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Google's “Director of Engineering” Hiring Test (2016)

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Re: Google's “Director of Engineering” Hiring Test (2016)

#281

Post by rayiner »

golergka wrote: post #186
rayiner wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is that answer wrong? Does using GVIM or Aquamacs mean you don’t know vim and emacs?

When I asked if he was using a console version or some wrapper that supported window manager, he didn't understand the question. When I asked if there's some another way to close it, he, just as surprised, told about the main program menu, just below the window title. Any person who actually used either of these editors even once would have a pretty solid idea of what I was going for. It was a very simple, quick test…

I don't know if I believe that. Lots of people (in particular folks using Windows or Mac) use the GUI version of those editors because they're preinstalled on machines at school and work. They may not even know there is a console version of those programs. (Also "window manager" is pretty *nix-specific jargon.)

Re: Google's “Director of Engineering” Hiring Test (2016)

#282

Post by bmcfeeley »

maxk42 wrote: post #236
bmcfeeley wrote: post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Big-Theta is not an average case, it is a special form of Big-O and Big-Omega wherein the worst case is also the best case from a complexity perspective. This is sometimes true in sorting since comparison based sorting cannot be improved beyond n*log(n) except in specific cases for specific domains. You are absolutely on the money about worst case being O(n^2) though for quicksort.

I stand corrected. Is there a notation for "average" complexity?

Not that I'm aware of! As you've seen, I see Big-O abused into shorthand for "on the order of" to the effect of "average case is O(nlog(n))"

Re: Google's “Director of Engineering” Hiring Test (2016)

#283

Post by sowbug »

s17n wrote: post #260
sowbug wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You seem to be getting beaten up over this point, so I'd like to un-lurk and support it. A screener's job is to read the resume and match static facts to company needs. A recruiter's job is to gauge subjective fit and mutual interest. An interviewer's job is to assess analytical ability, communication skills, personality, and culture fit, as well as to be an advertisement for the company/team/project/position if both…

I think that reading the resume is probably appropriate for the person making the hiring decision but for the interviewer, it's clearly a bad idea.

I'm less concerned about bias than you are. For me it's more that your resume is what you used to do, and I'm interested in what you will do.

I also found history the most boring subject in high school. Probably not a coincidence.

Re: Google's “Director of Engineering” Hiring Test (2016)

#284

Post by logicallee »

danpalmer wrote: post #276
logicallee wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes but from "times" you can see that this is a test of VERY basic English. I agree with you that Bread is both correct and fits the context better, and I would still choose "eggs" (a worse answer, from the choices given) because I would analyze what the (really stupid) question-writer wanted. You are right that window exists in that sense but in this case it's clear that the question writers didn't think about it. F…

“Less eggs” isn’t actually correct. Eggs are countable, so it would be “fewer eggs”. You can have “less bread”, or “fewer loaves of bread”. This is getting very pedantic though.

This is specifically what actually makes it, eggs, objectively wrong -- though it is the choice that will be marked correct and which you, the test-taker should pick, even if you realize it is wrong. Pedantically, it is wrong to say "less eggs" while it is correct to say "less bread" but due to the level of pedantry, you, the test-taker, should prefer to pick the incorrect answer (eggs) over the only actually grammatical answer (bread) - even though this is a test of English.

You have to set aside what is correct and incorrect and decide how educated the test-writer was, and what they might want you to pick, or what they are attempting to test.

This has direct relevance to the article are discussing.

Re: Google's “Director of Engineering” Hiring Test (2016)

#285

Post by SilasX »

geofft wrote: post #233
SilasX wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Also, a ton of this conversation makes a lot more sense if you make the assumption that the interviewee is misremembering the questions But (per [1]) then what would be the charitable mis-remembering of the recruiter saying "that's not the answer I have on my sheet of paper." If it were someone technically competent, that would never be the response; it would be a technical explanation of the error. The most likely…

> The most likely scenario is that a non-technical person is being expected to gauge technical answers. I'm not disagreeing with this - this certainly appears to be the case. But I think a qualified technical person should be able to understand the question that the non-technical person is asking and respond in a useful way. Although, yes, if they immediately respond with "Wrong, it's ", it's hard to do that. But I f…

>But I feel like a good interviewer (good is orthogonal to technical!) is likely to say "OK, so what is the runtime?", and "constant" and "O(1)" should both be on their list of keywords.

In that case, he was the CTO, though, and should know that "constant" is the same as "does not depend on the input size". (Though I'll admit I could have been unclear by trying to pre-emptively show how I knew what the next binding constraint would be.)

