Understanding Technical Interviews for Remote Technical Jobs
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Tech companies, especially FAANG and Tier 1 companies, have always been praised for their advanced interviewing and hiring techniques. After the pandemic hit, companies were forced to change the way they interview and hire. This paved the way for the era of remote interviews and remote tech jobs. Even for critical positions, several companies have begun transitioning their hiring processes to fully remote environments.
Recent statistics and surveys show that people no longer want to return to the office. According to a Citrix survey of key IT executives, more than three-quarters of them believe that most employees do not want to return to full-time work after the pandemic. This is especially true for technical roles where work can be done remotely.
The International Facility Management Association (IFMA) found in one of its surveys that 81% of subject matter professionals prefer to work from home, especially if the task is technical. Slack recently surveyed over 9,000 software engineers in six different countries and found that 72% prefer a hybrid remote office model and only 12% prefer working in a physical office. Additionally, 13% of software developers said they prefer to work completely from home.
Why have companies shifted to remote roles and remote hiring?
Those : careerkarma.com
Since the pandemic took the world by storm, several companies have started shifting their operations to remote environments. As a result, most on-site functions, including engineering, operations and marketing, have been decentralized.
With the closures, hiring employees also had to be done remotely. Companies started using advanced tools and technologies that enabled remote workflows and activities to function smoothly. During interviews, video conferencing and coding tasks using remote tools became the norm. It primarily started with the tech heavyweights - Facebook, Google, Amazon, Apple and Microsoft - choosing to hire remotely, with several other Tier 1 companies following suit.
Amazon Chime is perhaps the perfect example of how a large company has changed its hiring approach to meet the demands of the new post-pandemic era.
Despite the ongoing pandemic, FAANG and some Tier 1 companies have not stopped or slowed hiring. Rather, they hired more employees for remote positions. This allowed them to interview a larger number of applicants as location and physical presence were no longer barriers. Additionally, remote positions raised the bar for talent as smart engineers specifically looking for remote positions were given the opportunity to apply.
Are companies continuing to hire employees for remote roles?
Yes, to a large extent. The pandemic has accelerated digital transformation, and many companies have shifted their processes to achieve greater performance.
Although there has been a paradigm shift in hiring, operations and workflows, the nature of work has not changed significantly. The tasks associated with specific technical functions remained the same despite the sudden shift from on-site to remote work. Even after the pandemic, when a large percentage of engineers preferred to work remotely and companies introduced new work norms, it is quite evident that remote work is no longer just a response to the pandemic, but a enduring feature of the modern work environment.
Additionally, with advances in mobile working technology and virtual reality environments supported by video conferencing software, more and more companies are opening up to the benefits of working remotely for their employees. Even though there has been a lot of talk lately about companies calling their employees back to the office, remote work and remote roles are here to stay.
What do the employees think?
The percentage of engineers choosing to work remotely has increased significantly as companies began to develop new processes and strategies to successfully implement the new working model.
Goodhire, a background screening company in California, found in its first survey on the state of remote work that 68% of employees surveyed prefer to work remotely, while only 32% prefer an office-like work environment.
A recent Willis Towers Watson survey of 9,600 workers found that over 70% of respondents believe they can achieve a better work-life balance by working remotely. However, 52% of respondents said telecommuting made them feel disconnected from their teams, and nearly 44% said they worried telecommuting could negatively impact their careers.
Additionally, according to Global Workplace Analytics, 37% of remote workers are willing to take a 10% pay cut to continue working from home. Due to this increasingly popular trend, some are refusing to take a job locally, confident that they can find a more flexible and comfortable job elsewhere.
Which FAANG+ companies are hiring technical employees to work fully remotely?
As for the FAANG companies hiring for remote roles, every one of them is currently doing so. Even amid the hubbub of bringing employees back to physical offices, the discussion around hybrid and remote roles is ongoing. Companies, especially FAANG and Tier 1 companies, are looking for innovative tools and resources to enable hybrid and remote work environments and are not particularly focused on resisting this change.
