Not to be harsh, but maybe this guy just isn't a good engineer / academic? This is why I switched from EE to CS, I found it far more interesting and could execute doing software stuff at a very high level even with my piss poor academic record. Never do something you're mediocre at, life just isn't going to be a good time if that's your approach. Tbh, if I was this guy I would've just switched industries and done something I was objectively better at. I quit EE because without a doubt I would've been a C-level electrical engineer at best.
I never thought I was bad at my job and I have equal/higher acceptance rates than my friends, but thanks for the vote of confidence! Rejection is very common in academia and I wish people talked about it more.
Thank you for writing about it! It’s very common in tech too but people don’t talk about that either (though academia is objectively more competitive; you have far fewer tenure-track slots, compared to even a major “elite” tech company that employs over 100,000 people).
It’s important for people to see that those who have succeeded have failed too.
I think that’s pretty harsh. Perhaps he’s not the best SWE candidate at a FAANG or FAANG-like place — but he’s in a tenure-track position at a school that is top 40ish for public universities (averaging both engineering and computer science in undergrad rankings), which is hardly something to “switch industries” over.
We do ourselves a major disservice by pretending that only having an academic position at the top five or ten schools or a job at one of the top five or six tech companies is the only way to achieve success.
* Google
* Amazon/AWS (interviewed by Jeff Barr and tbh, I was starstruck)
* Cloudflare
* EdgeCast
* Twitter
* GitLab
* GitHub
* Linux Foundation
* Wikimedia
* DigitalOcean
* Snyk
Since I began keeping track, about two years ago, I've applied to 605 jobs, rejected by 328, and the rest didn't even bother to send me a robo-rejection email. Is there any value in posting my list?
I entered the professional workforce in the fall of 2008, as the recession was in full force. I had a college degree, but no experience or resume of which to speak - and frankly, didn't know very much outside of academia. I was lucky enough to land a job, but was laid off in fall of 2009. I was poor, sleeping on an air mattress, and in my early 20s, but determined to get a job as a software engineer, even if it meant taking a non software job for a while. This was before I knew that job-recruiters were a thing, or how to make connections with them, and before Linked-In had taken off. I made sure to apply for 10 jobs online, by going to companies "apply" pages, every-singly-day. I did this for two full months (weekends excluded). That's 400 applications. I only got 5 interviews, and only 1 job offer. That's 399 rejections.
I'm doing well now - but those were rough times for me. When my teenager feels rejected (e.g. not making the team), I always tell them that rejection is always a bummer, but not the end of the world. And I gently remind them of that story as a way of saying *"trust me, I'm not saying that as empty words; I do understand how it feels."
That is so similar to what happened to me, only I had graduated December 2006. So I had 1.5 years until it went south and got laid off. Luckily I had acquired a condo in that time at the market peak, so I had a place to lay awake at night and worry about how I'd pay the mortgage.
80/20. Everyone, parents, agents, closing lawyers all told me I was making the best decision of my life. All were saying they wished they could go back in time and buy a house when they were 24. Ended up taking a 30k bath on it 5 years later.
Rejection is a strong word to use when some algorithm didn't find the keyword it was looking for. Not getting an offer after interviewing isn't really so bad either since it's a learning opportunity where you get to meet people and ask questions. Before covid it usually meant you got a free vacation too.
That was a rough time. I worked at a start-up company that shut down just at the peak of the global panic. Forget rejection - even finding a company that was hiring people was hard. Everyone was freezing new hires, investors were running away from signed deals, etc.
To make matters worse my employer did not pay me my last paycheck and severance pay required by law, I didn't have a lot of savings, my wife was fired the next day, we just had a baby, and we didn't have a car anymore because that was a company car.
In the end it turned out okay - I managed to get a couple of offers within a week, ended up taking a job which paid 30% less as did my wife, we moved to a cheaper city, got a cheap car, and after a while the market started recovering and I found a better job. But man, that was traumatic. Some of my colleagues from that company were unemployed for many months.
I entered the workforce at the same time. I don’t have kids so I can’t relate to that aspect, but I speak to lots of college students and career-switchers and like you, I always note that I’m coming from a place of knowledge. I’ve been mentoring a lot of recent grads over the last year and with the pandemic, the uncertainty in the job market is very reminiscent of 2008 and I know what it was like to graduate into a pit of “what am I going to do?” And the answer is usually, “it’ll be fine. Probably.”
Pretty much the same situation for me back then too. But I wasn't in SW. So I did ~2000 applications before finding a job. Even in the late before-times, it would take ~6 month to ~1 year to get something lined up. SWland has it very easy when it comes to looking for work.
Interesting to see the differences in people. I've had a long career with very few rejections, but it has a lot to do with the fact that I don't apply to places unless I am really confident I am definitely going to be the best candidate, and that's generally been true.
That said, I encourage folks on my team to interview regularly just to know how to value themselves and to see that there are other opportunities, and to just get practice interviewing and learning how other companies run the process.
My rejections:
- laid off from Red Hat post dot-bomb (I wasn't really trying to stay at the time) ~ 2003
- rejected for a sysadmin position at Blizzard in around 2003 or 4?
- rejected from a lot of PhD programs in Physics (I wasn't really trying that hard, see a theme, it's called cognitive dissonance!) ~ 2008
- fired from Quora (honestly really just ended up misaligned with my boss and career goals, they made the right call) ~ 2014
- rejected from Stripe with two personal referrals after the last stage of the interview. I was pretty bummed by this and had spent a month putting all my eggs in one basket to work there. This was 2014 so I also missed out on a nice bit of stock to be honest!
At my current company I feel like I finally had enough continuity to specialize a bit and become an expert in a field to feel comfortable with what ever may come next. I hope others can find that in their careers too.
It looks like it's pretty common to go interview just to "keep the skills sharp." What do folks think of this practice? I feel like I would have a hard time doing it while hiding my true motives. And what if they make an offer?
I think practice interviews are a thing but people generally do it only when they're actively in the process of moving jobs.
e.g., I want a job at Facebook, so I'm going to go interview at some random startups first for sharpness.
I haven't heard of anyone actually taking that advice literally and just randomly giving out interviews even when they have no intention of actually moving from their jobs.