Agree with your points otherwise, but I still think the protocol should be (even if you're skipping through), to say something more like "let me note that down and I'll pass on your response" rather than imply it's not wrong because it's not in your list.

Re: Google's “Director of Engineering” Hiring Test (2016)

#286

Post by SilasX »

rayiner wrote: post #281
golergka wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When I asked if he was using a console version or some wrapper that supported window manager, he didn't understand the question. When I asked if there's some another way to close it, he, just as surprised, told about the main program menu, just below the window title. Any person who actually used either of these editors even once would have a pretty solid idea of what I was going for. It was a very simple, quick test…

I don't know if I believe that. Lots of people (in particular folks using Windows or Mac) use the GUI version of those editors because they're preinstalled on machines at school and work. They may not even know there is a console version of those programs. (Also "window manager" is pretty *nix-specific jargon.)

I get that someone might use the default text editor. But where would a vim/emacs variant be installed that way? And if it were, why would it last for a novice any longer than "um, this is weird and doesn't do anything". Vim and emacs are only tolerable if you put the effort to learn how they work. And if you did, how would you get to the end of a tutorial without learning how to quit?

You're right, it's technically possible, but the parent is justified in being really suspicious that someone is citing familiarity with both emacs and vim and is confused that there's a non-mouse way to do something.

Re: Google's “Director of Engineering” Hiring Test (2016)

#287

Post by itronitron »

jason_slack wrote: post #280
itronitron wrote: post #277

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I hope you didn't list String expertise as one of your technical skills.

Explain?

It is a joke, as so many interviewers complain that people lie about their technical skills and experience, if you listed String as a technical skill and the interviewer thought you didn't know what a mutable String was then they would conclude that you lied about your skill set. Hopefully you can see the humor. I feel your pain so can understand why you might not think it is funny.

Re: Google's “Director of Engineering” Hiring Test (2016)

#288

Post by itronitron »

s17n wrote: post #272
itronitron wrote: post #269

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The interviewer's job should be to determine whether, and how, the candidate would succeed in the organization.

No, that's the job of whoever is making the hiring decision. The interviewer is providing signal for that person / people.

in my opinion that disenfranchises the rank and file who should, and usually do, have as much interest and voice in the organization's future as the hiring managers

Re: Google's “Director of Engineering” Hiring Test (2016)

#289

Post by geofft »

thereare5lights wrote: post #203
sdhgaiojfsa wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> OK, but incorrect/inflexible quizzing about tech questions is inappropriate full stop. If this was an interview for SWE summer intern it'd be a badly-run interview. I would not ask the questions listed in this interview. But, I'm not a recruiter. I think it's safe to say that the average recruiter has a better understanding of their objectives and constraints than I do, and is better able to judge what types of que…

> I think it's safe to say that the average recruiter has a better understanding of their objectives and constraints than I do, and is better able to judge what types of questions to ask during an initial screen than I am. That's an odd assumption to make, that the average recruiter is competent, for a community that assumes the vast majority of their fellow engineers can't code.

> a community that assumes the vast majority of their fellow engineers can't code.

If you're talking about FizzBuzz, that's about candidates, not stably employed folks. Candidates are by definition a pool that favors people that haven't been hired already, except for people new to the industry. https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2005/01/27/news-58/

(Also, there's no rigorous evidence supporting the hypothesis that most people in the industry or even most applicants can't write FizzBuzz, as far as I know. But that's not quite relevant to your question about perception; I do admit there is a perception that the hypothesis is true.)

Re: Google's “Director of Engineering” Hiring Test (2016)

#290

Post by geofft »

fwdpropaganda wrote: post #267
geofft wrote: post #43

This was posted previously, in October 2016: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12701272 An actual Google director of engineering pointed out that these are individual-contributor SWE/SRE questions (and I can attest I got very similar questions as a new college grad). As I commented previously: "Reading more closely, it sounds like they are not interviewing him for a director of engineering position; it just sounds…

> In which case, screening out someone with an inflated sense of their own experience and overconfidence that the stupid person on the other end of the phone is stupid is exactly what this process is supposed to do. This is obviously an excuse for how shitty the interviewer is. If you want to rule out people with a inflated sense of their own experience, the way you do that does NOT involve telling them they're wrong…

Again, my claim is the interviewer did not say exactly that and this man with an inflated sense of his own qualifications is retelling the story in a way that's favorable to him.

All available evidence points to him either mishearing or mis-transcribing the question, which was actually "What is the signal sent by the kill command."

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