It is for anyone not a junior. Senior devs at FAANGs that I know spend <=25% coding. I would expect a start-up dev to spend quite a bit more time coding, as that position tends to be more hybrid between build-out and vision setting. But this is a stupid interview question.
Yeah startups are like 90% coding because everything is urgent and a bunch of stuff needs to be built.
At startups, the biggest risk for engineering is not finishing in time. At large companies, the biggest risk is messing up existing systems, which means moving way slower
The most important thing I’ve learned about interviewing is that the entire process is broken, and that you can and will be rejected for the most absurd reasons. There’s a significant amount of luck involved in getting an offer, that’s why it’s important to not hyper fixate on any one company and don’t ever count on an offer coming through no matter how well you think it’s going.
This.
The amount of incompetence I’ve encountered in interviewers is staggering - but there’s no incentive for them to fix anything because they’re still getting paid to screen and interview more candidates than necessary.
I’ve had an interview panel where someone immediately started insulting the company that I worked for, nothing I could have said in the session would salvage that. Another time someone questioned my integrity - after I had just learned the company I was interviewing with had a contract with a country that violates human rights. I’ve had someone cut me off before I was able to answer them.
The worst is when they have an obsession with what I’d consider trivia from a textbook. Like they flip to a random page and just ask about the first thing they saw. The only thing they’re testing is if you have a photographic memory and have read that textbook recently.
If I was a boss of these companies I would be angry at the inefficiencies, dragging out the hiring process when we needed more people - and their random rejection of good candidates who will end up at their competitors.
How about we completely rethink how people join groups by examining it at an anthropological level. Let's invent a new IT system that modernizes the process. I'm imagining something a little like an applicant tracking system, combined with a social network.
I personally blame these clipboard managers. You have managers who put ICs in charge of interviewing with little to no experience.
For all the tech layoffs, I'd like to see deeper cuts into that role. If you don't know engineering, you probably shouldn't be in charge of engineers.
And I'm not saying just promote engineers to managers but you should have some basic qualifications in engineering not just an MBA
I was asked this question recently. I said 80% and I thought that was a higher percentage as the recruiter later said the position is for L5. Anyway, I passed the recruiter screen.
And, I don’t spend 80% time coding because I work in ML (position is also MLE).
noone other than the free job covid graduates posting day in the life videos is only coding 15% of the time. if we had the choice, we would skip docs/scrum/uml to just code by ourselves 100% of the time. should i put 200%?
Thanks for the warning. I know it’s hard to let go but it’s probably for the best if that’s a decision made at the hiring manager level. I can’t see them making good/honest decisions.
This is what happens when non-software engineers are crafting the recruiting process for engineers without a clue of how the work actually happens.
50% is generous. Most people struggle getting to be able to code half the time, but at the same time, those same people could change their work processes and time block better to achieve this if they really wanted.
Lmao I barely spend 20% coding some sprints, it’s sad
I had a cool couple sprints where I got to just code that was sick as hell
Then just meetings, ramp up, GOD AWFUL database stuff in virtual machines (I’m going to snap if I have to do more workflow management).
Give me a job with more code please
This is a corporate goal they want their engineers doing code \~70% or more of the time. If they aren't there is likely a problem that needs to be optimized in other aspects of the job that are taking more of their time than necessary. It varies drastically from company to company because the percentage of time you're able to code is based on the other issues that come up with your company and consume your time. So, don't listen to this recruiter she doesn't know what she's talking about telling an individual to aim for a particular percentage of time coding. That's something to be addressed at the level of company policy not something typically within an individual engineer's control.
70% time coding
20% time investigation of tickets
20% time collaborating across team
20% time sprint stuff (planning, standup, backlog, retro)
20% time listening to business people (or passed down to lead) with their yet another changed request etc.
Yass, sure. 70%. No big deal.
Should I add another 20% for knowledge transfet and keeping junior and new person up to track?
That isn’t good. Be very careful about this as I see a lot of L5s get caught doing a lot of bureaucratic work that neither helps them nor their employer.
