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Google Interview Questions

mytechinterviews.com

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Re: Google Interview Questions

#31

Post by ssp »

emily37 wrote: post #3
derwiki wrote: post #2

If these are the type of questions that they feel qualify you, maybe it's a good thing that I don't work for Google. I, for one, am sick of programming interviews where they test aptitude by giving you riddles that end up getting posted online, so that interviews become more of "have I heard this question before or not" than a true measure of intelligence and motivation. A better interview question: what's your Githu…

I've had several interviews for internships with Google, and I've never had a single question like these. Lots of data structures and algorithms, never a single riddle. Like I said, these interviews were for internships, but I would be surprised if they ask those kinds of questions for full-time jobs but not for internships.

Data structure and algorithm questions can be more or less like riddles though. For example, the question about finding a loop in a singly linked list is a bit like a riddle.

There is also one about writing out a binary tree layer by layer, which really amounts to: "do you know what breadth-first traversal is, and do you get the insight that you can do that on trees too?"

Re: Google Interview Questions

#32

Post by apower »

babycakes wrote: post #4
derwiki wrote: post #2

If these are the type of questions that they feel qualify you, maybe it's a good thing that I don't work for Google. I, for one, am sick of programming interviews where they test aptitude by giving you riddles that end up getting posted online, so that interviews become more of "have I heard this question before or not" than a true measure of intelligence and motivation. A better interview question: what's your Githu…

Google doesn't ask questions like these. In fact, they train interviewers to _not_ ask questions like these.

I got answered this kind of puzzle questions when I interviewed with Google.

Re: Google Interview Questions

#33

Post by apower »

babycakes wrote: post #4
derwiki wrote: post #2

If these are the type of questions that they feel qualify you, maybe it's a good thing that I don't work for Google. I, for one, am sick of programming interviews where they test aptitude by giving you riddles that end up getting posted online, so that interviews become more of "have I heard this question before or not" than a true measure of intelligence and motivation. A better interview question: what's your Githu…

Google doesn't ask questions like these. In fact, they train interviewers to _not_ ask questions like these.

You must work for Google to know this. Given that, your answers are bias toward Google.

Re: Google Interview Questions

#34

Post by ww520 »

philk wrote: post #9

I'm having difficulty seeing how these questions would help find people who can build great software or solve problems creatively: a) I'm not sure there's a strong causal link between "being good at brain teasers" and "writing awesome code". b) I suppose they could be viewed as measuring creativity, but it's in a stressful situation. When you're trying to solve actual problems at work you aren't going to be trying to…

The puzzle questions do give the feeling - I (interviewer) am intellectually superior than you (interviewee).

Re: Google Interview Questions

#35

Post by adharmad »

For the question “How old are my children”, arent a lot of possibilities neglected? eg – Why arent there any children with age 1? 9, 8, 1 24, 3, 1 18, 4, 1 36, 2, 1 12, 6, 1

In this case, in addition to the two cases which add up to 14 (as pointed out in the solution), there is another case wherein the ages add up to 13: 12, 6, 1 (sum=13) 6, 4, 3 (sum=13)

Why is this case ignored? Isnt more data required to “break the tie” and get a unique solution?

Re: Google Interview Questions

#36

Post by jcmhn »

I'm not sure that the riddle questions were ever "real" interview questions.

I got the "12 balls, find the fake" question at an interview once. It seemed to be more a tension killer than anything anyone in the room really cared about. The actual interview was a series of questions along the lines of: "how would you go about doing X, sketch code or pseudo-code on the whiteboard and then explain it".

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