I wouldn't feel that way. I'm one who did this for a while(at least, pre covid).
The fact is, they could offer you an amazing package that will change your mind. Or, they could offer you something you expect but know you wouldn't take. Both are OK.
I'd only think of it as a purposeful waste of time if for some reason you absolutely know you cannot take the job, regardless of anything.
Just be honest with yourself and them. Say that you have a job that you are happy with, but assessing other opportunities. If they make an offer, you should be able to decide if it's right for you or not and move truthfully from there.
Here’s how to align: even if you are not interested in joining, let them know what you would leave for, or a ballpark. If it’s way unaligned then just don’t continue past initial calls.
I’ll be disappointed if I make an offer and find out they leveraged it for a promotion, but usually you don’t have to tell them anything. You can always say you just want more money and every company has a budget.
You can also just keep in touch. Most folks who would make an offer are happy to talk to you again later or even further along in your career.
I now have hired two people who I sent rejections to after four years!
Some folks will frown on this but here is my philosophy: the company holds all the power, this is you as an individual developing an understanding of that system so it’s not at all unfair, since it started unfairly tilted against candidates - not everyone will agree, but the good news is that you won’t have to talk to the people who disagree again.
So I will give you my perspective as a hiring manager and as someone who has interviewed quite a few times in my career.
I personally encourage friends, especially those that have been at their job for 5+ years to go to interviews for roles they might find interesting, even if they have no plan of leaving their current role. I have been in the industry long enough to see companies cut ties with employees that have been with them for many years. If they are lucky it is not during a mass firing round, but if they are unlucky it is the result of a large firing round or worse yet a recession of some type. Job hunting and interviewing are at the end of the day a type of competition and if you want to be good at it you need to make sure you have practiced. The benefit of this, is if you make a point of going to interviews where you are still curious about the role, you may actually find your an unexpectedly amazing job and you also are more likely to get a much better offer than you ever would when you are actively looking.
Now when I am a hiring manager, I have zero issue if someone comes with the intent of it being a practice interview. Why? Well, my job as a hiring manager is to win over the candidate to the role I am hiring for. It starts with the one on one, to the exercise I give and to the overall process being a nice experience. If I do those things correctly and the candidate is good, then it usually doesn’t matter what their original motive was for interviewing, they walk out of the process saying I want to work with that person and I want that job. I think a lot of companies don’t understand that the candidates are choosing you as much as you are choosing them. At least that is the way it should be.
>I don't apply to places unless I am really confident I am definitely going to be the best candidate, and that's generally been true.
Same. I've been extremely lucky that the only layoff I experienced was on first job out of school and on the first day ("we hired too many people").
The worst rejection I experienced was for a consulting position with a Big 4 consulting firm 10+ years ago. I bombed the brain teaser/problem solving question in the last round (IIRC, why are manhole covers round?). I could tell the interview went downhill after that exchange. At the time I had no prior consulting experience therefore I really wanted to pivot into consulting with that opening.
Come to think of it, I have never asked any brain teaser questions like that in any of the interviews I conducted - maybe that's why. :)
>just get practice interviewing and learning how other companies run the process
I did it a few times but never felt the experience is comparable to looking for work "for real".
My immediate answer would be it is because it eliminates a constraint. Thus placement is easier if alignment is not a constraint.
Do not see much of a value in this kind of question except for amusement of the interviewer and check if the person is wired differently.
I could see it being a fun kind of question to volley back and forth and maybe get a sense of how a candidate thinks. As an interviewee I could probably have some useful fun with it, but as an interviewer I wouldn't use it that way; there are other, more relevant, questions which could serve the same purpose just as well.
If you only applied to positions you knew where the best candidate - how did you not feel that the job would not offer you new challenges or the position is too low?
I tend to keep interviewing or lets call it networking. The position I did fit a 100% I ended up declining as they were mostly position I thought I would go downwards in my career and pay, even if it sounded interesting.
Glad you found that place of continuity - still trying to get there...
> I tend to keep interviewing or lets call it networking.
Do you not find interviewing is super expensive in terms of time? My last interview was a four-day trip and about 40 hours of prep time before that.
If I interviewed more than once or twice a year it'd be an enormous time sink. Maybe it pays off for you because you think the networking benefits are so high?
I don’t think about it as kind of waste, it is training to be mentally fit and ready when I find a better role or simply when bad times hit.
Although 4 day trip interview is extreme, I would rather not go for unless they pay me. But things are even easier now, as most of recruitment is done remotely.
I’ve never had concrete career goals, that’s step one of not being bothered by challenges.
Step two, I’ve always worked at startups in relatively emerging markets, which means they are inherently new and challenging and that has fed that challenge/growth that I seek even though not necessarily tied to career growth explicitly.
I’ve only started in my 40s to care about long term career growth, so go figure.
I think the short answer is I’m highly internally motivated and seek out challenges no matter what so it’s not a thing I usually worry about.
Something is very strange about the Stripe interview, even now.
First time I was referred to Stripe, I got a rejection email an hour later (no interview even occurred).
Second time, I did a coding exercise with no issues, passing all tests, but from the start I could tell the interviewer didn't like me (so I got a rejection).
I've been rejected quite a few times as well. This is in fact so inspiring that I will apply for another job that I most likely will be rejected from as well.
I’ve been rejected 5 times from Google. And yet every year like clockwork they email me again asking to interview. At this point I just say yes every couple of years and try again because why not. I think I do well enough to deserve a call-back but never good enough to get hired (I made it to the hiring committee though).
I’ve had that happen a couple of times. Do a video/phone call with an SME that goes really well... then it doesn’t.
The second time they were locking down a time I could fly somewhere and the whole thing went poof. Fortunately I was in a good job and it was no big deal, but it would have been very stressful if I was between gigs.
I "failed" my first four (edit: onsite) FANG interviews. 5th time was a charm, have been happily employed with a senior title at FANG for a couple years.
Not exactly new information to HN, but the job itself is quite a bit easier than the interviews (wrt to technical knowledge). It can be just as stressful though (I actually think stress response / teamwork is one of the main things FANG interviewers are looking for after a certain bar of technical competence is met, YMMV).
