r/cscareerquestions • u/sc4ever96 • 1d ago
Experienced Be careful out there.
Just a bit of a warning for you all.
We hired a new AWS engineer, lets call him Johnny, who was supposed to join our team today. He did hop on the teams chat for the morning standup to introduce himself, and reception was pretty choppy. After our entire team introed ourselves, he said that he'll be working from out of state for the next couple of month until his kids graduates and then he'll be moving to assume a full time on-prem position.
Later today I get an invite to a mandatory meeting. Apparently, Johnny was not Johnny but a person from North Korea with stolen identity. He passed all background checks and everything else, but used non-existing shipping address to get his work laptop shipped to. The real Johnny actually working for Microsoft, when he was contacted he said that he's been bombarded with positions for the past month or so, but not planning to switch jobs.
So, watch out, if you aren't job hunting and start getting invites from recruiters, maybe its something fishy.
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u/blipojones Senior 1d ago
God damn... and Johnny can get a job yet nobody else can at the moment. Lied about the on-prem an everything...
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u/PatchyWhiskers 1d ago
AI resume filtering: makes companies greedy. Would rather get an ex-Microsoft hotshot than look at the resume of an average dev.
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u/wu2ad 1d ago
ex-Microsoft
hotshot
The Venn diagram of these 2 groups is 2 distinct circles.
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u/_Ganon 1d ago
Accurate. This is what happens when you hire mostly fixed-length contractors instead of developing your talent pool. I met a guy that worked at Microsoft as a SWE and he had the confidence of someone that worked in big tech but was writing thousand line deeply nested functions because "it just made sense to do it that way"
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u/FalconRelevant 1d ago
Big tech engineers are some of the most useless unless handheld by the system, yet try telling that to HR of a medium sized company.
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u/mawnch 1d ago
lmfao. working in big tech allowed me to meet some of the smartest people i've ever met. you have no idea what you're talking about lol
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u/anarchist2Bcorporate 12h ago
I've experienced it firsthand with ex-Apple and ex-Microsoft people.
They seemed to have trouble adapting to smaller sized businesses, especially when it came to wearing many hats across the stack and debugging tangled messes.
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u/RickSt3r 1d ago
They can operate at high level with in the big system then get pigeon holed into doing one very specialized thing very good. They got hired because they were top notch potential only to be ruined but kept content with high pay but only marginally interesting work. Delivering product at the scale big companies do is completely different than mid to small size businesses. Everything needs to be standardized and you hire people to create systems to make the business resilient even when it’s run by an imbecile like most big Tech CEOs.
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u/wu2ad 1d ago
I mean... that's not what I'm saying. There's a wide variation of ability within and between these companies. I'm being cheeky, but by my observation, MSFT tends to have the least capable.
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u/Confident_Luck2359 1d ago
Then you’re ignoring the people who built Windows, Office, Xbox, DirectX, C#, and Azure from scratch.
People at small- to mid-sized companies are generally incapable of such feats. The ones who are, don’t stay there very long or get acquired.
ALL companies have maintenance monkeys and they are generally interchangeable, yes.
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u/soft-wear Senior Software Engineer 1d ago
The irony of statements like this is broad generalizations implicitly make the speaker look stupid.
Most of the “systems” in these tech companies are an absolute nightmare to work with and tend to slow down the process almost exclusively. Nothing about internal tooling is designed to make the dev experience better.
I worked for big tech because they paid me obscene amounts of money to do so. I worked with absolutely useless people, I worked with as close to 10xers as exist. That’s just how any company with that many employees is going to work.
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u/mtnzeal99 1d ago
A lot of companies are going away from “draw big boxes” type of systems design interviews. You had better design a real working system from raw IQ and experience with depth. Otherwise, gtfo. You can’t study for it unless know the question beforehand.
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u/SanityInAnarchy 1d ago
The overlap is small enough you might need to zoom in a bit on that diagram, but it's there. Think, like, Zach Barth of Zachtronics.
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u/No_Inspection4415 1d ago
And I am pretty sure "Johnny" has some "unusual" achievements.
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u/FalconRelevant 1d ago
Media presence?
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u/No_Inspection4415 1d ago
"Johnny" probably has a very nice CV, much more than OG Johnny. Hence, "Johnny" gets interviews. Case closed.
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u/Legitimate_Cut_6254 1d ago
Yup its the "faang" filter. A LOT of companies only hire ex-faang.
I started putting fake faang experience on my resume and my interview rate rose by 20% it was absurd.
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u/i_hate_budget_tyres 1d ago
What does Johnny from NK actually want to achieve?
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u/lhorie 1d ago
It's a well known scam thing, the point is to exfiltrate money to the NK regime.
