Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Max Howell's take on getting rejected by Google

quora.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

51–60 of 73 posts

Re: Max Howell's take on getting rejected by Google

#51

Post by dilyevsky »

gsylvie wrote: post #30

He just got unlucky. It's always luck of the draw with job interviews. Just like those poker players that say they should have won the hand. I'd like to try this in an interview: how would you re-root a binary tree such that the ordering of the elements remains the same, but the root node of the tree changes.

+1 imo luck plays larger role than most people would like to admit. Particularly at places like Google who just throw their CS bingo bonanza at you, but at places that interview properly too.

Re: Max Howell's take on getting rejected by Google

#52

Post by dilyevsky »

felipemnoa wrote: post #37

>>Google in fact gave me seven interviews and I did well in the software engineering ones, That is way too many interviews. I don't think I would have lasted that long. After the second one I probably would have found the third one too much of a pain. But if you really want something I guess you do what it takes.

it's 2 phone screens (on separate days) and then 5 onsites in a single day (with 1-hr lunch break in between). But I agree - the full day of coding onsites is heinous and there's definite performance degradation later in the day. source: i've done 100+ interviews @Google

Re: Max Howell's take on getting rejected by Google

#53

Post by ricardobeat »

ucaetano wrote: post #3

But ultimately, should Google have hired me? Yes, absolutely yes. I am often a dick, I am often difficult, I often don’t know computer science, but. BUT. I make really good things, maybe they aren't perfect, but people really like them. Surely, surely Google could have used that. No, Google shouldn't have hired him, and he made it very clear why: he's a dick. Related discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1…

You need to read the full comments on that thread. Or this counter-argument: https://startupsventurecapital.com/you-fired-your-top-talent...

There is a lot wrong with that article and it should not be used as a reference for this subject.

Re: Max Howell's take on getting rejected by Google

#54

Post by abiox »

TillE wrote: post #15
ucaetano wrote: post #3

But ultimately, should Google have hired me? Yes, absolutely yes. I am often a dick, I am often difficult, I often don’t know computer science, but. BUT. I make really good things, maybe they aren't perfect, but people really like them. Surely, surely Google could have used that. No, Google shouldn't have hired him, and he made it very clear why: he's a dick. Related discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1…

At least in my experience, the real dicks you want to avoid would never casually call themselves dicks. I don't know Howell, but that reads more as light self-deprecation than an admission of genuine toxicity.

in my experience at least some of those who openly/seriously call themselves dicks are low-level sadists that just enjoy being abusive or insensitive and use the "self-aware" commentary as an equivalent to the standard "inb4" forum post (ie "inb4 i'm a dick").

Re: Max Howell's take on getting rejected by Google

#55

Post by abiox »

_m8fo wrote: post #7

The real question is why people care so much about working for Google. If you're good, then you'll find success with or without Google, and if you're not good, then why would one complain about Google not hiring them when you don't even believe in your own ability. It's bizarre, really.

> The real question is why people care so much about working for Google

well, one answer is easy: resume material.

Re: Max Howell's take on getting rejected by Google

#56

Post by mattgreenrocks »

abiox wrote: post #55
_m8fo wrote: post #7

The real question is why people care so much about working for Google. If you're good, then you'll find success with or without Google, and if you're not good, then why would one complain about Google not hiring them when you don't even believe in your own ability. It's bizarre, really.

> The real question is why people care so much about working for Google well, one answer is easy: resume material.

Careerism, one of the traits of a great hacker.

Re: Max Howell's take on getting rejected by Google

#57

Post by oh_sigh »

kazinator wrote: post #43
oh_sigh wrote: post #32

Only the people who interviewed Max and people on the hiring committee know why he was rejected. Maybe he was a bad cultural fit(if he actually is a dick?), maybe he failed horribly at answering some question, who knows?

People who are dicks can hide that in interviews, though. They can hide it much better than not being able to invert a binary tree, in any case.

Maybe some can, but others just wear it on their sleeve out of either lack of self awareness or lack of care. I've interviewed 200+ people in my tenure at amazon and the company I currently work for and its shocking the number of people who can't even be bothered to put on a polite act for 4 hours.

Re: Max Howell's take on getting rejected by Google

#58

Post by saagarjha »

kazinator wrote: post #42
sumitgt wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you are faced with a question like this in a Google interview, and you simply state the answer above right away, you are only solving part of the problem. A Google interviewer expects you to ask questions and clarify any simplifying assumptions you may have made. For eg: Are you assuming right at the beginning that the entire tree fits in memory? If so, Google interviewers expect you to clarify that at the beginni…

If a tree is so big it doesn't fit into memory, what are you trying to achieve by swapping it? How about just working with the original tree the way it is and just traversing it in reverse order, if necessary. I would probably ask if this is in-place or do we treat the input tree as immutable.

> I would probably ask if this is in-place or do we treat the input tree as immutable.

…that's what the parent comment is implying. Ask questions and don't assume things.

Re: Max Howell's take on getting rejected by Google

#60

Post by kazinator »

saagarjha wrote: post #58
kazinator wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If a tree is so big it doesn't fit into memory, what are you trying to achieve by swapping it? How about just working with the original tree the way it is and just traversing it in reverse order, if necessary. I would probably ask if this is in-place or do we treat the input tree as immutable.

> I would probably ask if this is in-place or do we treat the input tree as immutable. …that's what the parent comment is implying. Ask questions and don't assume things.

If you can code a prototype as fast as asking question, why not. Code it up and then ask, "how about this: what requirements are missing from this that require changes or a rewrite?"

Asking too many questions sounds like you're trying to delay coding something up.

Suppose you just ask questions and they pile on more the requirements. Then the combination of requirements makes it so hard that you can't really code anything on a whiteboard. You're hosed.

If you incrementally prototype, at least you arrive at the same point having some iterations of code on the whiteboard.

Post reply on HN