This isn't for everyone, but if it's something you really want to do, don't let the rejections get you down. You'll get in eventually :)
Hearing stuff like this gives me hope, but still the experience is frustrating.
I suppose for argument's sake, you can theoretically interview at each of the letters in FAANG every year. Just blew my attempt at the F for 2021, so trying to reach out to the rest of the letters (and some other companies).
Oh agreed it's super frustrating. A lot of times you won't even get any feedback with the rejection, which is incredibly demotivating and tbqh, infuriating.
> you can theoretically interview at each of the letters in FAANG every year
One of those letters will let you interview many times in a single year ;) (but not for the same role on the same team)
If I had any final advice for those intent on going through the interview meat grinder it is that while l33tcode can be useful, you'll still want to understand some of the why behind popular algorithms and not just have a ton of specific ones memorized. This will save you when you have to talk through a problem you're not already familiar with.
Skiena's The Algorithm Design Manual was more helpful to me than any other prep material in that regard.
I know you can interview at multiple roles at FB provided 1.) you pass the initial phone screen and 2.) the onsite loop is different - say, frontend vs. product/backend. Doesn't work for me this year since I likely failed the phonescreen...
I've heard in theory you can apply to multiple jobs at N too.
Do you mind articulating how specifically Skiena's book helped you, and what was your approach? If I have to do Skiena's book cover to cover, it'll likely take few months.
Just got off a FB phone screen which I think I failed. Only got through one question, and even that required assistance from the interviewer. My understanding is that if you don't finish two problems, you're doomed.
Spent the past week basically taking time off from work to do leetcode problems nonstop. Too bad it didn't help.
Third time failing at FB. First time failed the phone screen in 2018. Passed phone screen last year but bombed the onsite. And now failed the third time on the phone screen.
Also failed at Amazon (onsite), Netflix (twice - once on the phonescreen, once on the onsite), Uber (twice phonescreen), Microsoft (onsite). Got offers from Credit Karma and WeWork...how I dearly wish those offers were from any of the other companies I had failed at...
Third time failing at FB. First time failed the phone screen in 2018. Passed phone screen last year but bombed the onsite. And now failed the third time on the phone screen.
Being rejected by Facebook in 2021 is probably a good thing
Truth is, I am not as enamored about the company as I was before, and that's what I tell myself, but it's still sour grapes syndrome. It would still be an astronomical step up for me careerwise. I would literally throw away my senior SWE status to join any of the aforementioned companies as a junior SWE level.
> I would literally throw away my senior SWE status to join any of the aforementioned companies as a junior SWE level.
Sorry to say it but if I was a hiring manager and saw someone with senior experience applying for junior positions that's a red flag to me and I would be thinking they probably have big confidence problems.
I don't do this, of course. I don't think companies/recruiters/HMs would even consider allowing me to. Although I think midlevel roles are more within reach (and many of the offers I've gotten were for such a level).
It would still be an astronomical step up for me careerwise. I would literally throw away my senior SWE status to join any of the aforementioned companies as a junior SWE level.
It’s still not worth sacrificing your moral compass, or if you prefer, your soul.
Join the data team or the enterprise engineering side. Or join as a solution architect. Maybe there's a business unit that needs software engineers but can't get them the normal way. Your senior engineer skills will go a lot further there than competing in the general engineering pool.
I know these positions exist in all companies. Find the unseemly but necessary work and deliver. The current CEO of Google worked on Google Toolbar and turned that into Chrome.
You could even go the contractor route for 2 years and try to lever that into a full time role.
The other thing way would be to spend a year diligently leetcoding...
My understanding and experience is that nearly all tech companies will still subject you to the whiteboard interviews for any role that involves coding, regardless of experience and even regardless of whether you have connections inside vouching for you.
I've had great pre-interview conversations with hiring managers discussing technical topics, several concluding with them saying that they'd love to have me on their team. Have had friends/excoworkers vouching for me sometimes. Then I go screw up on the leetcode interview, and that ends the story.
Pretty much have been drilling leetcode every day since my last failure at FB last year. (Bad) luck of the draw saw to it that I drew a question I couldn't tackle.
Some roles are less about technical brilliance and more about solving business problems and effective communication. Take a step back and ask why vs what.
Not sure I understand. Are you implying I should target roles like project manager, business analyst, etc.? If so, not really interested in anything that doesn't involve active coding quite just yet.
I did see a post somewhere about someone's recent experience getting jobs at tech companies with minimal to no leetcoding. However he states that the only way it was possible was because he already had FAANGs on his resume and some of these companies were willing to give him the benefit of the doubt due to this.
That said, the number of companies I would be willing to jump ship to from my current job (despite my gripes about it) is not that large. Certainly more than FAANG, but I'd say < 100.
Every job I've ever had except one were for companies I had never even heard of before applying and usually in industries I'd no experience working in. One of the most rewarding parts of work for me is being able to shape the culture and future of a company even as an IC.
Forgive me for the observation but it seems to me you've put big name companies on a pedestal as though they are objectively better jobs and maybe have some blinders on in terms of the real scope of opportunity that is out there.
And if it's about pay, smaller companies can often pay well too.
I'm open to entertaining any company really, but ultimately the question it boils down to is: "Is the new job/company good enough that I'd jump ship from my current job?"
Not just pay of course, although I'd be lying if it wasn't a factor at all. I'd be willing to jump ship for the same (or even less) pay if other characteristics of the new company made it worthwhile.
I'm very curious what characteristics you place value on then, if you're placing FAANG companies at or near the top of the list. My impression has always been that they would be pretty shitty to work for.
Pay, Perks, People, Prestige, Projects, and just general work environment. Not necessarily in that order. Some of these are also subject to a sort of "compounding interest" for the rest of your career too that less known companies can't provide.
I'm aware things aren't perfect rainbows and unicorns there (or really, at any company). But the friends and excoworkers who've gotten into FAANG, and similar companies, absolutely love it. And not just for the pay.
> Forgive me for the observation but it seems to me you've put big name companies on a pedestal as though they are objectively better jobs and maybe have some blinders on in terms of the real scope of opportunity that is out there.
Except maybe for Uber, all those companies they listed failing at are objectively better at attracting attention to your resume than some no name, smaller company nobody's heard of.