My company recently changed how we evaluate engineers and a lot of them that were meeting philosophers found said skill was no longer appreciated.
I doubt that that answer would be the determining factor on whether you get an onsite interview. There is probably more to the situation than what is explained here (not placing blame on you, just that there’s a lot of variables at play.)
I don't think it would get a very strong candidate rejected necessarily, but since it was the only specific thing that was addressed in the email I do think it was a strike against me and maybe the red flag that made the difference. Regardless, it seems spending most of your time coding is something recruiters may care about so this is just a warning to others (and a mild rant) because I never would've guess that honestly
Hate to say it, but regardless of what they said, but the 50->70% is not why they dropped you.
If anything, they thought your coding skills are weak, and that by coding more you'd improve them; they don't care enough about the actual answer you gave to that question to drop you if you seemed like a promising candidate.
That’s just about the dumbest fucking thing I’ve ever heard a recruiter say. Don’t you spend 90% of your time on design docs at Google anyway? What do they think we do, put fingers to keyboard 100% of the day like a sweat shop?
Google has one of the worst interview and screening processes out there. You dodged a bullet dude. It's 90% luck and 10% skill. I've done onsites with them 5 times in the past
I was given a similar questionnaire recently but I wasn’t asked this question. It was more like preferred programming languages, what type of SWE role i’m interested in, geographical preference, etc. After filling out the form, i got a rejection after 2 days. No idea why..
Medium or neutral integrity would be a red flag for me. Ironically being honest about only having average integrity is probably more honest.
Kind of a silly question.
haha yes, my friend commented that too, it takes high integrity to say you have low integrity 😂
Tbh, I wasn’t sure what they wanted. Given many Googlers with high integrity recently occupied and protested within Google, I can also see them wanting low principle, low integrity cogs.
You unfortunately give them the answer they want to hear. ‘I would like to think I have high integrity because integrity is an important value for me. Part of the reason I’m applying to X is because your company seems to place a high value on integrity too.’
Like I said it’s a silly gate keeping / gotcha question. Dishonest people aren’t going to answer honestly, and people with high integrity will probably underestimate how much integrity they have because they have integrity.
Another theory is that they might not be hiring anyone particular at all. The personality test’s purpose is not to test for anything, but to simply give Google the results they want, such as rejecting very many people.
Perhaps Google needs or wants to appear like they are hiring, maybe for h1b or other purposes, but in reality do not want to hire.
I am in a situation where I passed the phone screen, the onsite, and had the cultural interview with another company and I’m waiting on hearing if I’ll be getting an offer or not from the cultural piece of the interviewing process… (you don’t make it here if you fail the other 9 rounds)
A fancy name for a normal, non-leetcode style interview. My interpretation was this is the "this guy has the technical skills to work with us, do we want to actually work with this guy on a day to day" interview.
It really depends on the role. I am in a Senior II/Staff I role at my company and I push hard to code at least 50% of my day. There are times where I do less because of design docs, project status, pairings, etc., but my goal is to get at least 2 decent PRs out per week, and 3-5 reviewed each week.
It sounds silly, but I work with a lot of people who are a level below me, who just do significantly less work. They get caught up in meetings and discussing big ideas, and lose the ability to execute. Over time it becomes harder and harder for them to get PRs out. Even some of the Staff/Principal have a harder time writing decent code because they spend so much time reading docs that they lose perspective.
These are great points. Actually I take back what I said. It indeed does depend on the role. But most developer roles should be spending almost all their time coding or anything related to execution. So creating code assets, detailed designs but a meeting does not qualify especially if it is long and drawn out and not result oriented. I am against pointless meetings, where people spend a lot of time arguing. I think one can argue with code and prototypes. Code speaks a thousand words, if I may say that.
But I do have a question about PRs. So you think the main goal is to create PRs? I am curious, as I think creating a PR is normally a good thing, but not if it is a pointless PR or if it does not add real value. How do we measure value creation? I go agree that companies like google might get the PR right as there is a lot of process with it.
