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Why I Studied Full-Time for 8 Months for a Google Interview

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Re: Why I Studied Full-Time for 8 Months for a Google Interview

#111

Post by Apocryphon »

untog wrote: post #32

It fascinates me the extent to which he regrets not getting a Computer Science degree, and says it impacts how hireable he is. Obviously, data point of one here, but I don't have one and it hasn't come up once in my career. You may not see web development and software engineering as different positions. Both involve programming and craftsmanship, but software engineering adds to it knowledge of data structures and al…

Is native development really that much more complex and deeper than web (application) development these days, more worthy of being considered as software engineering? Because with the modern languages and frameworks at a dev's disposal these days, both seem pretty comparable.

Re: Why I Studied Full-Time for 8 Months for a Google Interview

#112

Post by solipsism »

dublinben wrote: post #70
ryandrake wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

(Disclaimer: not a Googler) Like it or not, Google is consistently ranked near the top or #1 on all of those "Best places to work" lists that get published from time to time. Everyone I know who has managed to get hired there sings its praises, and none of them have left (yet). I think it's unlikely that each one of their opinions is fueled by Kool-aid. There's something to it. I don't think this guy is sad at all. I…

The median employee tenure at Google is only 1.1 years, so clearly lots of people are leaving. [0] They are right in line with much-derided Amazon. [0] http://www.slate.com/blogs/business_insider/2013/07/28/turno...

You might want to quote hiring velocity along with that statistic. Interesting that the companies with the lowest turnover are non-growth companies. Should I post the quote about statistics and lies, or does everyone know it?

Re: Why I Studied Full-Time for 8 Months for a Google Interview

#113

Post by ilaksh »

I used to think the CS-y whiteboard interview stuff was a complete waste of time. But now I look at it as a way to prove objectively you have a computer science skill/knowledge-set. Which is nice because it evens out the playing field because many who have the degree don't have the skills and many who don't could acquire them. So its like a bar exam.

There is still an issue though because computer science base knowledge generally lags behind industry-relevant practical knowledge. For example, algorithms and data structures generally accepted as core knowledge do not take enough advantage of today's relatively high RAM availability. And there is not enough emphasis on higher-level components.

You could argue that everyone has to know that old-fashioned basic stuff well and then layer on newer knowlege or perspectives, but I think some of what is considered computer-science core knowledge should be replaced with newer practical things like understanding components and modules and being able to use contemporary tools.

So maybe less emphasis on optimizing algorithms at the procedure level for starters. It might be more important for most engineers to be good with profiling tools and understand the order-of-magnitude differences between memory/CPU/network latency etc. than do be able to do a third-degree low-memory optimization of a function.

Re: Why I Studied Full-Time for 8 Months for a Google Interview

#114

Post by prashnts »

whatever_dude wrote: post #62

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goodhart's_law I'm sure he has learned a lot, but when you study with an interview in mind, you're not necessarily studying to be a good developer; you're studying to look like one. There's some correlation, but it's not the same thing.

This is so true. There are coaching centres here in India, pulling in millions each year to prepare kids for the premier engineering institutes here. Hundreds of thousands of kids join these, but I am still to see even 10% of them working on interesting problems. Like another comment here notes, most of them are becoming a commodity.

Re: Why I Studied Full-Time for 8 Months for a Google Interview

#115

Post by solipsism »

fdsfsaa wrote: post #13

This guy is sad. All those people on Quora who ask unending questions about Google are sad. They're suckers. They've eaten up Google's marketing. You want to know the reality? Whatever's special about Google is long gone. Management let the smoke out a long time ago. Nowadays, Google is just another big software company, with all the opaque politics, purposelessness, and random nonsense that comes with being a big co…

Your comment sounds like sour grapes. How many times did you apply?

