Rahul Pandey Q&A and Videos

The launch of a new AI-based hardware product, Friend, went viral yesterday on Twitter/X:

Most of the reactions I saw online have been very negative. The common complaint is that Friend creates a dystopian future of companionship with intrusive technology.

Would love to hear your thoughts!

• "Friend" is a wearable pendant around your neck that ""
• Friend connects to your phone via Bluetooth and tries to develop a personality based on listening to what you say and do.
• It costs $99 and the product is ~6 months out: pre-orders start shipping in Q1 2025.
• The video on Twitter has been viewed 22M times! That's good marketing.

I'll share my thoughts first.

In one of Rahul's videos [1], he mentions his interview journey when he had ~3 YOE and how he interviewed for a Meta E5 SWE position.

I interviewed for Meta this year w/ 3 YOE similarly and they would not consider me for E5. This is also similar to most other people I know with 3 YOE.

Was it because he had a previous internship at Meta as well as his many other internships? I know Alex also interviewed at Meta with 3 YOE and was down-leveled.

Rahul also mentioned he received an L3 offer at Google (which makes no sense btw!). I'm curious to know how there was such a large variability in the offer levels. Thanks!

[1]

We're software engineers -- we use computers a lot! And yet, there are probably lots of things that we're doing inefficiently.

Let's create a thread of quick hacks/shortcuts that can save us time. Doesn't have to be related to programming.

The thing where people go "ooh, I didn't know you could do that!"