Is there a reason you want to get into those companies so badly? I personally don't practice leetcode, because my ROI on those types of problems is not really great, and I'd rather do things that I find to be more interesting with the time. This does mean that, when I interview, sometimes interviewers treat me like a child for not being able to reach optimal solutions for problems they know to be well known or simple. But I'm ok with that, because tech is an absolutely huge field, and there are companies out there that better fit me.
I mentioned this in another reply too, but the ultimate question is whether or not a particular new job/company is worth jumping ship from my current job.
I'd say little doubt, any of those aforementioned companies would be a "yes". I'm open minded about other companies - but again, it all boils down to that question. For Credit Karma and WeWork, where I did get offers, after interviewing there, the answer to that question I arrived at was "maybe" for the former (compensation was very lowballed), and "no" to the latter (weird culty vibes).
Not OP, but personally, the way I see it is the easiest way to break into “interesting” work (obviously that’s subjective as hell) because the sheer amount of work available and the biggest hurdle being leetcode, whereas at equivalent positions at non-faangs for certain type of roles the hurdle seems to be having multi decade experience in some domain / education/ etc.
Working in one of the companies OP mentioned. Don't assume that work at FAANG is automatically "interesting". You will do work others think is required for the company, "interesting" is never the key someone higher on the ladder is striving for.
If you want to work on interesting topics, start a side project and try to turn it into a company.
What is amazing about how difficult these interviews are is that these companies (not including Netflix) put out bad products. Amazon Fire - terrible hardware, terrible software, Microsoft Windows ME, Windows Vista, Windows 8/8.1, etc etc
> Only got through one question, and even that required assistance from the interviewer. My understanding is that if you don't finish two problems, you're doomed.
Different loops and interviewers conduct interviews in different ways. There is no "one problem" rule.
Usually the questions are structured in layers where there's many follow-ups available. Based on the question, the interviewer, the loop, they can ask one problem or more. Unless you are the interviewer, it's not clear how far into the question you've been and what the expectations were. It is common to ask two questions though.
Context: I have 300+ interviews at Facebook and been active in the whole process.
Would be jawdropping pleasantly surprised if feedback came back positive, but I'm not hopeful. I do understand that miracles happen though.
I completely, utterly, bombed my Microsoft phone screen - as in, I could not even get a basic brute force algo down. Yet I got invited to the onsite because the interviewer liked me for some non-technical reason.
You got offers from some pretty decent companies there, many many devs probably applied there and didn't get hired. Yet you feel horrible. It's very human what you're going through, but try to at least look at the positives as well.
As a serial entrepreneur who has raised money a bunch of times, I have absolutely lost count of how many angels and VCs have rejected the companies I've worked for (or founded) and been a part of the process with. Now they just roll off my back.
Odd though how in other areas of life, rejections seem much more personal. I suppose there is a difference between a professional rejection vs a personal one.
The article/blog post itself seems a bit pointless, minimal content and comes along as more of a humble brag. However I guess it triggers discussion so it's not without value entirely.
I have experienced countless rejections. Tens to hundreds every time I switch jobs.
After just a few of these, you realize no one knows how to hire and just laugh at the absurdity of this profession.
It has that 'if I can do it, you can too' that people who don't know how the world works but base their life around what other people are doing/saying absolutely love, because it gives them hope.
The more people sharing 'started from the bottom now we here' without mentioning the likelihood of it happening, the more people love it. Delusional, yet simple self serving beliefs have a snowball effect without fail - I'd wager Western culture is almost entirely made up of them at this point, which has some interesting consequences.
They did not list a high number of rejections though. Reading through it my first thought was “That’s all? What a weird flex!” In my maybe 20 year career I’ve probably been rejected hundreds of times. So much of tech interviewing is spraying and praying, and everyone is so picky. I’ve been rejected more than five times at a few distinct companies! The author listed shockingly few, unless he’s just giving us the highlight reel.
I’ve had a lot of rejections in my career and I have learned that the best advantage I have that I can bring to an interview is my conversation skills. I may not be as good as another engineer on paper, but if I can get an interview that usually changes.
I get it, and I think we've all been hurt. But why keep this list?
I remember when I had a stellar year at a big corp. My manager said `nothing bad to report, wow`. I was ready for that S - a Special automatically meant a promotion.
A few weeks later, when the whole R&D got the performance letter, I received mine with a C. D usually meant `demitido`, or fired in portuguese. I couldn't believe it, and I kept that letter through many years, just as a reminder of how you can get screwed by things that are not in your power.
A few years later, when I saw the letter, I had a much better job, and was much happier. No good could come from seeing that letter from time to time, so I threw it away.
As long as these things are living in your life, they are consuming you. The sooner you let them go, the sooner you'll be free
There are many people that have a fear of rejection. A list like this helps to illustrate that it is okay to be rejected. You can be both successful, and have failed to nail an interview. The list seems purposely devised to help those who have that sort of problem, not as a list to remind him of his failures.
This is a very good comment. The fetishization of "failure" is a quite recent phenomenon that like many other communication workflows of the modern time has the implicit or explicit goals of making someone understood, commiserated, seen as naturally strong or "yes, I cried, but look how much stronger I am". A total waste of energy that to my eyes looks weak and entitled. Like when you read on, say, Twitter "my biology professor told me I had no chances of finishing high school, but now I have a PhD in molecular biology" - assuming it is true (and I many times doubt it is the whole story), are you really holding a grudge against a nobody in your life who said some words 15 years ago?
And that's why I use "failure" in quotes here and I never use the word in my life, except in some very specific contexts (e.g., machine failure). Anybody with ambitions in their lives gets rejected, dismissed and have things that don't work even if they cry in High Valyrian. Forget, move on, live large, not small.
Quite the contrary. I understand the feeling and the downvotes. If I read my comment as written by someone else, I'd have a strong, negative reaction. What? They don't care about my failures? Are you saying that feeling down was for nothing since I cannot keep a list of them or talking about them on Twitter? It's like when I am reading and listening to Snowflake's CEO Frank Slootman: I don't like hearing what he's saying, and that's because I would like to be the one writing what he writes. But I am not him and I am not like him (for now, at least).
