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Google's interview system: it's not about solving the problem

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Re: Google's interview system: it's not about solving the problem

#71

Post by MarkSweep »

SquishyPanda23 wrote: post #37
starpilot wrote: post #24

Yet another "trust the system" message from the authority figure who enables the system. Similar: - Police officer: Just follow our instructions, be cooperative. - Car salesman: Just be upfront with what you want. Tell us about yourself, and we'll earnestly try to help you. The message is the same; the authority "just wants to help," but in reality the relationship is adversarial to a larger degree than it is coopera…

FWIW, I went through the interview process and I actually really enjoyed it. My attitude going in was that I was evaluating what it would be like to work there, and I treated the interviewer as a coworker solving a technical problem, where I was taking the lead. The questions I got were pretty much exactly the sort of hing you see on LeetCode, but I hadn't seen any of the questions before. I know from studying for ot…

> Everybody was super nice, they all wanted you to do well

I had the same experience. Afterwords I thought I did pretty well because I got to a solution to all the problems eventually.

Later when I discussed not getting the offer when a friend who works at Google. He said they try to guide the interviewee to a solution before the time limit. Which is reasonable, you want the interviewee to feel more confident and not get tilted by messing up just one question. However in hindsight the interview is a lot less enjoyable. You can't show any weakness solving a problem, less they offer you a "helpful hint" and record a black mark against you. The interviewer is there to smile and act like your colleague solving a problem while all the while making a list of why your a bad problem solver.

I'm not that bitter though. The interviewers that asked me questions actually related to the position I was interviewing (embedded software) did actually feel fun and collaborative. I accept that if I want to interview well at companies that employ these types of interview processes I will need to do every problem in CLRS (or at least more than zero).

Re: Google's interview system: it's not about solving the problem

#72

Post by bgirard »

joshuamorton wrote: post #61
bgirard wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Great. So if you have ~6 years experience they will quote you a range of 150k-220k for say L4-L6 when your TC (base+bonus+rsu) might be anywhere between 200K-575K[1]. That doesn't sound like a particularly useful answer. [1] https://www.teamblind.com/article/google-engineer---total-co...

You'll almost always be quoted for a single, perhaps 2 levels. No one is going to be considered for both an L6 and L4 role.

Before an onsite? That's a reasonable range.

Re: Google's interview system: it's not about solving the problem

#73

Post by ssambros »

KKKKkkkk1 wrote: post #6

The key bit of context is at the top of the page: Engineer. Diagnostics at Google Cloud. Keeping things boring. Personal opinions. Emphasis mine.

That is definitely her personal opinion, as she is not a spokesperson for Google as far as hiring is concerned. Neither am I.

However, I think if you ask people who conduct software engineer interviews at Google, a lot of them will agree with her opinion, including myself. One thing I would add, is that there is unfortunately no strong consensus on what to expect from the candidate, so variance seems to be high. That is why candidates are encouraged to try again, if unsuccessful.

Re: Google's interview system: it's not about solving the problem

#74

Post by cheez »

kamalkishor1991 wrote: post #47

I keep reading about how bad Google's interview process is. But has anyone done any proper large scale research on what is the best way to hire software engineers? All the comments here seems like opinions of people based on themselves and no one provides a proper alternative. Just curious!

I've been hiring people for 10 years and far and away the best results (in order):

  1. I've worked with them before or they were referred by someone I trust
  2. Test project
Never had a good result from a question-based interview. I just don't have the numbers for it to work.

Think about it, if the probability of a random dev knowing your stupid questions is 1%, then you would need to interview 100 people to find that 1.

The only companies that can do that at scale are FAANG.

Re: Google's interview system: it's not about solving the problem

#75

Post by gcampos »

I think these are great advices that would help to move a candidate from borderline hire/no hire to a hire, but let's be honest, you WON'T be hired if you don't solve the problems with a proper answer!

Months of preparation + LeetCode + Multiple interviews are critical to increase your chances to get an offer.

Re: Google's interview system: it's not about solving the problem

#76

Post by timsneath »

ben_jones wrote: post #54
tytso wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What happens is the hiring committee will disregard the interview report, and send feedback to the interviewer, saying "don't do that". (There are generally 4-6 interviewers on an interview panel, so if one interviewer does a bad job, there are other interviewers who will be providing signal to the hiring committee. A single bad interview report won't sink a candidate.) Google's interview training is pretty specific…

So self reporting by the interviewer?