The purpose of interviews for remote tech positions at FAANG+ companies has not changed. Companies continue to seek the best minds - problem solvers and strong analytical thinkers who can work effectively together to deliver impactful projects.
As companies carefully plan their next steps, the idea of remote and hybrid environments offers them an unprecedented opportunity to incorporate various positive aspects into a fully functional model that will shape the future of employees and companies alike.
Which tech roles have become largely remote/hybrid?
Those : ddiworld.com
After the pandemic, most of the functions performed locally were decentralized. This became the norm in all areas/professions/departments.
Nowadays, companies are hiring for remote positions regardless of the field. The decision to adopt a hybrid/onsite/remote model is typically based on project impact, workflow, and operational optimization.
Technical tasks that can be completed remotely today include full-stack, back-end development, front-end, cybersecurity, data science and data engineering, embedded systems engineering, cloud computing, and test engineering, among others.
The interview process at FAANG companies for remote roles
Interviews for remote positions today are very similar to the way interviews were conducted pre-pandemic.
Today, job interviews still comprehensively assess a person's problem-solving skills, analytical design, technical knowledge, and behavioral characteristics before making a hiring decision.
The interview process for remote roles typically consists of:
- An initial recruiter screening
- A technical screening/coding assignment
- An on-site (remote on-site) interview consisting of domain specific rounds, coding rounds, design rounds and managerial/behavioral interviews.
How do technical interviews for remote roles differ from on-site roles?
Those : shiksha.com
Technical interviews for remote positions are not fundamentally different than interviews for on-site positions. The parameters evaluated are usually similar - problem solving, programming, expertise, system design and behavioral characteristics.
Many companies, including big names like Facebook, Google, Apple and Microsoft, also conduct on-site interviews for remote positions. This essentially means that even though these companies have been hiring for remote positions, they have recognized the importance of in-person experiences with candidates. Onsite interviews allow hiring managers to assess subtle aspects of a candidate's personality to make better hiring decisions.
Technical interviews for on-site roles
Technical interviews for on-site roles typically involve 3 phases - the informal recruiter screen, the technical phone screen or the coding assignment (remote in most cases) and the actual on-site or face-to-face interview, which consists of 3- There are 5 rounds of discussions.
Technical interviews for remote roles
For remote roles, the process is more or less the same. Applicants go through a coding assignment and are only asked for a personal interview if necessary. After the pandemic subsided and companies realized the importance of in-person interviews, they began calling candidates on-site for remote positions as well. However, for some remote positions, the interviews are entirely remote, and the on-site interviews are just a replica of the real interviews, except that the different rounds are held remotely.
While on-site interviews give interviewers the opportunity to better understand candidates through physical experience, remote interviews allow companies to interview a larger talent pool and improve hiring conditions.
The benefits of remote interviews and roles
Remote interviews have always been part of the hiring process at FAANG and Tier 1 companies, especially for software engineering and technical roles. Technical phone interviews and programming tasks take place remotely at most companies, regardless of whether the role being offered is remote or on-site.
FAANG companies wanted to ensure that the remote style of interviews did not detract from the challenging nature of their conversations. That's why remote hiring processes are still very large.
Below, we'll explore some of the benefits we've observed when hiring remotely:
- Eliminating in-person interviews meant applicants traveling from outside the country no longer had to spend time and money booking a hotel.
- Remote interviews offer more scheduling flexibility and make the process much smoother.
- Interviewing in a comfortable environment (at home) takes away a lot of the pressure that comes with whiteboarding in front of new people.
Remote deployments allow companies to hire engineers beyond the local talent landscape. This provides them with a wide selection of intelligent candidates, expanding the available talent pool and improving hiring conditions. Also, smart engineers are encouraged to apply for jobs outside their state/country,
conclusion
Before the pandemic, remote work was rare and was only permitted by companies in cases where employee health and well-being was at stake. However, post-pandemic, many notable tools and technologies have supported the shift from on-site to remote work. Now that companies are starting to comfortably adapt to the new norms, remote roles are here to stay.
