situational parts. If you demonstrated good coding knowledge but did not solve the problem, no matter how good you are in system design or leadership you're most probably rejected. And as far as coding challenge is most difficult in terms of completing in time (not solving the problem), we still need to spend majority of time preparing for it. And in reality they may see how good I am in preparing for coding but not for coding itself. Obviously new graduates are better in preparation.
@CollegeFootballNerds
This was an excellent video. I would point out that a lot of senior/principal engineers focus on coding so much because the LC game has come up while they were busy building things over a decade+ career. It's the hardest thing for them to do because it's the most removed from their actual job. LC interview questions have you draw on DSA concepts you may not have seen for two decades, while behavioral and system design questions often draw from your actual experience.
@asdf8asdf8asdf8asdf
Worked at Amazon as a senior architect ...this guy basically might have been reading from the interview ' handbook' and I mean that in a good way -- if you're not in the first or second year of your career, watch the whole video... at 1X. Maybe twice. Maybe take notes.
@shivamjalotra7919
It would be great if "Senior Role" was also mentioned in the Thumbnail.
@perryhertler5198
The story telling recommendation is gold. I’ll remember that. Thanks for the content!
@vishnugovindan8550
Your wig game is strong 😂 Would love to see more system design videos!
@daveytheg
This is great. It's about time someone with real-world principal-level experience at FAANG disrupted the scammy coding prep resources. Wishing for a product manager to make a similar channel 🙏
@matthewsnyder1079
Someone not shilling leetcode or algoExpert?? you sir deserve a subscribe
@spikeydude114
Fantastic video! Just as your other video pointed out "Now that I see it... I can't unsee it".
@jrmoulton