I have interviewed several hundred software engineers over decades.
It’s hard to get a sense of a person from a single blog entry. I’m wondering though if she’s really good at acing FAANG style interviews and maybe not so good at other types? She seems to have written a book on coding interviews and worked at both Google and Apple so she must’ve gotten that process down well.
With those types of companies not hiring, layoffs and a general macroeconomic slowing it’s probably going to take longer than usual to land a job after a self-chosen employment gap of 4-5 months.
The 'coding interview' ain't what it used to be. Now companies (generally outside of FAANG) will have the recruiter (who is probably not technical) demand you complete a Leetcode exercise that they've picked seemingly at random, and your fate is decided by a timer and whether or not the green checkmark says your solution works. There is no back and forth with an engineer to gather facts or clarify the problem, there is no discussion of alternate solutions or positives and negatives to your chosen solution, there is no room to exercise industry or specialized knowledge at all.
Having read the blog entry it seems to me that this is what the author is lamenting, and I can empathize with that.
This hasn't been my experience, but I wouldn't hesitate to pull up ChatGPT on my phone to pass a recruiter-enforced no-feedback no-engineer AI-graded prescreen.
I'm fully ready to get my writing tablet and work through my thought process/answer presentation, and have an interesting discussion. But if there's no engineer to talk to, then IMO just getting a 'pass' however you can is fine (morally as well).
It's a guest post - IOW, it's marketing for what she sells. I don't think Gayle's been an engineer (or would care to be one) since she founded her company in 2008.
It’s hard to get a sense of a person from a single blog entry. I’m wondering though if she’s really good at acing FAANG style interviews and maybe not so good at other types? She seems to have written a book on coding interviews and worked at both Google and Apple so she must’ve gotten that process down well.
With those types of companies not hiring, layoffs and a general macroeconomic slowing it’s probably going to take longer than usual to land a job after a self-chosen employment gap of 4-5 months.