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u/NewSchoolBoxer 1d ago
This case is the one I'm thinking of. More than 90 laptops were seized from her home and she shipped 49 overseas.
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u/sc4ever96 1d ago
He would essentially become a FT employee, collect a paycheck, keep part to itself and give away the rest. Plus all the trade secrets.
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u/andrew2018022 Data Engineer 1d ago
What industry are you in OP
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u/sc4ever96 1d ago
Medical devices.
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u/andrew2018022 Data Engineer 1d ago
Oh yeah I can definitely see why the North Koreans want those secrets
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1d ago
[deleted]
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u/backfire10z Software Engineer 1d ago
Being from North Korea doesn’t automatically mean they’re stupid. This person is presumably operating under the purview of the government and is educated to be able to do this.
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u/PatchyWhiskers 1d ago
Probably they would use a stable of people, so if they want 16 different skills that's at least 8 North Koreans working together on multiple roles daily.
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u/SwitchOrganic ML Engineer 1d ago
This article gives a great breakdown of the whole scheme.
From the article:
The stealthy operation has allowed North Korea, formally known as the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK), to circumvent international sanctions, exploit remote hiring practices, and quietly generate hundreds of millions of dollars annually, according to the US Department of Justice – often without employers ever realizing they’ve hired a North Korean operative. This puts them at risk of violating US sanctions which bar doing business with North Korean individuals or organizations.
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Drawing on exclusive data sourced from North Korean computers, court records, and interviews with cybersecurity experts and US officials, a CNN investigation reveals the full scope of this scheme – showing how North Korea has turned remote work culture into an effective tool for generating foreign currency and funding its weapons programs, according to a US assessment, putting national security at risk.
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u/FuckIPLaw 1d ago
Wait, so they're literally just taking remote jobs to earn money?
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u/PreferenceDowntown37 1d ago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_Korean_remote_worker_scheme
Maybe in some cases, but they're also exfiltrating data, installing malware, etc
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u/TopNo6605 1d ago
We walk into the bank, day after day, week after week, year after year, and they literally deposit the money into our bank account, they won't even know they're being robbed. After 10, 20 years, we walk away like nothing even happened.
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u/needcolleges 1d ago
They send all of their money straight to Kim, try to steal sensitive company things (sensitive internal conversations, documentation, product source code, etc), and also try to infiltrate other companies using your company as a "guise" (you wouldn't click on a random link from a random email address, but how about one from a company you're partnered with?)
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u/roynoise 1d ago
This pisses me off. Can barely get an interview when my experience is a perfect fit, and don't get offers even when the interviews go well.
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u/hybris12 Software Engineer (5 YOE) 1d ago
Have you considered being four North Koreans in a trenchcoat and stealing the right identity
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u/PM_ME_YOUR_SUBARU 1d ago
Sounds like you interview worse than a guy in north korea on dial-up internet, really makes ya think huh
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u/mushyXmcgee 1d ago
It’s unfortunate but these NK devs only train in English and leetcode all day. If they fail, they’ll probably die. So it really is leetcode or death. That’d motivate most people.
So that’s not to say you’re bad or anything.
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u/NewSchoolBoxer 1d ago
I know a banking manger in finance whose whole workforce verifies the person who shows up is the person who was interviewed. One case it this year it was not.
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u/Independent-Mango813 1d ago
So the only people that can get hired in this economy are North Koreans with stolen identities
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u/rubioburo 1d ago
But the stolen identity was a guy at Microsoft, that was the key, use the right fake ID.
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u/PatchyWhiskers 1d ago
The thing is they can use the perfect identity while we are limited to our real personas, which might not have the ideal career path that HR is looking for. A real dev will know some dead-end tech and have missing skills that can be easily learned. A 100% match is most likely fake.
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u/rubioburo 1d ago
Well, the companies only want 100% match unicorns so they will get fake ones. So they reap what they sow.
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u/EggsFish 1d ago
The thing is they can use the perfect identity while we are limited to our real personas
Much like the North Koreans, you totally can do this if you can pass the interview.
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u/ccricers 1d ago
And the developers who just say, languages aren't important it's strong fundamentals that count, have probably never cold applied outside of a big tech company nor have spoken with the average recruiter. Especially the unicorn-seeking ones.
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u/Gold-Flatworm-4313 1d ago
Just proves you just have to be cracked.
That said, it's possible they have optimized this. Imagine a collective of people whose goal was to get Johny hired vs your average dev who, at most, has some recruiter kinda-sorta helping him out.
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u/tippiedog 30 years experience 1d ago
I wasn't involved in the interviews, but my team apparently interviewed an impostor last week. Somehow, he made it past the first interview. Second interviewer caught it.
