I've been interviewing in the past month as I need to find a new role and it is just crazy.
It is SO random, a lot of useless questions, small startups having a long hiring process harder than the big 4.
Just one example: I've received an offer from one of the big 4 after going through their process. I was lucky in the questions - things I had studied.
I also applied for around 40 start ups / small companies. I made through the final on-site interview in only 5 of them. Lots of white boarding, silly technical questions that don't proxy to day-to-day work and etc.
I really think that passing in a process in a company like Facebook and not passing in other companies working in a much less complex environment says a lot.
Another thing that annoyed me a lot was that in some companies, when I froze upon a problem and was in a dead end, instead of them trying to help me or give constructive advice they would just keep adding pressure. It's craaazy. You're in a white board in a position of someone judging you in a on-the-fly-absurd-problem and the guys is trying to talk you down instead of help.
Perhaps the smaller/scrappier startups are trying to have more rigorous processes because small startups don't have as much resources to train new hires when compared to 'big 4' companies, so they really need engineers that can do it all themselves, quickly and under-pressure. They also may be more risk-averse when it comes to false-positives, because if your entire engineering team is 5-10 people, you're much less likely to be able to afford to get it wrong and hire someone that won't end up working out.
It is SO random, a lot of useless questions, small startups having a long hiring process harder than the big 4.
Just one example: I've received an offer from one of the big 4 after going through their process. I was lucky in the questions - things I had studied.
I also applied for around 40 start ups / small companies. I made through the final on-site interview in only 5 of them. Lots of white boarding, silly technical questions that don't proxy to day-to-day work and etc.
I really think that passing in a process in a company like Facebook and not passing in other companies working in a much less complex environment says a lot.
Another thing that annoyed me a lot was that in some companies, when I froze upon a problem and was in a dead end, instead of them trying to help me or give constructive advice they would just keep adding pressure. It's craaazy. You're in a white board in a position of someone judging you in a on-the-fly-absurd-problem and the guys is trying to talk you down instead of help.
Crazy stuff.