Re: Why I Studied Full-Time for 8 Months for a Google Interview

#116

Post by plussed_reader »

ilaksh wrote: post #113

I used to think the CS-y whiteboard interview stuff was a complete waste of time. But now I look at it as a way to prove objectively you have a computer science skill/knowledge-set. Which is nice because it evens out the playing field because many who have the degree don't have the skills and many who don't could acquire them. So its like a bar exam. There is still an issue though because computer science base knowle…

"For example, algorithms and data structures generally accepted as core knowledge do not take enough advantage of today's relatively high RAM availability."

Wouldn't it be prudent to keep your algorithms as lithe as possible? I would think an algorithm/scheme that chews up large amounts of ramm would be perceived as inefficient?

Kinda like the dumpster fire that is Chrome, currently.

Re: Why I Studied Full-Time for 8 Months for a Google Interview

#117

Post by tristor »

I appreciate all the effort this guy has gone to in order to document his process and progress. I don't know if I agree that the end goal is worth the effort, but along the way he's collected a nice corpus of knowledge that any strong computer engineering person should know and made it accessible to others.

For myself personally, I don't have a strong formal education in CS, I'm just a smart cookie who picks things up as a I go along. I've also never worked as a purely software developer type role, since I'm Ops/Hardware/Sec focused. But all of the information in here is stuff that is gold to know. I'm definitely going to be using this as a resource to understand the pure CS stuff better, even though I have no intention of ever pursuing a job at Google.

Re: Why I Studied Full-Time for 8 Months for a Google Interview

#118

Post by blatant »

digler999 wrote: post #84
swingbridge wrote: post #43

The very fact that "preparing for 8 months for a Google interview" is a thing highlights all the things that have gone wrong at Google and their widely panned bad recruitment practices. The process has become about recruiting people that are good at the silly process and not about recruiting the best people. Probably OK if Google is in 'megacorp looking to feed more skillled cogs into the machine' mode (which it most…

I still remember reading the article about one of google's (?) early recruitment campaigns, circa 2001: an ad in the train station that said www.e^(5,000,000 digits ).com, so you would only know the URL if you were nerdy enough to know how to calculate the non-repeating non-terminating decimal. The webpage then solicited them for hiring. I still think that was a cool idea. Edit: it wasn't e^ of anything, it was like…

Do you mean this one: https://blog.beamery.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/Googles-...

?

Re: Why I Studied Full-Time for 8 Months for a Google Interview

#119

Post by rockdoe »

geebee wrote: post #67

Great write-up, thank you to the OP for putting this on the web! I have a few thoughts on it. First, I'm not all that surprised someone would study for 8 months for an interview at Google. I interviewed there (no hire) and gave myself 3 weeks. It wasn't close to enough time, and I've taken a lot of formal math and basic CS plus data structures. Just too rusty, especially at a whiteboard. I could easily have spent 3 m…

Did you factor in cost of living when doing the salary comparison?

Re: Why I Studied Full-Time for 8 Months for a Google Interview

#120

Post by bambax »

solipsism wrote: post #110
msoad wrote: post #106

I worked at Google. This makes me sad. Sad to see people are treating a for profit company like a religion. Google is a good workplace compared to other companies but it's not a religion and it's not perfect. As other commenters said it's not the thing it was before either. I left Google to work on something more interesting and I can't be happier. If we're going to hire people, I'm not putting any weight on their wo…

What are you talking about? Where in this article does the author treat Google like a religion? He specifically said it wouldn't be the end of the world if he didn't make it. He specifically said others shouldn't study that much. Another comment based on the headline and not reading the article? Bet you'll get those anti-google upvotes anyway.

What about: "The more I learn about Google, the more I want to work there. In brief, Google is a company that [...] gives employees the freedom to make good decisions for the user. [...] Nowadays candidates are chosen based on coding ability, technical knowledge, and Googleyness."

As a user, it hasn't been my experience in a long while that Google gives employees the freedom to make good decisions for the user. Google Plus wasn't about users. The shutdown of Google Reader, or of countless other products that had a strong following, weren't to please or help users.

And what's "Googleyness" if not a religious feature?

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