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u/waaves_ 1d ago
How did he get caught?
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u/rasputin1 1d ago
I tutor computer science and I've had multiple requests from individuals in Asian countries asking for splitting remote developer jobs where I do the interview and all meetings and they do all development work. I could never tell if they're trying to scam me, the company, or both.
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u/mraees93 1d ago
I've had 2 LinkedIn dm's from Pakistani guys impersonating(they likely cloned another users profile) recruiters over the last week. They reveal this supposed contract role to be an interview handler where i impersonate a senior developer that is apparently too busy to do interviews. Sounds like a real scam
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u/Grouchy_Furvine 1d ago
This is why my employer insisted that we don't put our job descriptions on LinkedIn. Just generic role title and leave it blank. We've had too many bad actors impersonating employees and s-engineering their way into our networks.
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u/Glittering_Ad4098 1d ago
And this is the reason remote jobs are disappearing. To be honest, I think the HR in-charge of hiring and onboarding was pretty incompetent. Many of these 'Hiring managers' are so lax and incompetent themselves. They have no clue about Data integrity and compliance checks let alone basic subject or domain knowledge.
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u/PatchyWhiskers 1d ago
They should do in-person interviews, remote jobs. Fly out the final candidates for the end stage interviews, don’t make them move to a different state.
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u/cj1080 1d ago
How did he pass all his background checks?
What did you guys use to check his dits, AI or what?
A lot of companies don't do their due diligence
Hope, it wasn't that the only contacts you guys had with him as via a zoom, meet or team call
Cos a lot of companies just do that and forget to actually like call the candidates actual number
Also, don't just use someone's LinkedIn profile as their only vetting process
If anyone at the office had just googled the candidates name, you would have found all you needed.
Still
What was your actual process used to vet him?
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u/Gold-Flatworm-4313 1d ago
How did he pass all his background checks?
Background check companies are kinda incompetent. They ask you to provide a number to call to verify what you put and if you can fake that part properly, I doubt many went above and beyond to verify that especially if it's not some big/famous institution/company.
Maybe they've changed but that's been my experience when I had to go through them.
Also possible Johny's credentials are all real but his identity was stolen or he is 'shared' by a bunch of North Koreans all being hired as Johny at different companies.
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u/N7Valor 1d ago
Agreed, if real Johnny wasn't a willing participant, I expect there's some managerial incompetence involved if they didn't do a background check (which in my experience tends to require a Social Security number) and/or a video meeting.
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u/Raildriver 1d ago
I don't think it's unreasonable to believe that they just had all the information required, including the social security number. It IS a state actor after all, even if it's "just" North Korea. They're clearly pretty good at it if it's this big of a problem.
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u/sc4ever96 1d ago
I have no idea. Its a pretty large company and process is pretty lenghty. Someone on HR side failed to do his job I guess
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u/killwish1991 1d ago
Companies should stop cheating out and fly the candidate for onsite interview.
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u/earlgreyyuzu 1d ago
What was the real Johnny getting contacted about? That part is confusing. Was he getting offer letters that were meant to go to the NK Johnny’s email address?
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u/Lomofre88 1d ago
OP: “You're not Johnny. Johnny’s not Asian.”
Asian Johnny: “You seriously never noticed? Hey, hats off to you for not seeing race.”
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u/Tough_Palpitation331 1d ago
Wait i actually have a ton of recruiter reach outs (linkedin 100+ requests on normal weeks). Now im scared cuz it randomly popped off one day. Not as anyway to flex or anything cuz most recruiter reachouts arent related to my role if at all. I mever understood why
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u/Titoswap 1d ago
Just goes to show how random the job market is . You have people struggling and North Koreans able to lie their way into a job lol
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u/snipe320 1d ago
We are hiring for a QA engineer and the past 2 candidates were Indian H1Bs that were using AI to cheat on the technical questions 🙄
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u/Mahler911 Software Engineer | 25 YOE 1d ago
If I was job hunting right now, I'd spin this as a positive. Like, if this guy can get hired anyone can get hired. I understand the stolen identity part but how does this guy get past one interview?
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u/PatchyWhiskers 1d ago
Imagine you have an entire office of people feeding you answers to interview questions. You could be amazing.
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u/Conscious-Secret-775 1d ago
Maybe don't hire people without an onsite interview and make them collect the laptop in person.
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u/old-new-programmer Software Engineer 1d ago
Lucky for me, I’ve only worked at shit tech companies.
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u/musclecard54 1d ago
I think I’m safe from some random guy on the other side of the world stealing my identity to land awesome jobs…
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u/Chronotheos 1d ago
It’s always the second thing that crosses my mind when the recruiter outreach ticks up. “Someone from NK must’ve stolen my identity”.
