So you wanna be a Wall Street techie? Or anyway, get paid a lot
For at least a couple of decades now, if you’ve been a technologist and wanted to get paid as highly as possible for your work, there’s been pretty much only one place to go: the financial industry. meeting_room_empty_chair Have a seat, chum... we'll be in shortly to pick up the questionnaire on the syntax of complicated and …
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Re: No thanks ...
"I don't work for dicks." - unless you are self employed, everybody works for a dick. And if you have underlings, they probably think you are a dick. It's the way it goes.
"I don't have a degree." - what's worse, a mickey mouse degree or no degree at all? Tough call.
"I also don't earn 60k+ a year." - nor do I.
"Do I care? not really. Would I like to earn more? sure who wouldn't." - sure, everybody would like to earn more. I'd love to think "my computer is getting on a bit, let's upgrade" or "wouldn't Kyoto look pretty this time of year". However, in exchange for crap pay, lame conditions, and mostly being ignored by management, I have something rather special. I have a job where the only stress happens while I'm actually at work (and even then, it is a minor level of stress). When I finish my work, I clock out, walk out, and don't need to give it a single thought until the next day. Production processes? Turnover? Q&A? NMFP.
I don't know if that makes me smart or stupid, but I rather like programming and dicking around with hardware and from what I can see, unless you score a good position you may end up regretting it. So I took my own state of zen in preference to wads of cash and fast cars. Neither impress me much, to be honest. I'll hack ARM code on my own time to my own rhythm, and do the boring "job" thing in order to pay the bills and keep me connected. I'm not aiming to be a high flyer, I'm just aiming to be happy.
Re: No thanks ...
"I don't work for dicks.
I don't have a degree.
I also don't earn 60k+ a year.
Do I care? not really."
Try £140+k as a starting point with tax structuring leading to the ability to retire from it early with no mortgage and go do something more constructive. Care now?
Re: No thanks ...
> "Am I any less intellegent than..."
...
Well...
..Go to an interview in an asshole industry populated by over-inflated asshole egos and one can duly expect to be asked asshole questions for an asshole job that pays asshole-level money.
Remember, these are the same assholes who made an ass out of the economy.
Don't go work for the assholes, and maybe they won't be able to do as much damage in future.
Re: Well...
In my first year at university doing a systems engineering degree we had careers lectures from various industry bigwigs trying to get us to work for them. There was one company that stood out as offering a serious amount of money for talented maths and engineering grads. They said quite a lot about how exciting the work was and how you could go far very quickly. Unfortunately that company was Lehman Bros, and moving quickly presumably meant out of the window towards the pavement when everything caught up with them a few years ago.
Re: Well...
The only techie I know that ended up in the financial was already a giant asshole before going to work for Goldmans. Last time I ran into him and he proudly announced he was in algorithmic trading, and then frantically tried to explain how that and HFT were good, useful endeavours and not at all the immoral, make-work activites of financial parasites skimming from the real economy.
It was quite entertaining. They can keep him.
I'm in my mid-40s and /still/ get asked what my 'O' level results were.
and there i was thinking legal IT was filled with the most twats.
They ask those stupid questions...
...because they simply don't know what to ask. They need to evaluate a person they'll be spending months (if not years) with, trust him with their work and depend on him for completing their projects on time - all in couple of hours, with dozens of candidates to choose from.
The more experienced ones will just make the candidate talk and use their intuition to try to catch his gestalt. Those who can't, will try to ask the run of the mill logic questions to see if he can at least think right.
So Google has not learned from Microsoft?
Your description of Google's interviews reminds me of the reputation Microsoft had back in the late 90's... Why are manhole covers round? etc. I believe Microsoft has moved on from that approach, certainly when I interviewed there in the mid noughties they laughed at the idea before having me whiteboard a techical approach to a relevant technical problem.
Re: So Google has not learned from Microsoft?
Is it because manholes are round?
Re: So Google has not learned from Microsoft?
Manhole covers - is it so they can't fall into their own hole?
@sir runcible
I guess Microsoft didn't learn much from their own interview questions then, considering the hole of their own making they're rapidly falling into.
Re: So Google has not learned from Microsoft?
It's so that you aren't left with unsightly gaps when you put say a square or hexagonal cover into the round hole where they go. ;)
Next question, why does the centre of a coin not get left behind when you roll it along a table, since the edge is clearly moving faster than the centre ;)
Manhole covers
So they can't fall down their own hole - yes, that's one answer. I've never yet seen an equilateral triangular manhole cover (a shape which is even more proof against falling down its own hole). This answer may therefore be only part of the whole truth.
