I totally blew my shot at landing a Sr RE position, even though I thought I was pretty well prepared for it. But let me give you the beans that recruiters won't/can't spill (I won't get into the actual questions though, that won't help much). This stuff isn't easy. Don't kid yourself. Prep like crazy with absolute fundamentals. The recruiter will give you a heads up on what topics to study - and that's going to have all the things you need to know. But it's still gonna be hard. That said... Give yourself a few weeks to really grind (I work in the same field and I'm a top performer on my team, so I thought 2-3 weeks would be enough prep time). Bury your nose in your favorite deep learning textbooks. Don't just coast on online videos. You gotta be able to think fast and on your feet during those short 45min-1hr windows. It's not that the logic / solutions were hard to reach but the speed matters most.
Can you share the questions?
I cannot share the specific questions but there were multiple aspects to the line of questioning. Initially, they will shoot off with the Qs on the basic linalg and calculus which require relatively shorter responses (you basically convince them that you know this topic and can move on). Then it got progressively difficult and they were *much* deeper questions. Finally, they show a non-trivial amount of code (maybe 4-5 pages of scrolling) and ask you to do X, Y, and Z on the codebase. I took longer in the middle of the round so I was left with less time towards the end.
Sounds like you got the all reduce question.
Rockstars don't say they're "the rockstar on their team". ChatGPT saw right through your holier than thou BS.
LOL, fixed. I realize that now, guess I got carried away. Glad you did not miss the bigger point I was trying to make!
what kind of topics should one prep for such a role?
Role specific but the recruiter will literally give the topics to you.
Are you able to share what kind of topics you got?
You would surprised to know that the engineers at OpenAI are leaking the questions to their friends who they want to bring over. Don't kid yourself. I very well know how the nepotism hires at OpenAI are getting in. One particular Indian VP named srinivas narayanan is literally bringing his Indian friends into management positions.
Ugh ... I am sad at two levels now (that I was not deemed worthy of nepotism :/ )
Not surprising. That happens at most small private companies
What is RE? Research Engineer?
Resident Evil. Zombies are stupider humans, AIs are stupider humans. Coincidence? I think not.
You don’t have to work for Sam Altman. I would consider that a good thing.
💯 consider you’ve dodged a bullet not having to work for ClosedAI. What a bunch of grifters.
How was coding? And was this for the Applied AI org?
Like I said, it was focused on strong fundamentals but very challenging (not just easy basics). It was not the Applied AI org
Could you please name your favorite deep learning textbook?
This is gonna open a religious war but the OG Deep Learning book by Hinton, Goodfellow et al is great. But I really dont think this alone will suffice for ex the new book on Deep Learning fundamentals by the Bishops is pretty good to (probably my favorite). It really depend on you're taste and preferred style. I know people who are active in Kaggle and have completed the fast AI course and are some of the most competent/prolific people out on ML Twitter but cant break into OpenAI and Anthropic. Their definitely a spectrum of competence and these AI labs appear to be looking at select parts of this spectrum.
Thanks
How did you get their attention? Did you have someone refer you? I would like to apply as well but I am wary of cold applying on their website. Thanks
LOL apparently, Attention is Not All You Need assuming the 'nepotism' comment above is true. Seriously, they had a couple of very good hires from my company in the past that might have helped (I work in a much smaller company than Meta). You are at Meta, if you have the right profile it should be easier to get a shot.
So I just apply on their website?