I believe that considering one's strengths and weaknesses rationally and logically, examining (briefly!) things that did not work out and rejections are all necessary to improve and being aligned. But keeping a list of and sharing failures like a cake at a wedding is weak. It is weak in form, weak in substance, weak in positive expected consequences.
Modern times, which are tremendously better overall than the olden times, have brought along for some reason—and especially in the US (and the Anglo world more in general)—this idea of being vulnerable and weak as being virtuous. So you have one day the failures, one day the impostor syndrome, the following day "whatever." But I don't find any virtue in that.
Since I am neither US nor Anglo, I remember, still with goosebumps, when a colleague of mine in one of the top tech companies in the Silicon Valley said during a group meeting: "Let me share some of my failures." And he went on with a list of "failed" projects and actions of absolutely zero interest for anybody. I remember the feeling of antipathy toward what I interpreted as either manipulation (please, I am weak, be kind) or tremendously low confidence masquerading as openness to criticism. What I expect from people getting a ton of money and status is: this is what did not work, that's why (if we know why), that's what we should be next time (if we know what and how). I am also looking forward to your comments and opinions. That is strong. Not sob stories.
You wrote: "A teacher talking like that could be very harsh and damaging depending on the child" -- It is the opposite, since I am not saying that "failures" are wrong, bad, they should put you down. On the contrary, I am saying that anytime we stretch ourselves (and lamentably, sometimes even the goal is easily reachable, because life is like a box of chocolate), we can miss, get rejected, lose. As it is inevitably part of the life of the achiever—and I hope (and work towards it) all my students will be achievers in some aspects of their lives—those "failures" (getting rejected by a romantic interest, a college, a company, etc.) should be rapidly and unequivocally forgotten. I mean, can you imagine keeping a list of all the men and women who rejected you? I am already feeling the testosterone dropping like a boulder in the ocean.
I was rejected by at least 50 high-level jobs for which I felt qualified. But the problem is that for those high-level jobs, other people felt equally qualified; maybe those candidates were better or had different competencies; maybe the company wanted someone better looking or of different ethnicity. Let's try to get some material for future endeavors and then move on. That's life for achievers.
Anecdote, yes. Read what Floyd Mayweather said in the criminally underrated "Winners", by Alastair Campbell (there is a reason why the book is not called either "Failures" or "Losers"): "The key quality for a winning mindset is believing in your ability to win. From a young professional in boxing, I believed that I would end up being a great fighter and throughout the years I have done everything necessary to get there. If you believe you can do it, then everything else falls into place.". I don't see the impostor syndrome and I don't see the list of rejections.
I’m not going to rattle off my own career rejection list (though I’ve definitely done in in talks I’ve given aimed at people about to graduate from college), but I really appreciate this post.
I don’t work in academia, but I know enough people that do to know how rare it is to be open about what is a very rejection-heavy industry, and I commend the author for putting that out there!
I had to accept a huge volume of rejection, both doing in job applications (hundreds of applications) and online dating (thousands). All the while being alone during Covid-19.
My advice to those who might be reading is to find a mentor or best friend who you can update on your progress on a semi-regular basis. Those people helped me so much to remain positive and upbeat during the really disappointing moments of 2020. They can also give feedback on your approaches.
The other tip is to accept it's going to feel terrible, but to let the disappointment that you feel flow through you to help move on.
Very interesting that your focus is "IDE research". Not sure I've encountered that before! One reason for the rejections may be that in industry, from what I've seen, dev and cloud tools are managed by more "soft skills" people. Masters in Psychology types may be more the candidate they seek. I suppose the thinking is that to gain mass adoption they have to be less engineer designed and more user friendly ;)
This is a very short list of rejections. In my opinion, anyone who wants to have a successful career these days ought to expect at least an order of magnitude more rejections than this over the course of their career.
I’ve been incredibly fortunate to have few rejections in my career. Off the top of my head:
- Google (the feeling was mutual)
- GitHub, if you count no response as a rejection
- I likely would have been rejected by Microsoft, but I ended the interview early
That said, I’ve been even more fortunate to have established great working relationships with peers, mentors and mentees, which has helped me get all but my first job and the one I’m likely to start next.
In a sense, the amount of nepotism in the industry is probably a barrier to many, which I’m sensitive to. But these working relationships aren’t the only way to establish good connections. I’ve seen people do very well by just attending meetups related to some aspect of the industry they find interesting.
That’s still a barrier for people who don’t have the time to devote (or wait), but for anyone who does have the time and wants to improve their prospects I highly encourage giving it a try.
I wish I had the balls to do that. I mean sometimes u just know you bombed and there's no going back, like 30 minutes into a bad date. You just know. Yet there I am going through the whole 1.5 hours sweating it. Why not just say : Hey guy, thanks for the opportunity. I think we both know this isn't going well for me, good luck! Actually this can work for bad dates as well!
For what it’s worth, I wish I had walked out on Google. That was definitely one where I knew I wouldn’t be happy on the job.
And I wish I’d stuck it out with MS, at least as a courtesy. Even if I would ultimately have been rejected. I was mostly just disappointed in the particular interview style. I got to the last interview in the loop, by the team’s lead, and asked if he had any intention to have me do an exercise relevant to the (frontend) job or if it would be 4 straight algorithm/data structure exercises. He said the latter, and that’s when I walked.
Success may only come once out of every 100 times you try. So you better get over failing and iterate quickly if you want to make it. Fail fast so you can move on.
Interviewing is a skill just like talking to women. you need practice before you will succeed. And practice necessarily means rejection.
People who are afraid to fail will never succeed. They put too much weight on a particular thing and then are crushed when it doesn't pan out. You have to get to the point where rejection and failure don't hurt. Just add another data point to your corpus of life experience. Then magically you start to succeed and your success will snowball.
This is such a hostile system. It keeps the market from clearing, both for jobs and for women. No wonder people drop out and play video games. I eventually got pushed past the fear of rejection when my failure-free factory job went sour, but my successful career since then shows it was a waste to put so much rejection in my way. The real world is Nintendo-hard, and that sucks.
I like this. Simply because we don't emphasize our failures yet we should, to learn from, etc etc.
