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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

#351

Post by rademacher »

fizwhiz wrote: post #347
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…

As someone who conducts interviews frequently on behalf of Google, I'm in a position to categorically reject your claim that someone with {PRESTIGIOUS_COMPANY_X || INDUSTRY_REPUTATION} is given an easier path. Please note that I haven't interviewed anyone with 30+ years of experience (yet) and I only interview candidates for SWE roles (not Research Scientist roles) so view my experience from that lens since because I…

I wasn't implying that the interview was easier for candidates with recognizable track records. Perhaps two sigma was not restrictive enough. I was merely suggesting that if a candidate has domain expertise and it is well known, that they may not subjected to the same leetcode hoop jumping as the bulk.

Do you really want to remove bias for experienced candidates with a track record of substantial and nontrivial contributions?

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

#352

Post by bicubic »

CydeWeys wrote: post #304
hpcjoe wrote: post #301

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the truest sense of the process, an interview and hiring/not hiring decision IS discrimination. You are selecting for traits you (in theory) want, and (in theory) rejecting traits you don't want. Well, you are doing it if your interviewing process is not broken. If you simply try to elide all bias, then you would never be able to make a decision.

Some types of discrimination (in the basest sense of the word) are illegal and others aren't, though.

...Like discrimination by gender or race?

https://www.wired.com/story/new-lawsuit-exposes-googles-desp...

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

#353

Post by poulsbohemian »

ma2rten wrote: post #231
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 thin…

>The only thing that is unique about the process is that your interview feedback is reviewed by a committee of peers.

I wouldn't even say that sounds unique, as I was at multiple companies 20+ years ago that did the same.

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

#354

Post by jiveturkey »

companies do not care about the quality of their hiring process. which is sad because they do care about the quality of their employees.

they say they care, but it’s lip service. if companies cared, they would put in place a candidate feedback mechanism, ie post-interview quality survey. you could start with only surveying those you extend an offer to.

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

#355

Post by robertsd247 »

This article/blog entry says really nothing for the most part. I know two people personally who interviewed for Google. Neither hired, one got to a sixth interview, the other only fourth. Both told me two exact things:

How do you solve a problem? How do you solve someone else's problem?

I counter with "who cares?". CAN YOU SOLVE the problem is the winning answer. I think Google is really guilty of wasting their time and the time of the candidates with that many number of interviews without any payoff. I know within 15 minutes if a person is going to a) fit in the culture and b) able do the job. If Google needs more than one interview to figure that out, then they are doing it wrong.

What Google is really doing is providing someone with the privilege of having google on their resume. I doubt it's worth all that.

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

#356

Post by grogers »

vfc1 wrote: post #164

The problem is that there is almost no correlation between how candidates do in whiteboard interviews, and the ability to perform the job on a day to day basis. Also, and the article says it: you are being tested mostly for personality compatibility with the interviewer, which again has nothing to do with the ability to perform the job. This plus the fact that the interviewers are volunteers, creates overtime an effe…

> This plus the fact that the interviewers are volunteers

Is this true at Google? I've never heard of a company where interviewing was voluntary, it's always been part of the normal job responsibilities.

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

#357

Post by tytso »

seanmcdirmid wrote: post #269
babesh wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Asking a question well takes skill. It is possible that an interviewer screwed up asking the question rather than that the candidate screwed up. Most interview systems don't have a systematic, ongoing way for accounting for this especially given that interviewers are self reporting. In my opinion, most interviewers are undertrained/underskilled at asking specific questions and at interviewing in general. They don't i…

It’s almost as if interviewers need to be tested as well. An interviewing contest where a faux candidate rates interviewers and suggests area for improvement. Of course, that would be rediculously expensive, so at best some canned training is used instead. Still, it might make sense for higher value teams.

After interviewers are trained, they will perform at least two "shadow" interviews where they tag along an experienced interviewer and they want the interviewer conduct the interview and then are asked to write up an interview report. After they finish writing the report, they can see what the experienced interviewer wrote up, so they can understand how the writeup should be done.

Afterwards, the new interviewer has to do a non-trivial number of interviews before they are considered "calibrated". When an interviewer is uncalibrated, their score won't be given much weight, and the hiring committee can see how their interview reports and scores compare against more experienced interviewers. This also gives an opportunity for the hiring committee to send interview feedback (e.g., you're asking a banned question; the coding question is too simple, so it's not providing enough of a useful signal; don't ask "trick questions" which again don't provide much useful signal whether or not the candidate can answer it correctly, etc.)

So there is certainly ways in which interviewers do get suggestions for improvement. And it doesn't have to be _that_ expensive. It's just a matter of making sure you don't have more than one uncalibrated interviewer per panel.

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

#358

Post by seanmcdirmid »

DannyBee wrote: post #292
seanmcdirmid wrote: post #268

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is off topic questions, especially for more senior developers who have specialized extensively. For example, I haven’t used or seen used dynamic programming since college because my area doesn’t really use it. If I didn’t cram in interview prep for these questions, I’d be toast.

I get it (really!), but balance this against the fact that many companies promote people just for surviving at the company long enough. I've seen principal engineers (where this was the top of their ladder) that literally couldn't tell me what a hash table is. For domain experts, Google actually does target domain specific areas (in at least 1 interview) and weigh it against how good people are generally. However, I…

I wish programmers were treated more like designers with a portfolio review. I’ve implemented so many cool things, yet somehow I’m judged based on some esoteric programming problem. It’s like I’m an interchangeable cog who is being evaluated on how well I can be a cog....heck, HR and often even interviewers often don’t bother looking at your CV. Dammit, I do compilers, not chatbots!

The really great jobs I’ve had didn’t really require interviews at all, they knew who I was and knew what I’ve done and what I could do, and that was good enough.

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

#359

Post by mixmastamyk »

bradleyjg wrote: post #305
brobdingnagians wrote: post #242

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One of the reply tweets linked an allegorical article about the pitfalls of whiteboard interviewing that I enjoyed quite a bit: http://www.unlimitednovelty.com/2011/12/can-you-solve-this-p...

It’s totally fair to slag on whiteboard interviews, I hate them too. But it’s worth pointing out that there aren’t any great options out there. The traditional sit and have a chat interview is insanely biased towards people like the interviewer and doesn’t at all guarantee technical competence. The take home project feels like a big imposition to a lot of people, especially those that are currently employed, and rais…

Strongly prefer the take-home project as long as it is confined to less than 4 hours. The gun-to-head aspect of the other choices significantly dominates other concerns in my experience.

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

#360

Post by mychael »

DannyBee wrote: post #299
mychael wrote: post #156

I wish someone at Google had the courage to admit how inconsistent and arbitrary the hiring/interviewing process is at Google. "Googliness" is just a qualitative lever in hiring that allows Google interviewers to enforce whatever biases they have.

[citation needed for any of your view] The problem is that it isn't inconsistent and arbitrary, so that would simply be wrong to admit. There is a tremendous amount of data/studies/etc to back this up, done repeatedly over time. Both independent of Google and not. Certainly much more than any other interview system i've seen suggested or used here. As for the second, general "Googliness" is not used to turn people do…

Whether you work there or not, I'm afraid you are misinformed.

Three of my friends (all similar backgrounds) interviewing at Google this year have had completely different interviewing experiences. One even bypassed the phone screen and was flown to Mountain View for an IRL technical screening/interview. These are all for the same role.

How does your data reconcile that?

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