Leaked software engineering recruiter selection guideline

25 days ago (twitter.com)

Nobody in big companies wants to hire from other big companies is funny. Google recently got a HR initiative to hire preferentially from start ups but also they almost always want people who worked in large scale projects. I think this is some sort of toxic cross pollination with Facebook.

Also it’s kind of ridiculous that they want founder level start up experience but also only top schools. Looking for a unicorn amongst unicorns

  • >Nobody in big companies wants to hire from other big companies is funny.

    That's a misinterpretation. They simply want some non-zero amount of startup experience, presumably because they're a startup.

FAANG pipelines are likely full of people who fit these criteria - but then they whittle it down to only the ones who can performatively solve leetcode puzzles within strict time controls, and the leadership is left wondering why startups with <1% of their resources are dominating in AI performance and mindshare.

  • Honest question, are these startups not also asking "leetcode puzzles within strict time controls" ?

    • Ive been through a few that ask more practical questions, but are ultimately a "can you code well" question.

If nobody was actually hiring people with "short stints" (<2 yrs) then you wouldn't be able to find anybody with a short stint ...

Although you wouldn't also see so many short stints if people weren't paid the direct cost of replacement ...

I'm amused by the fact that you're not considered a "job hopper" if you change your company every two years.

So.. For which company? The sentence "there are scam profiles all around the IT world" would not be on any real company of scale guidelines, and no company would put that much liability in one "slide" even if they had them.

In 2025, your programming interviews will require you to use an AI programming assistant.

Learn them. Get used to them. Become one with the machine. Or, go find another job.

  • Nope false. Interviewed at a few of the top dogs this year. Zero AI assistants allowed.

    • I've been having the opposite experience. The interviewer lets me know ahead of time that they highly encourage use of AI tools, and then ask you to finish a small project in an impossibly short period of time.

      Maybe they're window shopping for talent.

  • That seems very unlikely, why would you think that will be a requirement?

    • Because I've been getting interviews where the hiring company "strongly encourages" use of such tools - interview projects are just too large to finish without LLM help within the forty five minute time limit.

This is all within the realm of possibility. I've heard hiring managers say similar things over my time in the industry. Not condoning it fwiw.

It looks like they want the sort of person who wouldn't work at the sort of place they are.

That is why if you are a cracked hacker, to want to join one of these large tech companies is like wanting to join IBM in the 1990s.

You are much better off joining a startup or starting one of your own.