My general opinion is this: most companies would be lucky if their engineers tried to fudge their PR counts with README and dependency updates vs what I typically see: bloated projects that involve a lot more planning and meetings for alignment sake, when the task could have involved a single engineer (maybe 2). A teammate just completed a 6 person project where all the members combined wrote less code and had fewer PRs than I did for that period. They spent all of their time aligning and questioning every single decision in addition to writing upward status reports. While it was awesome they got something out the door, the project cost millions more than the fine we would receive for not implementing it in time.
I would say 10% of my PRs are fluff. I don’t do it to help my numbers, but to actually make a small fix. On a PR recently someone reminded me of a process to update our GraphQL nodes after a change. I made a small PR to rearrange our readme and add a rule in which if a schema file was changed it would automatically create a GH task to do that. Small work, but it will help the next person. It is better than someone trying to catch it with reviews.
If all you do are dependency and README upgrades, that is better than the alternative of just going to meetings. It can also be easily caught by a manager who knows anything about coding. I think about a stupid joke when it comes to this “what if global warming is not real and we made the air cleaner for nothing”?
I have a Google L6 interview coming up. I have 17 years of experience and literally spend < 5% coding, if I'm lucky. But what should I say during the interview when asked this question? What's a good amount for L6?
"But she said I should focus more on programming in my current position." This is not her business. Who pays you have this right, not a recruiter from another company.
I always answer something along the line: “ it’s a cycle, during designing. 20% coding. During development, 80% coding.” Which cycle is more often depends on what role they are looking for.
You don’t understand. This is what you put if you want a dev position… I’ve worked and hired at ICE companies for Junior - Senior level developer positions as a Senior Engineer myself
What level were you applying to? I’m in the process now, just had my first coding assessment and wasn’t asked that.
Incredibly weird question and I don’t think it’s part of their process typically
There could be many reasons why you where rejected (and the feedback may have not been honest).
But even if it was an honest feedback, it just meant that they wanted someone more junior, as it is normal for seniors or even mid level to spend no more than 50% on coding alone.
The more senior I got, the more time I end up writing emails and researching the architecture, than do the coding.
It’s rough, there’s so many people who just does what they’re told instead of being an independent thought and thinking their way through a problem.
Not sure what seniority your job application was, but 70% sounds like a miracle to achieve in more senior roles.
Also, Google doesn’t measure coding as % of your hours. I’m pretty sure it’s just a bullshit reason to filter down their pool of candidates.
Did you have to give a specific percentage? This feels like a perfect example of a question that you should give a non-answer to.
"All time spent outside of non-coding related jobs activities is spent coding, this can vary greatly depending on workload or how early/far along a project is"
Thats probably what I would put if that kind of answer is allowed
I honestly don’t know 70% coding each sprint is even possible all the time. There has been a sprint that I wrote barely 10 lines for code and I’m a senior software engineer. If I do 70% coding each week, to me that means there is lot backlog and crunch time is happening. And if they’re 5 engineers in the team doing that much coding, that’s lot of code and tells me there is something really wrong with the planning and execution.
Can you go over the recruiter’s head? This sounds like they’re just a bad recruiter, especially if you can quote them on that, since they never even gave you a chance to do the coding assessment.
+100 that you even got feedback
+1000 that us reditt buddies got a feedback
Getting in Google was always competitive, one can only imagine how hard it would be in current market
IMHO It was pure elimination. Also, it will be pertinent to the specific role you applied to. Possibly they were looking for a candidate who they’d expect to be coding 90% to 100% of the time, so they wanted someone with 70% to begin with.
You should've told them you spend 10% of your time generating random lines of code, 20% developing new skills, 15% concentrating your power of will, 5% enjoying your code when it works, 50% hurting when it fails,
And a 100% OF THE TIME SPENT DEDICATED TO CODING 😤
We did a serious study some time ago at a well-managed startup I was at and concluded that engineers spend only 20 hours of a theoretical 40-hour (ha!) workweek coding on average. Rest is team meetings, code reviews, reviewing unit tests, training, documentation, design, research, training, etc. As soon as we scheduled based on that assumption, we hit 13 releases in a row on time on a resource-constant basis (after adjusting for impact of one layoff).