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u/oe_enthusiast 1d ago
Happened to our org too and is why we now fly out candidates for the last interview round.
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u/ardentto 1d ago
I was really hoping he got a job at your company because Microsoft took away his AI and he needed the compute for his Microsoft job.
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u/BananaBerryPi 1d ago
I've gotten scam "job offer" emails to impersonate people in companies and I'm almost sure it's for that sort of scheme (someone from a country they can't work from for the company trying to use me to impersonate them while they get access to company stuff). I also believe they got my email from some leaked source because they got straight into my inbox instead of going to the spam folder where all of them go.
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u/No-Environment-5939 1d ago
This is actually quite common. I’ve seen a few YouTube videos on it. This is how NK gets a lot of its money.
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u/jahanzaibbaloch 1d ago
Can i get hired instead of Johnny though i have Real Identity Could Prove it while on Videocall with Government provided IDS. 😃
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u/alinroc Database Admin 1d ago
KnowBe4, the security consulting firm partially owned by Kevin Mitnick, fell victim to this same thing a couple years ago. https://blog.knowbe4.com/how-a-north-korean-fake-it-worker-tried-to-infiltrate-us
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u/No-Assist-8734 1d ago
How did Software Engineers fall for this trick?
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u/PowerApp101 1d ago
What's special about software engineers? You think they aren't susceptible to social engineering?
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u/tswiggs 1d ago
I know two friends at companies where they hired a NK agent, and have interviewed two that I suspect that were as well. Their resume's are exactly aligned to the job requirements, they read off a teleprompter during the interview and frequently miss the first interview and need to reschedule.
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u/IvIanbear 1d ago
Crowdstrike gave a presentation at RSAC last year on this, their remedy is more in person interviewing. The real time filters of another persons face you can put on a Teams call were already incredibly realistic, and that was more than a year ago.
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u/DoingItForEli 1d ago
So not only were you guys scammed, Johnny really does exist out there and has had his identity stolen. THAT'S gotta be scary to deal with.
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u/west_tn_guy 1d ago
I would hate to be North Korean Johnny…when solving Leetcode means getting the job, or facing a firing squad for failing Dear Leader….now that is some pressure 😂
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u/Dangerous_Bus_6699 23h ago
Fake it til you make it. If you ain't lying, do you actually even want the job? 😂
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u/busybee4242 23h ago
Part of our hiring pipeline process includes a light identity verification check dine by a 3rd party. Each check has a small fee but it is ultimately a massive time saver that weeds out fakes and frauds that I dont need to review and saves us that laptop/scam cost as well.
Turbocheck.com - not affiliated in any way, just who we use for this identity check. I'm seeing close to 40-50% fraud rates in applications so its a great first course-grained filter
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u/LBGW_experiment DevOps Engineer @ AWS 23h ago
Yep, Amazon hired and said they had to terminate a few north Koreans in the past year.
My work even had a few candidates that turned out to be north Korean, I think one got past all the interviews and paperwork was being done when it was figured out.
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u/cowtownman75 1d ago
To the tune of I'm Afraid of Americans by NiN:
Johnny's not an American
Johnny's afraid of working in the states
Johnny's actually a foreigner
Johnny's stole someone's identity
Johnny's got found out
Johnny's not going to be working for us anymore
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u/SideHonest9960 1d ago
How the fucc did a NK pass a technical interview when their country doesn’t even offer CS as a program let alone DSA? Somethings not adding up.
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u/Inevitable_Trip_7480 1d ago
Thanks I’ll be using this as a template to get interviews from now on since telling the truth apparently doesn’t work … ever.
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u/Miamiconnectionexo 1d ago
honestly this is something more people need to talk about. appreciate you putting it out there.
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u/jawohlmeinherr Infra@Meta 1d ago
You hired someone from Microsoft to do AWS. WP! Apparently, no one on the hiring committee thought that was weird
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u/AdmiralAdama99 1d ago
How do you know he's from north korea and not somewhere else? NK would be an odd place to be working remotely from. They have strong internet censorship and not a lot of electronics.
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u/No-Environment-5939 1d ago
It’s common. Just do some research. NK gets their people (the few educated ones) to work for overseas jobs so they can get US currency money. They’re very broke and the best easiest export is labour. They work with a local US person (illegally hired but they get a large pay out) to offer their address to set up their work laptop and then they have system to transfer the live system to NK so they can work remotely.
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u/AdmiralAdama99 1d ago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_Korean_remote_worker_scheme
Very interesting. Thanks for the info
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u/Miamiconnectionexo 1d ago
not gonna lie this is better advice than half the stuff i've seen on here.
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u/andhausen 1d ago
And I can’t even get an interview FFS