Google's interview system: it's not about solving the problem • Hacker News Board

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

#231

Post by ma2rten » Mon, Nov 05, 2018, 12:36 PM UTC

rademacher wrote: post #218

All anecdotal evidence points to arriving at the correct, optimal solution as being key to passing the interview. It also seems like often times the interviewers are not even going to be working with the candidate so their opinion on a 'working relationship' is mostly irrelevant. The objective of asking these leetcode style questions is to find candidates who are willing to put in the time to study. Success signals t…

Disclaimer: I haven't read the article, but I work at Google.

Most interviewers will ask the same question to multiple candidates. They will compare how you the candidate is doing compared to other candidates on the same question. Most interviewers will provide hints.

I'm pretty sure that all candidates go though the same interview process.

There is really not much that is unique to Google's interviews. The only thing that is unique about the process is that your interview feedback is reviewed by a committee of peers.

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

#232

Post by kasey_junk » Mon, Nov 05, 2018, 12:41 PM UTC

kaidax wrote: post #214

akudha wrote: post #211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

5-6 years ago, I went for an interview in a real estate company. The introductions lasted all of 2 mins. Then they took me to a computer, showed me a bug in the code base that I would be working on, if I got hired. Then they said "please fix this". Took me about half hour or so to hunt the bug down and fix (it wasn't hard, but it wasn't a cosmetic bug either). Then they asked me how I found the bug. I explained, they…

Some companies abuse this style of interview to get free work done by interview candidates and then reject them.

People claim this all the time but is there any actual evidence? It would be one of the worst possible grifts of all time.

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

#233

Post by powerapple » Mon, Nov 05, 2018, 12:41 PM UTC

QML wrote: post #185

powerapple wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was confused about interviews in big companies before. Especially sometimes you have interviewers from not the hiring team. I was also confused about how leetcode questions are used, and sometimes feel that justification on hiring or not hiring are not based on evidence. Then one day I changed my view. I am seeing interviews a way to evaluate candidates' wanting to a job, and his effort of trying to achieve somethi…

The issue with Leetcode and HackerRank as I see it, is that you're reproving to various companies each time and each interview that you know how to code. However, the only alternative to this seems be an SAT for programmers, which isn't better.

To be honest, coding is not difficult. Also many jobs do not require 'that' much knowledge of low-level informations anyway. Especially nowadays, for most positions, you don't need to know re-ordering lines of code can affect the cache, you use hash whenever it is possible and do not need to implement your own data structure. If you do need something in your work and you currently don't know, google and reading will definitely teach you. Programming is not a special power only few people can have. Actually, if you are consistently learning, you will probably do well in any tasks. If people are not willing to put some time into getting the job they want, maybe they don't want the job enough.

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

#234

Post by AnimalMuppet » Mon, Nov 05, 2018, 12:41 PM UTC

C1sc0cat wrote: post #229

rlpb wrote: post #215

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> He pauses and says give me a dollar value. He asked you for "how much is google's spend" and you finished your estimations without giving him a dollar value? Did you forget his question? > He doesnt want to understand the logic behind the calculations. From your description that sounds like a false assumption to me. It sounds like despite your estimations you didn't give him an answer to his actual question, and so…

And how would an outsider have any idea of the cost do you just mean the plant costs how much does google pay per MW in each locale how much does labour costs what allowance for accrued pension rights.

Wow. Feel free to use some punctuation here and there. That's annoying to parse as written.

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

#235

Post by C1sc0cat » Mon, Nov 05, 2018, 12:43 PM UTC

Someone1234 wrote: post #5

> Your interviewers try to understand what it feels like to work with you on a daily basis. If that were true then why not simulate those situations rather than riddles, google-able CS trivia, or whatever the interview flavor of the month is? I'd actually argue that for many companies this post is true (i.e. that getting it "right" is less important than the journey) but I still won't forgive companies that design th…

Why do you think "why are manhole covers round?" is "disrespectful and unprofessional "?

As compared to say "are you going to have kids - to a woman "

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

#236

Post by C1sc0cat » Mon, Nov 05, 2018, 12:44 PM UTC

esoterica wrote: post #65

Anyone who interviews at a "prestigious" company and then complains about how difficult the interview is kind of hypocritical. Google, and other FAANGs/unicorns, make you solve hard algorithms questions because they believe - correctly or wrongly - that in order to succeed as a company they have to filter out the vast majority of candidates who have poor algorithmic skills. They also pay a lot of money because that's…

Hmm so why cant their crawler parse a robots.txt file with a BOM ?

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

#237

Post by vonmoltke » Mon, Nov 05, 2018, 12:45 PM UTC

esoterica wrote: post #65

Anyone who interviews at a "prestigious" company and then complains about how difficult the interview is kind of hypocritical. Google, and other FAANGs/unicorns, make you solve hard algorithms questions because they believe - correctly or wrongly - that in order to succeed as a company they have to filter out the vast majority of candidates who have poor algorithmic skills. They also pay a lot of money because that's…

> They also pay a lot of money because that's the only way to attract enough candidates who can pass their hiring bar. If they stopped asking hard interview questions and increased their candidate acceptance rate they wouldn't need to pay people 300k/year to fill their open positions.

I have 16 years of total experience. Their initial offer to me indicated they thought I would take $231k/year for the privilege of working there. I got them up to $253k/year. Both numbers are less than I make now (though the latter is close).

As far as I am concerned, and based on my direct experience, Google pay is not the hit shit everyone claims it is. Maybe it would be if I played the competing offer game, but I shouldn't have to do that.

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

#238

Post by C1sc0cat » Mon, Nov 05, 2018, 12:46 PM UTC

ender7 wrote: post #115

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…

Some perspective from the interviewer's side may help here: - A Google interviewer's (and I would assume any interviewer's) primary goal is to come out of the interview with enough confidence to give a positive or negative score. If they sit down to write feedback and have to give a neutral score, the interview wasn't productive. This means that the interviewer is just as eager to find evidence for a positive score a…

If your not professional interviewer or at least trained you should not be interviewing.

At British telecom you had to pass a 3 day course before you where allowed to sit on internal review boards.

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

#239

Post by bitL » Mon, Nov 05, 2018, 12:56 PM UTC

Alright, so here you finally hear it said out loud - it's all about whether interviewers like you, not whether you are a top performer. Increase your likability by any means necessary, don't spend too much time on building your technical excellence, it's pointless and not rewarded if you want to be at FAANG.

Or start a new company, get backing outside their VC arms and challenge them if you want to have fun.

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

#240

Post by pavlov » Mon, Nov 05, 2018, 12:59 PM UTC

The Silicon Valley interview system is a major blind point for these companies: a structural weakness which internal dogma paints as an unquestionable strength.

It's like the Five-Year Plan in the Soviet Union. You could criticize it, but it's so internalized in how the place works that there's no way to get rid of it without blowing up everything.