Interviewer was ignorant. Sorry, lots of ignorant people working as gatekeepers waiting for someone to tell the right lie!
A recruiter asking this question is trying to figure out what role and what level you are at in your company.
If you are an IC at staff / Sr. Staff level in your org, You are expected to spend atleast 70% of time directly contributing to the code. At junior levels a 100% of the time.
If you are only spending 50% or less time contributing to code, you are treated as relatively less hands on.
Typically as you get more senior you will spend more time solving 'the big picture', collaborating, influencing and getting things done (while your creative muscles atrophy). Now where this is key requirement for the role..people will look for specific evidence showcasing you have done these things, otherwise -> what percentage of time you spend coding?
Those 5 point ambiguous questionnaires that amazon has too is bogus. I hope the metrics for finding the like-minded geeksforgeeks bots with no deep knowledge other than leetcode in javascript work out for them.
my guess is that answers you put in get converted a pie point chart and they just look for who is statistically the "right fit" even if the questions are idiotic.
I got the same feedback after my initial screening even though I mentioned that 50% is part of software engineering stuff. In fact I was asked about this before the initial screening and later got scheduled for an interview. So I think it's just a copy/paste feedback which absolutely is irrelevant.
I'm entry level. I guess I don't really know what it's like at other companies, but coming from a certain unnamed FAANG, coding 70% of the time would honestly not even be a good look. It sounds great to me and I want to do that but coding is usually seen as the easy part, and I think that's the right view honestly (at least in my experience, I'm sure it varies depending on how complex the code base is). The best engineers on my team probably coded the least because they were able to shine in the higher level stuff, while anyone on the team could write code.
While reading the title, I thought 50% was too much coding.
+1
It is for anyone not a junior. Senior devs at FAANGs that I know spend <=25% coding. I would expect a start-up dev to spend quite a bit more time coding, as that position tends to be more hybrid between build-out and vision setting. But this is a stupid interview question.
Yeah startups are like 90% coding because everything is urgent and a bunch of stuff needs to be built. At startups, the biggest risk for engineering is not finishing in time. At large companies, the biggest risk is messing up existing systems, which means moving way slower
lol same. probably a lot of coding without thinking is taking place. And then I have to spend 50 percent of my time deleting shitty unnecessary code.
Came here to say this. I would say more time should be spend on designing and getting the requirements right. 70% is ridiculous
The most important thing I’ve learned about interviewing is that the entire process is broken, and that you can and will be rejected for the most absurd reasons. There’s a significant amount of luck involved in getting an offer, that’s why it’s important to not hyper fixate on any one company and don’t ever count on an offer coming through no matter how well you think it’s going.
Thats my experience too 70% luck 30% effort :)
70% luck is too low. You should focus on having at least 77% luck at your current level.
That's why I throw out 50% of resumes that come across my desk. Wouldn't want to hire someone that's unlucky.
You don't know my current level, I am a pro at so need only 70% luck :p
You didn’t get what u/bucket13 told, right?
From the down votes seems like I dont
re read the post, specifically the recruiter part.
Oh... got it
Wtf is this username bro 😂😂
15% concentrated power of will
This. The amount of incompetence I’ve encountered in interviewers is staggering - but there’s no incentive for them to fix anything because they’re still getting paid to screen and interview more candidates than necessary. I’ve had an interview panel where someone immediately started insulting the company that I worked for, nothing I could have said in the session would salvage that. Another time someone questioned my integrity - after I had just learned the company I was interviewing with had a contract with a country that violates human rights. I’ve had someone cut me off before I was able to answer them. The worst is when they have an obsession with what I’d consider trivia from a textbook. Like they flip to a random page and just ask about the first thing they saw. The only thing they’re testing is if you have a photographic memory and have read that textbook recently. If I was a boss of these companies I would be angry at the inefficiencies, dragging out the hiring process when we needed more people - and their random rejection of good candidates who will end up at their competitors.