Every interviewer provides a lengthy write-up of each interview: several pages of notes, including the raw notes of what the candidate said, questions asked, plus an evaluation against a rubric for a number of criteria.

The system is not perfect (what system is?) but as someone who has conducted tens of interviews as a Googler and at other tech companies, I can say it's one of the most rigorous and fairest systems I've seen so far. Interviewers are trained to try and get candidates to a 'win', trained to be aware of their unconscious biases, and the hiring committee process reduces the significance of any one vote. In general, the process is designed to select the best candidates and give all candidates a positive experience.

It's not perfect -- indeed, I'm sure I've given 'failing-grade' interviews as an interviewer here and there -- but it's one of the least-worst human systems that I've encountered, from both sides of the process.

Re: Google's interview system: it's not about solving the problem

#77

Post by AmericanChopper »

starpilot wrote: post #24

Yet another "trust the system" message from the authority figure who enables the system. Similar: - Police officer: Just follow our instructions, be cooperative. - Car salesman: Just be upfront with what you want. Tell us about yourself, and we'll earnestly try to help you. The message is the same; the authority "just wants to help," but in reality the relationship is adversarial to a larger degree than it is coopera…

Your examples aren’t particularly on point. You should (nearly) always do what police officers tell you because even if they’re wrong, the only thing you can do on the scene is make it worse for yourself, and your car salesman example is simply suggesting that you shouldn’t negotiate.

The fact is that Googles interview process isn’t designed to work for you or I, it’s desiged to work for them. The key factors that influence it are that they get tons of applicants, and they have a strong preference to eliminate false positives (which they can afford due to the previous point).

I’m not sure why somebody (seemingly earnestly) trying to help potential applicants understand the process should be the target of anti-authority criticism.

Re: Google's interview system: it's not about solving the problem

#78

Post by colechristensen »

ganeshkrishnan wrote: post #39
starpilot wrote: post #24

Yet another "trust the system" message from the authority figure who enables the system. Similar: - Police officer: Just follow our instructions, be cooperative. - Car salesman: Just be upfront with what you want. Tell us about yourself, and we'll earnestly try to help you. The message is the same; the authority "just wants to help," but in reality the relationship is adversarial to a larger degree than it is coopera…

Not sure about Google but in IBM when I was conducting tech interviews I was looking more for team members to help me complete the project rather than trying to project an authority figure. The relationship was never adversarial and if you know how desperate we were to get good skills there is not much option to take the high ground. The poster is correct that open ended questions that reveals the work ethic of team…

My (pre?) interview with Google was little more than trivia questions. Example: the numerical value of SIGTERM. I could have talked about signals and how they were used for 20 minutes, but a nontechnical phone interviewer just wanted trivia answers.

Re: Google's interview system: it's not about solving the problem

#79

Post by jaypaulynice »

That was probably how her interviews went as a pretty lady. It’s quite possible. On the other hand, the normal guy probably had an adversarial interview process. So obvious! This is also true if the interviewee is buddy with a lot of the interviewers’ friends.

Re: Google's interview system: it's not about solving the problem

#80

Post by halflings »

rrix2 wrote: post #35
starpilot wrote: post #24

Yet another "trust the system" message from the authority figure who enables the system. Similar: - Police officer: Just follow our instructions, be cooperative. - Car salesman: Just be upfront with what you want. Tell us about yourself, and we'll earnestly try to help you. The message is the same; the authority "just wants to help," but in reality the relationship is adversarial to a larger degree than it is coopera…

I read it as "I'm trying to make sure I don't hire someone who isn't willing to work with me, and the system allows me to do that." I can't speak for anyone but myself obviously, but I think I interview at Uber a similar rate to your average Google engineer (2-3 times a week), and our interviewing process is pretty similar to what's laid out here. In cases where the interviewer is hiring for their own team, I feel li…

Google engineers don't interview people they work with (except rare cases). Interview notes go through a committee, so your job as an interviewer is only to describe how things went with the candidate (as explained in this twitter thread).
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