Minimizing the stress concentration at the corners (because there aren't any corners) is another possible.
"I doubt your premise" is also a possible answer. I see plenty of rectangular covers in the pavements I walk. Does it depend on the definition of "manhole"?
I'll get the job for showing that I can think things through, or not get the job for demonstrating that I'm a smart-ass. It's a crap-shoot. Except that in the latter case, I probably wouldn't want the job anyway.
Re: So Google has not learned from Microsoft?
and round objects can be well rolled instead of carried.
I've been through the interview process for both Cambridge (to study maths) and for Google (to join their SRE team). In neither case and at no stage was I asked anything even vaguely resembling the "off-the-wall" type of question (e.g. the piano tuners one). The Google questions were all technical, largely relevant to the job, and actually interesting to try to solve the problem.
In some cases in the Google interviews, I pointed out where I'd look something up in the manual, and asked for that information. It was usually forthcoming (or we came to an agreement to treat it as a black box for the purposes of moving the interview forward).
For the record, I got into Cambridge, and haven't heard back from Google yet (hence AC).
MeToo
The Cambridge part, that is. I did maths there, back in the days when computers were for people a lot richer than students.
Every time I hear that story about the interviews, I worry about my memory: how could I have so completely forgotten such a thing? Is that Urban Myth I smell?
I was in a conversation with a friend who heads up r&d at a big midwestern exchange. We were talking about interviewing and he told me how he is always looking for a reason to reject a candidate. I on the other hand look to select a candidate, until they give me a reason not to.
I once interfviewed for a position of sr systems admin where the other sr interviewed me for 2 hours...rattling off inane questions like what is fcal, what is scsi etc. i had to cut the interview process short by finally asking him what he hoped to find out by testing my general knowlege and how did he expect to understand how well i could drive unix servers by asking me silly questions like that. Needless to say i did not accept their offer...
I like to see problem solving skills relevant to the role, testing from basic to more advanced levels of knowledge and experience.
Sir
The more inane the questions, the more likely you get an SoR that is a PoS.
Re: I always start with
A1) It goes down of course. Not because the battery is now in the lake rather than the boat, but because you are now in jail for illegal dumping! :)
A2) Ban all road vehicles. Well...all except mine. Because I'm brilliant, me.
You, sir, are part of the problem
I mentioned the boat and brick problem at about 2pm, though I'd like to think that you aren't a tedious arse. I'll spare you my smug, trite answers to your questions, at least (mostly. Fix the M25? Build a wall across it. Flow rate then becomes constant and independant of traffic rate. You want to change the spec? Change requests will cost you big time, chief).
Anyway, I'm failing to make a point. Ask a question related to the sort of work they'll be doing. In software and finance coming up with an abstract problem that they probably won't have come across that can be answered without an excess of effort shouldn't be a big ask. Bricks and ponds just mean you'll find the applicants who have heard it all before. The M25 question is fractionally better, but what it tells *me* is that you are trying to think up Cunning Interview Questions which is all jolly boring.
As for google and the rest... there are certain kinds of interview technique that result in the hiring of a small range of personality types. You develop a little institution that breeds groupthink like a rotting badger breeds flies and everyone can be super capable and super intelligent and still make products and decisions that are total shite.
I look at google and see a company that goes out of its way to foster a working environment it thinks will contribute to employee productivity and creativity. And I see a lot of employees who get to work on their own projects, and yet somehow google generates nothing new. Every new product they've done since search has been brought in from outside; they've accomplished some amazing feats of engineering, and they've come up with some impressive tricks but every new product that has been solely in house has flopped. Why do you suppose that is?
Re: You, sir, are part of the problem
Exactly, when they need real 'Genius' Google buy it in as with the driver-less car project. All their in house employees are bog standard software engineers. Engineers who genuinely want to change the world or make something new and clever do a PhD and/or join small start-up companies. This is one of the reasons Google (and investment Banks) love maths graduates - they are people who never had a clue what they wanted to do or had any ambition or foresight to build something real. They are like sheep who can be taught to write code.
I think the right answer to all of those things is...
"GOOGLE IT".
Then explain how a search engine can go about analysing the question to come up with an accurate answer or set of answers.