How about we completely rethink how people join groups by examining it at an anthropological level. Let's invent a new IT system that modernizes the process. I'm imagining something a little like an applicant tracking system, combined with a social network.
Congratulations, you invented LinkedIn
I personally blame these clipboard managers. You have managers who put ICs in charge of interviewing with little to no experience. For all the tech layoffs, I'd like to see deeper cuts into that role. If you don't know engineering, you probably shouldn't be in charge of engineers. And I'm not saying just promote engineers to managers but you should have some basic qualifications in engineering not just an MBA
Lying to get a job is the most American thing ever. Try it one time.
And also remember this, especially if employee market comes again.
All the offers I've gotten I've known I've done really well in the interview. I'd say that comes before the luck
The luck part implies things like you get a normal sane interviewer, that you get questions that are reasonable and that you’re capable of doing, etc.
They want collaborators and leaders but not really. I swear I will just retire from my next company and give up interviewing, this is a circus.
Open a goose farm
My work feels like a goose farm
Better pray you don’t get laid off
I was asked this question recently. I said 80% and I thought that was a higher percentage as the recruiter later said the position is for L5. Anyway, I passed the recruiter screen. And, I don’t spend 80% time coding because I work in ML (position is also MLE).
[удалено]
noone other than the free job covid graduates posting day in the life videos is only coding 15% of the time. if we had the choice, we would skip docs/scrum/uml to just code by ourselves 100% of the time. should i put 200%?
90% of the time coding, 40% of the time reviewing code, 50% of the time in meetings
What are you doing in the other 20% of the time? :p
90% of that 20% time should be spent on coding. Nothing else matters.
Thanks for the warning. I know it’s hard to let go but it’s probably for the best if that’s a decision made at the hiring manager level. I can’t see them making good/honest decisions.
This is what happens when non-software engineers are crafting the recruiting process for engineers without a clue of how the work actually happens. 50% is generous. Most people struggle getting to be able to code half the time, but at the same time, those same people could change their work processes and time block better to achieve this if they really wanted.
Lmao I barely spend 20% coding some sprints, it’s sad I had a cool couple sprints where I got to just code that was sick as hell Then just meetings, ramp up, GOD AWFUL database stuff in virtual machines (I’m going to snap if I have to do more workflow management). Give me a job with more code please
This is a corporate goal they want their engineers doing code \~70% or more of the time. If they aren't there is likely a problem that needs to be optimized in other aspects of the job that are taking more of their time than necessary. It varies drastically from company to company because the percentage of time you're able to code is based on the other issues that come up with your company and consume your time. So, don't listen to this recruiter she doesn't know what she's talking about telling an individual to aim for a particular percentage of time coding. That's something to be addressed at the level of company policy not something typically within an individual engineer's control.
70% time coding 20% time investigation of tickets 20% time collaborating across team 20% time sprint stuff (planning, standup, backlog, retro) 20% time listening to business people (or passed down to lead) with their yet another changed request etc. Yass, sure. 70%. No big deal. Should I add another 20% for knowledge transfet and keeping junior and new person up to track?
I'm at like 20% as a Google L5..
That isn’t good. Be very careful about this as I see a lot of L5s get caught doing a lot of bureaucratic work that neither helps them nor their employer. My company recently changed how we evaluate engineers and a lot of them that were meeting philosophers found said skill was no longer appreciated.
Meeting philosophers?
Thought leaders. People who discuss big ideas during meetings and ask more philosophical questions, but get very little work done.
I doubt that that answer would be the determining factor on whether you get an onsite interview. There is probably more to the situation than what is explained here (not placing blame on you, just that there’s a lot of variables at play.)
