The Hiring Circus: FAANG Interviews for Intern Salaries

You solve algorithmic problems at Google level. Pass through six interview stages. Write code on a whiteboard in front of five interviewers. Get an offer for a salary that barely covers rent in a suburban apartment.

Welcome to the Russian developer hiring market.

Theater of the Absurd

Imagine: a company with an office in a class B business center, a product nobody’s heard of, and salaries at market rate minus twenty percent.

The hiring process:

Stage one: phone screening with HR. Thirty minutes of general questions about motivation, career goals, and why you want to work here specifically. Spoiler: you don’t, you just responded to a job posting.

Stage two: technical interview with team lead. An hour of solving algorithmic problems. Invert a binary tree, find the shortest path in a graph, optimize dynamic programming.

Stage three: live-coding with a senior. An hour and a half writing code in a shared document. Implement an LRU cache, write a JSON parser, solve the knapsack problem.

Stage four: system design. Two hours designing a distributed system. How would you design Instagram? Twitter? YouTube?

Stage five: cultural interview with the team. An hour of stories about how you resolve conflicts, work in teams, and handle stress.

Stage six: meeting with CTO. Another hour of philosophical questions about technology, the future of the industry, and your vision for product development.

Total: six stages, ten hours of interviews, three weeks of waiting.

Result: an offer for a salary that’s paid after two stages at a normal company.

Copying Without Understanding

Where did this come from? From Silicon Valley, of course.

Google, Facebook, Amazon conduct complex multi-stage interviews. They pay three hundred thousand dollars a year. They hire the best of the best. They can afford it.

Russian companies copied the process. But forgot to copy the salaries, benefits, stock options, offices, culture, products.

The result is cargo cult. Form without content. Ritual without meaning.

We do it like Google, therefore we are like Google. Ironclad logic.

Algorithms Nobody Uses

Invert a binary tree. A classic.

Question: when was the last time you inverted a binary tree at work?

Never? Me neither.

Because in real work we use ready-made data structures. Standard libraries. Proven solutions.

Nobody writes red-black trees from scratch. Nobody implements Dijkstra’s algorithm manually. Nobody optimizes merge sort.

But in interviews, they ask this. Because that’s what Google does.

The fact that it makes sense at Google because they solve problems at the scale of a billion users doesn’t matter to anyone.

Your company makes CRM for small businesses? Doesn’t matter. Invert the tree.

Live-Coding: Humiliation as Selection Method

Live-coding is when you write code while being watched. In real time. Every line evaluated. Every typo. Every pause for thought.

This isn’t a skills check. This is a stress test.

Because in real work, nobody writes code under camera surveillance. Nobody solves problems in forty-five minutes with no right to error.

In real work, you google, read documentation, consult colleagues, write tests, refactor.

In live-coding, you must remember syntax by heart, solve the problem on the first try, explain every decision aloud.

This isn’t work. This is an exam. Moreover, an exam that doesn’t correlate with actual productivity.

Research shows: live-coding results don’t predict job success. But companies keep doing it.

Because that’s what Google does.

System Design for CRUD Applications

Design Twitter. From scratch. In an hour.

A billion users. Distributed system. Replication. Sharding. Caching. Load balancing.

You draw diagrams. Explain database choices. Discuss CAP theorem. Design message queues.

The interviewer nods. Asks clarifying questions. Tests depth of understanding.

You get an offer. Come to work.

Task: add a button to the admin panel. Database: PostgreSQL on one server. Users: five thousand. Load: ten requests per second.

Why was system design needed? Nobody knows.

Because that’s what Google does.

Cultural Interview: Playing Psychologist

Tell us about a team conflict and how you resolved it.

Describe a situation when you disagreed with management’s decision.

How do you handle stress?

HR looks into your eyes. Takes notes. Evaluates against a competency matrix.

You tell prepared stories. Embellish. Say what they want to hear.

Everyone knows it’s a game. Everyone plays by the rules. Everyone pretends it makes sense.

Because that’s what Google does.

Six Stages to Nowhere

Three weeks of process. Ten hours of interviews. Twenty people you’ve talked to.

You’re tired. You’re burned out. You’ve spent vacation days on interviews.

Finally, an offer.

Salary: market rate minus twenty percent. Bonuses: none. Stock options: none. Remote work: two days a week if you really ask. Office: open space for a hundred people. Equipment: three-year-old laptop.

Question: why were there six stages?

Answer: to show the company is serious. That it has high standards. That it only hires the best.

Actually: to copy the process from Google and feel cool.

Power Imbalance

The company spends ten hours checking you. You must prove you’re worthy of working here.

What does the company prove to you?

Nothing.

You can’t ask to see production code. You can’t talk to developers without HR. You can’t learn real turnover metrics.

The company checks you. You must trust the company at their word.

This isn’t an equal relationship. This is a casting where you’re the actor and the company is the director.

But actors get paid for participating in castings. You don’t.

Alternative Reality

There are companies that do it differently.

One interview. An hour of conversation. Discussion of real experience. Questions about projects you’ve done. Problems you’ve solved.

Test assignment. A real task from the product. You do it at home. In a comfortable environment. With internet access.

Code review. Discussion of the solution. Not an exam, but a dialogue.

Offer. Adequate salary. Transparent conditions. Respect for the candidate.

Such companies exist. There are few, but they’re there.

They understand: hiring isn’t a stress test. It’s an introduction of two parties. It’s the beginning of a relationship, not a university exam.

Why This Continues

Because the market allows it.

Many candidates. Few vacancies. Companies can dictate terms.

Because HR doesn’t understand technology.

They read articles about hiring at Google. Copy the process. Don’t understand the context is different.

Because management wants to look serious.

A complex hiring process is status. It’s an indicator that the company isn’t just any company.

Because nobody measures effectiveness.

Do six stages hire better candidates? Nobody knows. Nobody checks. Everyone just does it because that’s how it’s done.

What This Means for Candidates

You waste time. Dozens of hours preparing for algorithms. Dozens of hours on interviews. Dozens of hours waiting.

You burn out. Every rejection is a blow to self-esteem. Every interview is stress.

You start doubting yourself. Maybe I’m not good enough? Maybe I need to study more?

No. The system is broken. Not you.

What to Do

Refuse absurd processes. If a company requires six stages for average salary - that’s a red flag.

Ask questions. Why so many stages? What do they check? How does this relate to real work?

Check the company. As thoroughly as it checks you. Employee reviews. Turnover rates. Real conditions.

Look for adequate companies. They exist. There are fewer, but they value your time and respect you as a professional.

Don’t play games. Don’t pretend. Don’t learn algorithms you’ll never use. Look for places that value real skills.

For Employers

If you copy the process from Google - copy the salaries too.

If you can’t pay like Google - don’t demand like Google.

If you want to hire the best - offer the best conditions.

If you want to check skills - give a real task, not an algorithmic puzzle.

If you want candidates’ respect - respect their time.

The hiring process isn’t an exam. It’s an introduction. It’s the beginning of a relationship.

Treat candidates the way you want them to treat your company.

Conclusion

The Russian developer hiring market is a theater of the absurd. FAANG processes for startup salaries. Google-level algorithms for CRUD applications. Six interview stages for a position that could be evaluated in an hour.

This isn’t normal. This isn’t effective. This isn’t fair.

But this is reality.

A reality we can change. By refusing absurd processes. By demanding respect. By choosing adequate companies.

The market will change when candidates stop tolerating it. When companies understand that a complex process without corresponding conditions isn’t a competitive advantage, but a reputational risk.

Until then - welcome to the circus. Tickets are free. Time is yours. Dignity is optional.