For example whether it means "tuning forks" or "professional piano tuners".
It can index all the businesses it has in it's databases and come to a figure that is representative of what is known. i.e. number of listings that exactly match or 98% match with added keywords present. etc.etc.
Then your interviewer knows that you can make a search function that will meet customer expectations.
Swish...
Nothing but net!
HIRE ME GOOGLE!!!!
Re: I think the right answer to all of those things is...
"Google it"? Hardly. Maybe "Wolfram Alpha it"
Solving the traffic problem on the M25?
Have random, seemingly personalised messages on the alert boards based on the volume and speed or traffic,...
(High speed, High flow)
Watch your following distance, John
Indicate next time, Miranda
Time for a rest break, Aliksander
(Low Speed)
You will still make it in time, Mary
No lane splitting, Mike
The perception of being identified personally will have a better psychological impact on the individuals who's name matches the random ones generated, and the others will assume they could also be identified.
"meaningless...almost Zen-like puzzles"
If you can't recognise and offer at least a vague methodology for solving a logic puzzle, you have no place on a development team.
Re: "meaningless...almost Zen-like puzzles"
If you can't come up with meaningful technical questions relevant to the role being interviewed for you have no place running a development team.
Re: "meaningless...almost Zen-like puzzles"
In general, there is no "role being interviewed for" at Google interviews. They hire thousands of people per year, and have thousands of positions opening. They cannot wait months after they open a position to decide who to hire for that position.
So they want people who can work in any job, whatever that job will be next month. And the people interviewing you are unlikely to be from your team.
Re: "meaningless...almost Zen-like puzzles"
Technical questions on a particular language or platform shows mostly what their experience to date is on that particular technology. You get significant additional insight into the ability of a candidate by assessing their general approach to problem solving, and for developers that particularly applies to logic & maths problems. Obviously you don't base the entire interview on abstract puzzles, but they certainly have their place.
It goes on everywhere
last interview I had , had 6 people doing the grilling (fek knows why)
Out of the 6 you know you're going to get the guy quoting from the large and obscure yellow robot manual.
And you'll get 20 mins being grilled on exactly how you program said robot to sing and dance, even though all its going to do is C rotation +90, close jaws, C rotation -90, open jaws for 6 years
Then the 'smart' guy with the curve ball of "how do you inlay gold thread in a 16th century style tapestry"
Hint: "Excuse me, I'm here to program robots" is NOT an acceptable answer
And the final ritual humilation of "please fill out these psyche and IQ test papers" from the lone HR person
when all you want to do is get the hell away from these satanic bastards.
So when you ego is being punctured by the finance house IT geeks..... you are not alone
PS.. best interview I had was "You can program this thing?" , I answered yes "Ok you're hired at £**.** hr from Monday"
Consulting
Many years ago I was interviewed by McKinsey for an entry-level consulting job. My 'thought puzzle' was: "A mobile phone company is losing money, why?" I had no idea. I'd not studied business and I certainly knew nothing about the industry. The answer that they were looking for (when I told them straight up after several minutes of flailing) was trivially simple and had something to do with not charging subscribers enough.
Run forward ten years and I was a technical consultant to a mobile operator. Let's just say that their problems had nothing to do with what they were charging customers. I still wish that I had had the balls to say to this consultant: give me a chance to interview the junior staff and the techies and I'll tell you a host of things that your mindless spreadsheet certainly wont. Ah well.
What?
"Everyone’s heard the old programmer’s cliche that it’s better to teach a person to fish than to give him a fish."
Er. That's not a programmer's cliche. It's just a cliche. It predates the existence of the concept of programming by rather a long while.
(It's usually stated as something like 'Give a man a fish, and you feed him for a day. Teach him to fish, and you feed him for a lifetime.')
Re: What?
Also, "Build a man a fire, and he'll be warm for a day. Set him on fire and he'll be warm for the rest of his life."
Q. How much would you charge to clean all the windows in Seattle?
A. Nothing. I work in IT, I don't clean windows.
Q. How many piano tuners are there in xxx?
A. Not enough, it's a dying trade.
The funny thing is that I have made a small fortune over the last few years selling software development tools to banks. When dealing with these hotshot city teams you just allude to the fact that you do not really expect them to go for the product as it is extremely expensive and only really aimed at a few, very highly skilled, developers. They inevitably buy it. Ego based selling. It works for me.