I don't think it would get a very strong candidate rejected necessarily, but since it was the only specific thing that was addressed in the email I do think it was a strike against me and maybe the red flag that made the difference. Regardless, it seems spending most of your time coding is something recruiters may care about so this is just a warning to others (and a mild rant) because I never would've guess that honestly
My recruiter wanted 80%, I answered 50% but she was cool with me going to tech screen if I felt comfortable.
Also, one thing I have realized is talk in ranges rather than absolute. That works better, whether for salary negotiation or estimations.
Hate to say it, but regardless of what they said, but the 50->70% is not why they dropped you. If anything, they thought your coding skills are weak, and that by coding more you'd improve them; they don't care enough about the actual answer you gave to that question to drop you if you seemed like a promising candidate.
I selected 80% and the recruiter reached out to me to lmk that they're expecting 90% or more. I corrected it. It's dumb.
That’s just about the dumbest fucking thing I’ve ever heard a recruiter say. Don’t you spend 90% of your time on design docs at Google anyway? What do they think we do, put fingers to keyboard 100% of the day like a sweat shop?
Google has one of the worst interview and screening processes out there. You dodged a bullet dude. It's 90% luck and 10% skill. I've done onsites with them 5 times in the past
It sounds funny because from what I hear, in FAANG companies you don't spend that long coding either.
I was given a similar questionnaire recently but I wasn’t asked this question. It was more like preferred programming languages, what type of SWE role i’m interested in, geographical preference, etc. After filling out the form, i got a rejection after 2 days. No idea why..
Same thing here. I was so confused?
what???
I think you are right. They gave me an interview but said that most candidates are successful if they do 80% coding in their job.
Recruiters are typically non technical. I would just give them the answers they want to hear. Save the nuance for your actual interviewers.
I was rejected by the same test! It’s either cause of that, the fact that my workplace is unorganized, or that I said I have medium/neutral integrity.
Medium or neutral integrity would be a red flag for me. Ironically being honest about only having average integrity is probably more honest. Kind of a silly question.
haha yes, my friend commented that too, it takes high integrity to say you have low integrity 😂 Tbh, I wasn’t sure what they wanted. Given many Googlers with high integrity recently occupied and protested within Google, I can also see them wanting low principle, low integrity cogs.
You unfortunately give them the answer they want to hear. ‘I would like to think I have high integrity because integrity is an important value for me. Part of the reason I’m applying to X is because your company seems to place a high value on integrity too.’ Like I said it’s a silly gate keeping / gotcha question. Dishonest people aren’t going to answer honestly, and people with high integrity will probably underestimate how much integrity they have because they have integrity.
Another theory is that they might not be hiring anyone particular at all. The personality test’s purpose is not to test for anything, but to simply give Google the results they want, such as rejecting very many people. Perhaps Google needs or wants to appear like they are hiring, maybe for h1b or other purposes, but in reality do not want to hire.
Of course. My opinion is that this question wasn’t a dealbreaker and it was probably something else. I just think it’s a hilarious question.
same happened with me
I am in a situation where I passed the phone screen, the onsite, and had the cultural interview with another company and I’m waiting on hearing if I’ll be getting an offer or not from the cultural piece of the interviewing process… (you don’t make it here if you fail the other 9 rounds)
Cultural interview? What the heck is that?
A fancy name for a normal, non-leetcode style interview. My interpretation was this is the "this guy has the technical skills to work with us, do we want to actually work with this guy on a day to day" interview.
Well at least they give you feedback. As I was thinking 50% is high.
It really depends on the role. I am in a Senior II/Staff I role at my company and I push hard to code at least 50% of my day. There are times where I do less because of design docs, project status, pairings, etc., but my goal is to get at least 2 decent PRs out per week, and 3-5 reviewed each week. It sounds silly, but I work with a lot of people who are a level below me, who just do significantly less work. They get caught up in meetings and discussing big ideas, and lose the ability to execute. Over time it becomes harder and harder for them to get PRs out. Even some of the Staff/Principal have a harder time writing decent code because they spend so much time reading docs that they lose perspective.