I've worked at over a dozen software companies big and small over my 20 years+ career yet I've gotten rejections about 50x more than I get offers. Like sales, it's a numbers game. The best jobs I ever had was working with folks I've worked with before or where there was really strong culture fit. Sometimes it's not your achievements but your personality, your goals, who you are that they reject. Keep going.
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[ 2.1 ms ] story [ 254 ms ] threadIt’s important for people to see that those who have succeeded have failed too.
We do ourselves a major disservice by pretending that only having an academic position at the top five or ten schools or a job at one of the top five or six tech companies is the only way to achieve success.
What happens when you’re mediocre at everything.
"More rejections to come!"
That's the spirit! Never give up :)
* Google * Amazon/AWS (interviewed by Jeff Barr and tbh, I was starstruck) * Cloudflare * EdgeCast * Twitter * GitLab * GitHub * Linux Foundation * Wikimedia * DigitalOcean * Snyk
I'm doing well now - but those were rough times for me. When my teenager feels rejected (e.g. not making the team), I always tell them that rejection is always a bummer, but not the end of the world. And I gently remind them of that story as a way of saying *"trust me, I'm not saying that as empty words; I do understand how it feels."
To make matters worse my employer did not pay me my last paycheck and severance pay required by law, I didn't have a lot of savings, my wife was fired the next day, we just had a baby, and we didn't have a car anymore because that was a company car.
In the end it turned out okay - I managed to get a couple of offers within a week, ended up taking a job which paid 30% less as did my wife, we moved to a cheaper city, got a cheap car, and after a while the market started recovering and I found a better job. But man, that was traumatic. Some of my colleagues from that company were unemployed for many months.
That said, I encourage folks on my team to interview regularly just to know how to value themselves and to see that there are other opportunities, and to just get practice interviewing and learning how other companies run the process.
My rejections:
- laid off from Red Hat post dot-bomb (I wasn't really trying to stay at the time) ~ 2003
- rejected for a sysadmin position at Blizzard in around 2003 or 4?
- rejected from a lot of PhD programs in Physics (I wasn't really trying that hard, see a theme, it's called cognitive dissonance!) ~ 2008
- fired from Quora (honestly really just ended up misaligned with my boss and career goals, they made the right call) ~ 2014
- rejected from Stripe with two personal referrals after the last stage of the interview. I was pretty bummed by this and had spent a month putting all my eggs in one basket to work there. This was 2014 so I also missed out on a nice bit of stock to be honest!
At my current company I feel like I finally had enough continuity to specialize a bit and become an expert in a field to feel comfortable with what ever may come next. I hope others can find that in their careers too.
e.g., I want a job at Facebook, so I'm going to go interview at some random startups first for sharpness.
I haven't heard of anyone actually taking that advice literally and just randomly giving out interviews even when they have no intention of actually moving from their jobs.
> And what if they make an offer?
I guess you choose whether to accept it or not. An offer does not oblige you to accept.
The fact is, they could offer you an amazing package that will change your mind. Or, they could offer you something you expect but know you wouldn't take. Both are OK.
I'd only think of it as a purposeful waste of time if for some reason you absolutely know you cannot take the job, regardless of anything.
I’ll be disappointed if I make an offer and find out they leveraged it for a promotion, but usually you don’t have to tell them anything. You can always say you just want more money and every company has a budget.
You can also just keep in touch. Most folks who would make an offer are happy to talk to you again later or even further along in your career.
I now have hired two people who I sent rejections to after four years!
Some folks will frown on this but here is my philosophy: the company holds all the power, this is you as an individual developing an understanding of that system so it’s not at all unfair, since it started unfairly tilted against candidates - not everyone will agree, but the good news is that you won’t have to talk to the people who disagree again.
I personally encourage friends, especially those that have been at their job for 5+ years to go to interviews for roles they might find interesting, even if they have no plan of leaving their current role. I have been in the industry long enough to see companies cut ties with employees that have been with them for many years. If they are lucky it is not during a mass firing round, but if they are unlucky it is the result of a large firing round or worse yet a recession of some type. Job hunting and interviewing are at the end of the day a type of competition and if you want to be good at it you need to make sure you have practiced. The benefit of this, is if you make a point of going to interviews where you are still curious about the role, you may actually find your an unexpectedly amazing job and you also are more likely to get a much better offer than you ever would when you are actively looking.
Now when I am a hiring manager, I have zero issue if someone comes with the intent of it being a practice interview. Why? Well, my job as a hiring manager is to win over the candidate to the role I am hiring for. It starts with the one on one, to the exercise I give and to the overall process being a nice experience. If I do those things correctly and the candidate is good, then it usually doesn’t matter what their original motive was for interviewing, they walk out of the process saying I want to work with that person and I want that job. I think a lot of companies don’t understand that the candidates are choosing you as much as you are choosing them. At least that is the way it should be.
Same. I've been extremely lucky that the only layoff I experienced was on first job out of school and on the first day ("we hired too many people").
The worst rejection I experienced was for a consulting position with a Big 4 consulting firm 10+ years ago. I bombed the brain teaser/problem solving question in the last round (IIRC, why are manhole covers round?). I could tell the interview went downhill after that exchange. At the time I had no prior consulting experience therefore I really wanted to pivot into consulting with that opening.
Come to think of it, I have never asked any brain teaser questions like that in any of the interviews I conducted - maybe that's why. :)
>just get practice interviewing and learning how other companies run the process
I did it a few times but never felt the experience is comparable to looking for work "for real".
https://wiki.c2.com/?MicrosoftsManholeCoverQuestion
I tend to keep interviewing or lets call it networking. The position I did fit a 100% I ended up declining as they were mostly position I thought I would go downwards in my career and pay, even if it sounded interesting.
Glad you found that place of continuity - still trying to get there...
Do you not find interviewing is super expensive in terms of time? My last interview was a four-day trip and about 40 hours of prep time before that.
If I interviewed more than once or twice a year it'd be an enormous time sink. Maybe it pays off for you because you think the networking benefits are so high?
Although 4 day trip interview is extreme, I would rather not go for unless they pay me. But things are even easier now, as most of recruitment is done remotely.
I’ve never had concrete career goals, that’s step one of not being bothered by challenges.
Step two, I’ve always worked at startups in relatively emerging markets, which means they are inherently new and challenging and that has fed that challenge/growth that I seek even though not necessarily tied to career growth explicitly.