Not just Wall Street
I contracted for close on 20 years and hence interviewed for a fair number of companies over a number of sectors in that time, what I noticed is when skills are short companies snap you up even if your experience in an area is fairly light but you seem halfway competent, when the employment situation is as it is now companies devise ever more complex and strange tests in order to thin the herd and also spend ridiculous amounts of time making decisions on whether to employ someone, several weeks to months not being uncommon.
The written test is my personal favorite including the media company who had a 100 question test, 1/3 questions multi choice, 1/3 sentence, and 1/3 half page, time limit 1 hour, wouldn't have minded if they had been a mix of question types but seemingly every single one was of the "stump the chef" variety covering a number of different areas some not covered by the role, if the client is using Microsoft products a good tip is to download some certification test questions before the interview, companies regularly seem to use these for new candidate assessment regardless of their suitability.
Love the banks in the City of London's use of "Must have a good degree from a red brick university (i.e. no Polytechnics or Open university) " in employment ad's....ah well guess it's better than "no riff raff!"
Interview Experiences
A good few years ago, wanting to break out of games, with its poor salaries and job security, I interviewed for a programming position with a massive US financial firm with a base in London. I can confirm that the interview was much as described above, the only notable difference perhaps was I was interviewed by the staff in sequence, as opposed to as a team. The process began early. I sat bemused in their expansive expensive foyer, too nervous to eat the foods on offer. Even the toilets had stockmarket tickers, although I seriously doubt that serves any use except to make traders believe they have a finger on the pulse (and not their penis).
The interviews didn't impress me much. Coming from the games industry which is generally fun to work in and populated by genuinely motivated, creative, interesting people, what struck me was how shite this job seemed to be. The IT dept was located in a glass walled basement of this impressive building, and reading between the lines, they expected loooong hours as standard. Commute through London to get to this office for 08h00 and then be expected to work until 19h00? Hmmmm....
I wasn't impressed by the technical interview. I suspected these people were not strong software engineers, to judge by the focus of the questions, which did seems to tend towards textbook "difficult" C++ questions (actually easy i.m.o.) and interleaved with dark hints that the real job actually consisted of maintaining a horrible legacy codebase (something you no longer can pay me enough to do).
Then came the smug-based non-programming part, of which I remember some strange bullshit question about being in a room and having a hat on and I had to tell the interviewer what colour it was or something. Just like the textbook C++ questions, many of *these* questions seemed to be lifted from logic puzzle books ("One of the doors only tells the truth, and the other only lies...").
Finally came a HR interview, a thoroughly unpleasant septic woman. Her job seemed to be to tell me all the rules of working here, one of which I remember was no office romances. By that time I had decided this was certainly not a place I wanted to be, and having a company rule that I couldn't date someone I met through work was a liberty I was unwilling to give away. As it happens, the company decided it didn't like me either, and we went our separate ways.
All is vanity
There is a tendency all industries to think we are better than anyone else, because we don't really know what other industries do. If they spent a while looking into the coding challenges behind running a power station, simulating a logic circuit with 2 billion transistors, debugging an air traffic control system, controlling CERN etc., Wall Street techs might have to re-calibrate their self image.
If it is like the City of London, then the inflated salaries offered by Wall street exist because of the market: the job does not require the best brains, it requires people who are willing to put up with the large drawbacks on offer: huge, unpleasant commute on dirty, overcrowded public transport, long working hours, poor treatment, unpleasant working experience, and a pisspoor quality of life. No wonder they drink.
"what they left behind was so convoluted, overly complex, and incomprehensible to anyone but themselves that the remaining team members, all highly skilled, had no choice but to scrap it completely and start from scratch — months of labour and tens of thousands of dollars (at least) up in smoke"
Wall Street doesn't know about basic software engineering ?
"First they battered me, then they high-fived"
Good thing it wasn't in Scotland - then they'd have deep fried ye....
Interviewing Tecnique...
When I interview potential new staff I look for people who are effective communicators, don't have an issue holding a reasonable conversation, respond coolly to challenging statements or questions, and have a genuine interest in what we do.
I can teach them all the technical skills they need, but I don't have time to shape decent people or teach charisma classes.
As a result, I have a team of people who get on with each other, respond well to my customers, get on well with me and understand our product range and processes completely (as well as having significant input on how the company continues to develop).
I think all of these "clever" ways to assess candidates in interviews; these trendy fads in methodology, lose sight of what you really need: the right person.
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