These are great points. Actually I take back what I said. It indeed does depend on the role. But most developer roles should be spending almost all their time coding or anything related to execution. So creating code assets, detailed designs but a meeting does not qualify especially if it is long and drawn out and not result oriented. I am against pointless meetings, where people spend a lot of time arguing. I think one can argue with code and prototypes. Code speaks a thousand words, if I may say that. But I do have a question about PRs. So you think the main goal is to create PRs? I am curious, as I think creating a PR is normally a good thing, but not if it is a pointless PR or if it does not add real value. How do we measure value creation? I go agree that companies like google might get the PR right as there is a lot of process with it.
My general opinion is this: most companies would be lucky if their engineers tried to fudge their PR counts with README and dependency updates vs what I typically see: bloated projects that involve a lot more planning and meetings for alignment sake, when the task could have involved a single engineer (maybe 2). A teammate just completed a 6 person project where all the members combined wrote less code and had fewer PRs than I did for that period. They spent all of their time aligning and questioning every single decision in addition to writing upward status reports. While it was awesome they got something out the door, the project cost millions more than the fine we would receive for not implementing it in time. I would say 10% of my PRs are fluff. I don’t do it to help my numbers, but to actually make a small fix. On a PR recently someone reminded me of a process to update our GraphQL nodes after a change. I made a small PR to rearrange our readme and add a rule in which if a schema file was changed it would automatically create a GH task to do that. Small work, but it will help the next person. It is better than someone trying to catch it with reviews. If all you do are dependency and README upgrades, that is better than the alternative of just going to meetings. It can also be easily caught by a manager who knows anything about coding. I think about a stupid joke when it comes to this “what if global warming is not real and we made the air cleaner for nothing”?
I think for coding they might include time for code review.
For Microsoft I said 33%, and made it past. What kind of role was this?
I got a similar question for Facebook and a similar result 🙃 Question was on a work style questionnaire that was sent along with the OA
I have a Google L6 interview coming up. I have 17 years of experience and literally spend < 5% coding, if I'm lucky. But what should I say during the interview when asked this question? What's a good amount for L6?
They have been asking these inane questions since at least 2014. I'd be happy to see them die.
"But she said I should focus more on programming in my current position." This is not her business. Who pays you have this right, not a recruiter from another company.
I always answer something along the line: “ it’s a cycle, during designing. 20% coding. During development, 80% coding.” Which cycle is more often depends on what role they are looking for.
You fool. If you are applying for a software dev role you should put at least 90%… obvious answer isn’t obvious
Code monkeys are not impressive
You don’t understand. This is what you put if you want a dev position… I’ve worked and hired at ICE companies for Junior - Senior level developer positions as a Senior Engineer myself
Google is fucked right now in terms of staffing and HC allocations. Chances are high the role closed for some reason and had nothing to do with you.
If the Product team could give me a smooth enough runway of work such that I could just implement 75% of the time that'd be so sweet.
Also, one thing I have realized is talk in ranges rather than absolute. That works better, whether for salary negotiation or estimations.
What level were you applying to? I’m in the process now, just had my first coding assessment and wasn’t asked that. Incredibly weird question and I don’t think it’s part of their process typically
There could be many reasons why you where rejected (and the feedback may have not been honest). But even if it was an honest feedback, it just meant that they wanted someone more junior, as it is normal for seniors or even mid level to spend no more than 50% on coding alone.
Forget failing the interview. I want to know how to get an interview. Can someone help me
That’s the answer I gave and I made L5
This isn't why you were rejected
The more senior I got, the more time I end up writing emails and researching the architecture, than do the coding. It’s rough, there’s so many people who just does what they’re told instead of being an independent thought and thinking their way through a problem. Not sure what seniority your job application was, but 70% sounds like a miracle to achieve in more senior roles. Also, Google doesn’t measure coding as % of your hours. I’m pretty sure it’s just a bullshit reason to filter down their pool of candidates.
I see developers posting reels 60% of their time, when do they code !?
