Mechanize

Normally I don't ever post shit but this interview was lowkey hilarious and annoying simultaneously. Enjoy the popcorn. Hopefully, someone will beat the interview process with this. Call: 1. they briefly ask abt 1 random prod project you've deployed. (should be easy) 2. they ask trivia about OS/Networking/Javascript 3. i think there's a puzzle stage here but i didn't make it that far we ended the call at 2 so what kinds of questions do they ask? trivia! 10 seconds to answer some random questions: - whats the synchronization primitive that prevents a process from accessing the critical section by acquiring/releasing a lock? [i said semaphore/binary-semaphore.. they probs wanted mutex -> ownership rules lol] - for many processes attempting to access the same resource / being held up what's the concurrency paradigm? [i said race condition lol correct ans is deadlock (skill issue)] - # of bytes in double precision float? [64 bit 8 bytes lol - yes i forgot] - how to put changes from one branch onto another without merging [lol its cherry-pick i said some bullshit] - what orchestration service invented by google [kuber] - whats most popular object storage system [s3] - size of a cache line in a cpu? [64 bytes] - whats the registry for docker images? [dockerhub] - what layers of linux used by docker for networking? [namespaces, veth pairs, linux bridge, iptables] - conversions for diff sizes of stuff [kb -> mb for instance] - package manager for node.js -> npm - HTTP/3 is built on the __ protocol? [QUIC] They 100% can identify me based on my answers here but eh. A brief retrospective: This is 100% trainable and tbh not a very good indicator of skill. It more tests your ability to memorize/recall terms than actually problem solve. It's one thing to fail a leetcode question or even like a conceptual deep dive into OS or system design. It's a whole other thing to recall a bunch of trivia. Logically, you can be simultaneously good at C++/concurrent programming and mix up terms or have an off day. There's no contradiction by those two things existing simultaneously. I will admit though that it is a quick and cheap filter for how well you recall key terms. It's trainable tbh and a skill issue on my part for not being able to recall stuff. They're actually quite transparent about this (props to them) "we also ask you a rapid-fire sequence of questions about real software engineering topics relevant to the technologies we use at Mechanize." I had no clue "real software engineering topics relevant to technologies we use" = trivia to see if i recall what QUIC and git cherry-pick is but hey they can do what they want. I guess codingjesus would be happy. I need to getcracked.io. I guess im dumb. if you have a screening call w these people don't be like me. Go get flashcards and memorize the 1 word answers to a bunch of OS/networking trivia. Best of luck if you're interviewing with these people. I should remember these basics but I don't bc I do pure ML research nowadays. I looked like a fucking clown. welp. onward.