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I'm a cloud architect trying to switch jobs and I've been passed on 3 jobs by failing coding challenges.


Spartan

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I'm currently a senior architect at a major FAANG level (but not one of the fab 5) company. 15 years xp and I have my masters in CS. At my firm, an architect is expected to be involved in major projects and we act as a blend of being an SME, analyzing and translating business and tech requirements to plan out the high lv architecture, supporting cloud engineers in writing cloudformation, validating security/networking/compliance, etc. Basically we're incredibly senior and have a broad depth of knowledge that spans all aspects of tech.

From the dev perspective, I do write a good deal of lambda functions, support writing actual code for smaller projects that don't have a dozen developers, etc. However I'm always big on "if you stack me up next to a senior engineer who has written code every day for 15 years, it won't even be a competition". Yet as I'm applying for architect roles at other companies, I've been given strings of coding challenges like I was a freshman. I've solved all the coding problems and obtained the correct results, so my failures have been vague "well the code just isn't up to par" kind of responses and I'm flummoxed at this point.

I'm telling myself that many of these companies are wanting to hire a god with an MIT PhD and 20 years of experience who can write their entire cloud native application from scratch. Am I just having tough luck with interviews? Maybe finding interviewers who don't understand the difference between cloud architect and software engineer? I don't mind writing code but I feel like expecting a cloud architect to go through the same kind of intensive coding rounds when interviewing shows that there is a serious misunderstanding of what an architect does.

I'd really appreciate hearing from the Reddit hivemind to get some more perspective here. How much overlap do you expect between a senior architect and a senior developer? On average, how much time should an architect be devoting to writing production code (not scripting - straight up Java development or something)?

E: English isn't my first language so apologies for poor phrasing. I was crying pretty hard and my husband suggested asking reddit for perspective since he's an artist and doesn't really understand the industry.

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11 minutes ago, Spartan said:

I'm currently a senior architect at a major FAANG level (but not one of the fab 5) company. 15 years xp and I have my masters in CS. At my firm, an architect is expected to be involved in major projects and we act as a blend of being an SME, analyzing and translating business and tech requirements to plan out the high lv architecture, supporting cloud engineers in writing cloudformation, validating security/networking/compliance, etc. Basically we're incredibly senior and have a broad depth of knowledge that spans all aspects of tech.

From the dev perspective, I do write a good deal of lambda functions, support writing actual code for smaller projects that don't have a dozen developers, etc. However I'm always big on "if you stack me up next to a senior engineer who has written code every day for 15 years, it won't even be a competition". Yet as I'm applying for architect roles at other companies, I've been given strings of coding challenges like I was a freshman. I've solved all the coding problems and obtained the correct results, so my failures have been vague "well the code just isn't up to par" kind of responses and I'm flummoxed at this point.

I'm telling myself that many of these companies are wanting to hire a god with an MIT PhD and 20 years of experience who can write their entire cloud native application from scratch. Am I just having tough luck with interviews? Maybe finding interviewers who don't understand the difference between cloud architect and software engineer? I don't mind writing code but I feel like expecting a cloud architect to go through the same kind of intensive coding rounds when interviewing shows that there is a serious misunderstanding of what an architect does.

I'd really appreciate hearing from the Reddit hivemind to get some more perspective here. How much overlap do you expect between a senior architect and a senior developer? On average, how much time should an architect be devoting to writing production code (not scripting - straight up Java development or something)?

E: English isn't my first language so apologies for poor phrasing. I was crying pretty hard and my husband suggested asking reddit for perspective since he's an artist and doesn't really understand the industry.

Sounds fake 

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1 minute ago, r2d2 said:

Yes.. ‘flummoxed’ is the giveaway...😀

mana DB lo kuda okadu ilaage kashtapaduthuntaadu.

Words use cheyyalani aaratam thappithe he wouldn't make much sense for most part 😜

  • Haha 1
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I am sure this is copy paste from some forum... 

Nowadays, Architects are involved in doing lot of POC’s and some even build applications from scratch with a couple of star developers... they definitely are looking for highly hands on architects.. My group leads hate following process and instead support having small focused teams that are highly performing... this is more so in small companies 

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Just now, Thokkalee said:

I am sure this is copy paste from some forum... 

Nowadays, Architects are involved in doing lot of POC’s and some even build applications from scratch with a couple of star developers... they definitely are looking for highly hands on architects.. My group leads hate following process and instead support having small focused teams that are highly performing... this is more so in small companies 

ala ayithe adamant middle aged uncles paristhithi endhi

those who find it hard to learn and adapt to new technologies?

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