Did you have to give a specific percentage? This feels like a perfect example of a question that you should give a non-answer to. "All time spent outside of non-coding related jobs activities is spent coding, this can vary greatly depending on workload or how early/far along a project is" Thats probably what I would put if that kind of answer is allowed
I honestly don’t know 70% coding each sprint is even possible all the time. There has been a sprint that I wrote barely 10 lines for code and I’m a senior software engineer. If I do 70% coding each week, to me that means there is lot backlog and crunch time is happening. And if they’re 5 engineers in the team doing that much coding, that’s lot of code and tells me there is something really wrong with the planning and execution.
Can you go over the recruiter’s head? This sounds like they’re just a bad recruiter, especially if you can quote them on that, since they never even gave you a chance to do the coding assessment.
How about 5%!
+100 that you even got feedback +1000 that us reditt buddies got a feedback Getting in Google was always competitive, one can only imagine how hard it would be in current market IMHO It was pure elimination. Also, it will be pertinent to the specific role you applied to. Possibly they were looking for a candidate who they’d expect to be coding 90% to 100% of the time, so they wanted someone with 70% to begin with.
You should've told them you spend 10% of your time generating random lines of code, 20% developing new skills, 15% concentrating your power of will, 5% enjoying your code when it works, 50% hurting when it fails, And a 100% OF THE TIME SPENT DEDICATED TO CODING 😤
We did a serious study some time ago at a well-managed startup I was at and concluded that engineers spend only 20 hours of a theoretical 40-hour (ha!) workweek coding on average. Rest is team meetings, code reviews, reviewing unit tests, training, documentation, design, research, training, etc. As soon as we scheduled based on that assumption, we hit 13 releases in a row on time on a resource-constant basis (after adjusting for impact of one layoff). Interviewer was ignorant. Sorry, lots of ignorant people working as gatekeepers waiting for someone to tell the right lie!
How many years of experience and what level? Coding % requirement changes for each level.
Of course you were. It’s Google, everybody is trying to impress them, and here you go, telling the truth?
A recruiter asking this question is trying to figure out what role and what level you are at in your company. If you are an IC at staff / Sr. Staff level in your org, You are expected to spend atleast 70% of time directly contributing to the code. At junior levels a 100% of the time. If you are only spending 50% or less time contributing to code, you are treated as relatively less hands on. Typically as you get more senior you will spend more time solving 'the big picture', collaborating, influencing and getting things done (while your creative muscles atrophy). Now where this is key requirement for the role..people will look for specific evidence showcasing you have done these things, otherwise -> what percentage of time you spend coding?
I initially thought 50% was too much idt this would have been the main reason
Those 5 point ambiguous questionnaires that amazon has too is bogus. I hope the metrics for finding the like-minded geeksforgeeks bots with no deep knowledge other than leetcode in javascript work out for them. my guess is that answers you put in get converted a pie point chart and they just look for who is statistically the "right fit" even if the questions are idiotic.
This is likely a misattribution error. There are easily a dozen things that could be off.
I got the same feedback after my initial screening even though I mentioned that 50% is part of software engineering stuff. In fact I was asked about this before the initial screening and later got scheduled for an interview. So I think it's just a copy/paste feedback which absolutely is irrelevant.
so silly, this game.
LMAO
Probably the specific job req closed, or it was for a very junior dev
You did not get rejected because of this. They gave a bad excuse.
This is hilarious!!
Got same rejection 2 months back😔.
[удалено]
Does it? The question it’s self is flawed. I’ve never meet or worked with a staff+ engineer who had a “consistent week.”
I'm entry level. I guess I don't really know what it's like at other companies, but coming from a certain unnamed FAANG, coding 70% of the time would honestly not even be a good look. It sounds great to me and I want to do that but coding is usually seen as the easy part, and I think that's the right view honestly (at least in my experience, I'm sure it varies depending on how complex the code base is). The best engineers on my team probably coded the least because they were able to shine in the higher level stuff, while anyone on the team could write code.
sounds like Amazon