Why I Don’t Talk to Google Recruiters

Binary-tree traversing is a rote memory sort of thing. Somebody who can come in and play 20 questions about an algorithm and answer them perfectly shows me nothing other than they studied that algorithm and have a good memory. It does not show me any insight into how they solve problems which have not already been solved for them. It won't show me how they do under stress with a completely open ended question.

I don't work at google so I won't speak to their daily work, but very rarely should you be writing your own binary tree or traversal code. If you should find yourself on that task you hopefully won't be doing it from memory / without reference because unless that is the ONE thing you know like the back of your hand, even then you are likely going to make mistakes.

I also feel that anybody who has actually been productive on a large successful project does not have time to commit to learning things that can be looked up when needed. There has only been a few times that I have actually needed to implement any of these algorithms in the last 10 years. Of those they were very low level and implemented in a kernel driver where libraries are not so abundant. Can I remember all the fine details today? No. Did I make a system that runs on hundreds of thousands of linux systems across the world? Yes. If I were interviewed on the fine details of implementing some of these algorithms and data structures would I pass? Not likely. Does this make me a bad programmer? Depends who you ask. If you ask the guy interviewing me Yes. If you ask my boss and the many customers who use my product No.

Memorizing algorithms does not make you a good programmer. Knowing how to apply and when to apply them does. The hard part was done when the algorithm was created, not regurgitating an implementation.

Now you might say hey, they should at least know binary tree! Sure maybe they should have some knowledge of it, but there will always be some algorithm you don't know. I would feel completely different if Google said "Come ready to talk about these 5 algorithms and maybe implement one or two". That falls inline fairly well with the author of the article. At least then somebody can say, "Hey, I don't have time", or "Sorry, not interested". And both sides can have their expectations insync.

Now don't get me wrong. We are talking about Google and Amazon. So yeah, somebody there might need to know something about these algorithms. But I doubt they all do. The Few interviews I have been on at these organizations I was not even convinced that all the people interviewing me would be able to pass the round of 5 had they interviewed each other. I should note not all the people who interviewed me gave me that impression. I did meet some really nice people that I thought I would enjoy working with.

I also don't think that these companies don't take into account that some people just interview badly. There is a lot of stress involved. While I think people should be able to work unders stress, I think the type of stress these interviews cause is something entirely different. I live a fairly stress free and carefree life. But when I went to interview at Google my stress levels were so high that I felt sick and worn out for days after. What I am getting at is I am presented with hard problems and short deadlines daily at work. Not once did any of those challenges cause me any level of stress. On the other hand trying to figure out what the interviewer really was asking and cramming to memorize algorithms caused so much stress I did not sleep for days days before the interview. It's not that I was up studying, its that my mind was racing and I could not sleep if I wanted. I just lied there in bed staring at the ceiling. I think they call that anxiety.

> Interview process: complete success.

It was a failure because they wasted everybody's time. Had they been more upfront on what they were looking for then he could have declined without costing both the company money, and him time and stress.

Think about it like the real estate market (in normal markets, not Silicon Valley). Some houses sell before they even hit the market. A few also sell after the realtor does a few private showings. The rest are the "dog properties" that go on the MLS and need heavy marketing to sell.

I think some of this was why some time ago there was a way of interviews with "off the wall" questions, but those seemed to be fairly vilified so I guess that's why they aren't as common now, but personally I would get more of an understanding in how somebody thinks by giving them an unexpected question than by asking them something they could've studied for.

Because they know already everything about me. And you. And all of us.

this is also what is annoying me, the thought of so much ink being devoted to O complexity and so on when with modern processors in the end often "less optimal" algorithms are a lot faster based on how they work and often you end up writing the same thing 3 different ways so you can test and see which one is actually fastest given your language/compiler/toolchain/processor

In a book-level discussion whether a comparison in your algorithms evals to true or false in a predictable or unpredictable pattern doesn't make a difference in its performance, however write that out in code and the branch predictor of your CPU will be a LOT happier (and faster) if you make it so that all the "false" and "true" comparisons happen in streaks as opposed to randomly...