I’ve only started in my 40s to care about long term career growth, so go figure.
I think the short answer is I’m highly internally motivated and seek out challenges no matter what so it’s not a thing I usually worry about.
First time I was referred to Stripe, I got a rejection email an hour later (no interview even occurred).
Second time, I did a coding exercise with no issues, passing all tests, but from the start I could tell the interviewer didn't like me (so I got a rejection).
I've been rejected quite a few times as well. This is in fact so inspiring that I will apply for another job that I most likely will be rejected from as well.
You cannot win if you don't play the game.
The second time they were locking down a time I could fly somewhere and the whole thing went poof. Fortunately I was in a good job and it was no big deal, but it would have been very stressful if I was between gigs.
I "failed" my first four (edit: onsite) FANG interviews. 5th time was a charm, have been happily employed with a senior title at FANG for a couple years.
Not exactly new information to HN, but the job itself is quite a bit easier than the interviews (wrt to technical knowledge). It can be just as stressful though (I actually think stress response / teamwork is one of the main things FANG interviewers are looking for after a certain bar of technical competence is met, YMMV).
This isn't for everyone, but if it's something you really want to do, don't let the rejections get you down. You'll get in eventually :)
> you can theoretically interview at each of the letters in FAANG every year
One of those letters will let you interview many times in a single year ;) (but not for the same role on the same team)
If I had any final advice for those intent on going through the interview meat grinder it is that while l33tcode can be useful, you'll still want to understand some of the why behind popular algorithms and not just have a ton of specific ones memorized. This will save you when you have to talk through a problem you're not already familiar with.
Skiena's The Algorithm Design Manual was more helpful to me than any other prep material in that regard.
I know you can interview at multiple roles at FB provided 1.) you pass the initial phone screen and 2.) the onsite loop is different - say, frontend vs. product/backend. Doesn't work for me this year since I likely failed the phonescreen...
I've heard in theory you can apply to multiple jobs at N too.
Spent the past week basically taking time off from work to do leetcode problems nonstop. Too bad it didn't help.
Third time failing at FB. First time failed the phone screen in 2018. Passed phone screen last year but bombed the onsite. And now failed the third time on the phone screen.
Also failed at Amazon (onsite), Netflix (twice - once on the phonescreen, once on the onsite), Uber (twice phonescreen), Microsoft (onsite). Got offers from Credit Karma and WeWork...how I dearly wish those offers were from any of the other companies I had failed at...
Needless to say, I feel horrible.
Being rejected by Facebook in 2021 is probably a good thing
Sorry to say it but if I was a hiring manager and saw someone with senior experience applying for junior positions that's a red flag to me and I would be thinking they probably have big confidence problems.
It’s still not worth sacrificing your moral compass, or if you prefer, your soul.
I know these positions exist in all companies. Find the unseemly but necessary work and deliver. The current CEO of Google worked on Google Toolbar and turned that into Chrome.
You could even go the contractor route for 2 years and try to lever that into a full time role.
The other thing way would be to spend a year diligently leetcoding...
I've had great pre-interview conversations with hiring managers discussing technical topics, several concluding with them saying that they'd love to have me on their team. Have had friends/excoworkers vouching for me sometimes. Then I go screw up on the leetcode interview, and that ends the story.
Pretty much have been drilling leetcode every day since my last failure at FB last year. (Bad) luck of the draw saw to it that I drew a question I couldn't tackle.
I did see a post somewhere about someone's recent experience getting jobs at tech companies with minimal to no leetcoding. However he states that the only way it was possible was because he already had FAANGs on his resume and some of these companies were willing to give him the benefit of the doubt due to this.
And most of the smaller ones, while less prestigious, are probably just straight up better places to work.
That said, the number of companies I would be willing to jump ship to from my current job (despite my gripes about it) is not that large. Certainly more than FAANG, but I'd say < 100.
Forgive me for the observation but it seems to me you've put big name companies on a pedestal as though they are objectively better jobs and maybe have some blinders on in terms of the real scope of opportunity that is out there.
And if it's about pay, smaller companies can often pay well too.
Not just pay of course, although I'd be lying if it wasn't a factor at all. I'd be willing to jump ship for the same (or even less) pay if other characteristics of the new company made it worthwhile.
I'm aware things aren't perfect rainbows and unicorns there (or really, at any company). But the friends and excoworkers who've gotten into FAANG, and similar companies, absolutely love it. And not just for the pay.
Except maybe for Uber, all those companies they listed failing at are objectively better at attracting attention to your resume than some no name, smaller company nobody's heard of.
Is there a reason you want to get into those companies so badly? I personally don't practice leetcode, because my ROI on those types of problems is not really great, and I'd rather do things that I find to be more interesting with the time. This does mean that, when I interview, sometimes interviewers treat me like a child for not being able to reach optimal solutions for problems they know to be well known or simple. But I'm ok with that, because tech is an absolutely huge field, and there are companies out there that better fit me.
I'd say little doubt, any of those aforementioned companies would be a "yes". I'm open minded about other companies - but again, it all boils down to that question. For Credit Karma and WeWork, where I did get offers, after interviewing there, the answer to that question I arrived at was "maybe" for the former (compensation was very lowballed), and "no" to the latter (weird culty vibes).
If you want to work on interesting topics, start a side project and try to turn it into a company.
Different loops and interviewers conduct interviews in different ways. There is no "one problem" rule.
Usually the questions are structured in layers where there's many follow-ups available. Based on the question, the interviewer, the loop, they can ask one problem or more. Unless you are the interviewer, it's not clear how far into the question you've been and what the expectations were. It is common to ask two questions though.
Context: I have 300+ interviews at Facebook and been active in the whole process.
I completely, utterly, bombed my Microsoft phone screen - as in, I could not even get a basic brute force algo down. Yet I got invited to the onsite because the interviewer liked me for some non-technical reason.
Odd though how in other areas of life, rejections seem much more personal. I suppose there is a difference between a professional rejection vs a personal one.
I have experienced countless rejections. Tens to hundreds every time I switch jobs. After just a few of these, you realize no one knows how to hire and just laugh at the absurdity of this profession.
The more people sharing 'started from the bottom now we here' without mentioning the likelihood of it happening, the more people love it. Delusional, yet simple self serving beliefs have a snowball effect without fail - I'd wager Western culture is almost entirely made up of them at this point, which has some interesting consequences.
Pointless? No. I'm sure it's reassuring to anyone who doesn't understand the high amount of rejections when looking for a job.
I remember when I had a stellar year at a big corp. My manager said `nothing bad to report, wow`. I was ready for that S - a Special automatically meant a promotion.
A few weeks later, when the whole R&D got the performance letter, I received mine with a C. D usually meant `demitido`, or fired in portuguese. I couldn't believe it, and I kept that letter through many years, just as a reminder of how you can get screwed by things that are not in your power.
A few years later, when I saw the letter, I had a much better job, and was much happier. No good could come from seeing that letter from time to time, so I threw it away.
As long as these things are living in your life, they are consuming you. The sooner you let them go, the sooner you'll be free
And that's why I use "failure" in quotes here and I never use the word in my life, except in some very specific contexts (e.g., machine failure). Anybody with ambitions in their lives gets rejected, dismissed and have things that don't work even if they cry in High Valyrian. Forget, move on, live large, not small.
I believe that considering one's strengths and weaknesses rationally and logically, examining (briefly!) things that did not work out and rejections are all necessary to improve and being aligned. But keeping a list of and sharing failures like a cake at a wedding is weak. It is weak in form, weak in substance, weak in positive expected consequences.
Modern times, which are tremendously better overall than the olden times, have brought along for some reason—and especially in the US (and the Anglo world more in general)—this idea of being vulnerable and weak as being virtuous. So you have one day the failures, one day the impostor syndrome, the following day "whatever." But I don't find any virtue in that.
Since I am neither US nor Anglo, I remember, still with goosebumps, when a colleague of mine in one of the top tech companies in the Silicon Valley said during a group meeting: "Let me share some of my failures." And he went on with a list of "failed" projects and actions of absolutely zero interest for anybody. I remember the feeling of antipathy toward what I interpreted as either manipulation (please, I am weak, be kind) or tremendously low confidence masquerading as openness to criticism. What I expect from people getting a ton of money and status is: this is what did not work, that's why (if we know why), that's what we should be next time (if we know what and how). I am also looking forward to your comments and opinions. That is strong. Not sob stories.
You wrote: "A teacher talking like that could be very harsh and damaging depending on the child" -- It is the opposite, since I am not saying that "failures" are wrong, bad, they should put you down. On the contrary, I am saying that anytime we stretch ourselves (and lamentably, sometimes even the goal is easily reachable, because life is like a box of chocolate), we can miss, get rejected, lose. As it is inevitably part of the life of the achiever—and I hope (and work towards it) all my students will be achievers in some aspects of their lives—those "failures" (getting rejected by a romantic interest, a college, a company, etc.) should be rapidly and unequivocally forgotten. I mean, can you imagine keeping a list of all the men and women who rejected you? I am already feeling the testosterone dropping like a boulder in the ocean.
I was rejected by at least 50 high-level jobs for which I felt qualified. But the problem is that for those high-level jobs, other people felt equally qualified; maybe those candidates were better or had different competencies; maybe the company wanted someone better looking or of different ethnicity. Let's try to get some material for future endeavors and then move on. That's life for achievers.
Anecdote, yes. Read what Floyd Mayweather said in the criminally underrated "Winners", by Alastair Campbell (there is a reason why the book is not called either "Failures" or "Losers"): "The key quality for a winning mindset is believing in your ability to win. From a young professional in boxing, I believed that I would end up being a great fighter and throughout the years I have done everything necessary to get there. If you believe you can do it, then everything else falls into place.". I don't see the impostor syndrome and I don't see the list of rejections.
What made the year stellar?
I don’t work in academia, but I know enough people that do to know how rare it is to be open about what is a very rejection-heavy industry, and I commend the author for putting that out there!
My advice to those who might be reading is to find a mentor or best friend who you can update on your progress on a semi-regular basis. Those people helped me so much to remain positive and upbeat during the really disappointing moments of 2020. They can also give feedback on your approaches.
The other tip is to accept it's going to feel terrible, but to let the disappointment that you feel flow through you to help move on.
- Google (the feeling was mutual)
- GitHub, if you count no response as a rejection
- I likely would have been rejected by Microsoft, but I ended the interview early
That said, I’ve been even more fortunate to have established great working relationships with peers, mentors and mentees, which has helped me get all but my first job and the one I’m likely to start next.
In a sense, the amount of nepotism in the industry is probably a barrier to many, which I’m sensitive to. But these working relationships aren’t the only way to establish good connections. I’ve seen people do very well by just attending meetups related to some aspect of the industry they find interesting.
That’s still a barrier for people who don’t have the time to devote (or wait), but for anyone who does have the time and wants to improve their prospects I highly encourage giving it a try.
I wish I had the balls to do that. I mean sometimes u just know you bombed and there's no going back, like 30 minutes into a bad date. You just know. Yet there I am going through the whole 1.5 hours sweating it. Why not just say : Hey guy, thanks for the opportunity. I think we both know this isn't going well for me, good luck! Actually this can work for bad dates as well!
And I wish I’d stuck it out with MS, at least as a courtesy. Even if I would ultimately have been rejected. I was mostly just disappointed in the particular interview style. I got to the last interview in the loop, by the team’s lead, and asked if he had any intention to have me do an exercise relevant to the (frontend) job or if it would be 4 straight algorithm/data structure exercises. He said the latter, and that’s when I walked.
Interviewing is a skill just like talking to women. you need practice before you will succeed. And practice necessarily means rejection.
People who are afraid to fail will never succeed. They put too much weight on a particular thing and then are crushed when it doesn't pan out. You have to get to the point where rejection and failure don't hurt. Just add another data point to your corpus of life experience. Then magically you start to succeed and your success will snowball.
I've worked at over a dozen software companies big and small over my 20 years+ career yet I've gotten rejections about 50x more than I get offers. Like sales, it's a numbers game. The best jobs I ever had was working with folks I've worked with before or where there was really strong culture fit. Sometimes it's not your achievements but your personality, your goals, who you are that they reject. Keep going.