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Google interviewing process for software developer role in 2020

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Re: Google interviewing process for software developer role in 2020

#141

Post by aznd »

Supermancho wrote: post #121
hello_moto wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I did not downvote you but ask yourself: do you want to hire a primadona candidate that thinks she/he is above the company? Of course you'd want to hire people who want work for your company. That's call a matching-process. Would you marry someone who's not into you?

> Would you marry someone who's not into you? Trophy spouses are a thing. It ends about the same way. An opportunist doesn't change their ways because they achieve one goal.

Indeed, companies are opportunists and don't change their ways.

Incidentally, companies are perfectly capable of exploiting a superstar developer who thinks he is above the company by the usual group pressure tactics.

Especially if that developer is self motivated.

Re: Google interviewing process for software developer role in 2020

#142

Post by rv-de »

munificent wrote: post #68
vanusa wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My "lunch interviewer" complained about the bureaucracy and said he was looking for another job after being there for ~18 months. Actually (with that) he wasn't being an asshole; he was doing you a favor. In revealing to you, quite candidly, just how disappointing the Google experience evidently is for a considerable portion of engineers.

Bias up front: I work at Google. > evidently is for a considerable portion of engineers. I only see evidence that the experience was disappointing for a single Googler, the lunch interviewer, not "a considerable portion" of them. The interviewer's data point is certainly valid, but it's not clear to me how much you can generalize it.

Mental note: I'm from Google - need to use "data point" instead of "experience" to come across as very smart and nerdy - check.

Re: Google interviewing process for software developer role in 2020

#144

Post by leoh »

rv-de wrote: post #142
munificent wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bias up front: I work at Google. > evidently is for a considerable portion of engineers. I only see evidence that the experience was disappointing for a single Googler, the lunch interviewer, not "a considerable portion" of them. The interviewer's data point is certainly valid, but it's not clear to me how much you can generalize it.

Mental note: I'm from Google - need to use "data point" instead of "experience" to come across as very smart and nerdy - check.

Tons of people use the phrase "data point." I doubt most of them are from Google. https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu...

Re: Google interviewing process for software developer role in 2020

#145

Post by makecheck »

If an interview process takes lots of time, it will automatically exclude a lot of candidates, even really good ones. Ironically companies that claim to want only the best will manage to lose quite a few of those people.

Even if someone is a star, if they have a job (and life outside of work) they can’t realistically spend lots of time on interviews.

You can’t really apply to just one job at a time, either. That’s why almost any friction is unreasonable: across job postings, every cover letter, phone call, online coding test, homework assignment and fly-out interview adds up to a lot. (And that’s before you consider sites that require you to create special accounts only for them, and retype half of your résumé into their forms.)

I’d expect many people to strongly prefer the first reasonable offer they see, rather than wait months and risk being rejected anyway.

Re: Google interviewing process for software developer role in 2020

#146

Post by christiansakai »

cflewis wrote: post #90

Alright, so Mountain View is waking up now and you'll get comments from Googlers, so here is mine. DISCLAIMERS: 1. I work for Google, but these opinions are mine. 2. Everyone at Google is expected to interview, but I no longer do, and have not for two or three years. I have a medical exemption because for anxiety. Trust me, I know just as much as any candidate how stressful it is to be in that room. 3. I interviewed…

Thank you for writing such a detailed response. I appreciate it as someone who had interviews with Google 2 times (first one pass phone but failed onsite, the second one failed on phone but that was primarily because I wasn't in a good condition mentally during that time so that was on me).

I've heard and witnessed a couple people that I know who actually got into roles at Google (also FB, Amazon) but were not technically strong (yes they interviewed as SWE). I did ask what kinds of questions they got and it seemed that they did not get hard questions. This range from L3 to L5 and I was quite shocked.

This makes me believe that FAANG seeks something else as well rather than pure DS&A skills. I don't know what those are, but can you give me pointers?

(I failed one Google onsite, one Google phone, one Amazon onsite, and now currently will face a FB phone interview)

Re: Google interviewing process for software developer role in 2020

#147

Post by inkeddeveloper »

speedgoose wrote: post #134
bauerd wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes but that in-house database software did not fall from sky. Google developers wrote it. Remember their interview process is generalised. Even for candidates not expected to implement databases, they test for the awareness of tradeoffs posed by distributed databases: read-after-write/eventual consistency, linearizability, how many masters /quorum/leader election, etc. "Just use Postgres" does not demonstrate any of…

That's true. We don't know how was the interview, perhaps it was about implementing a distributed database from scratch, perhaps it was about storing as many personal data as you can.

I would hope the answer to "how would you write a distributed database from scratch" isn't "I'd use PostgreSQL."

Actually, I'd probably do the same.

Re: Google interviewing process for software developer role in 2020

#148

Post by bgdnyxbjx »

izacus wrote: post #117
JDiculous wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ok let's say you make $300k/yr at a FAANG. Lose 40% to taxes and you're looking at $180k/yr. Living in SV your expenses will roughly be at least $45k/yr. So you save $135k/yr (180 - 45). That's great, but a far cry from being a millionaire in just a few years. Of course as you get promoted your comp increases, hitting $500k gross at L5, but that takes more than a couple years to achieve.

Yes, hence why I used "few" - doable in 7-10 years timeframe. Still something unthinkable for most professions.

“A few” means 3 to most people.

Re: Google interviewing process for software developer role in 2020

#149

Post by FlorianRappl »

I interviewed at Google and some other big tech companies in late 2015. From all the big ones Google's process was the most terrible. After the initial screening I had to deal with obviously terribly placed engineers who had an "ah I need to take another interview with a non-Googler - what do they know?" kind of attitude. Arrogant, dismissive, and actually a waste of time.

In contrast, Microsoft was much more professional and a real pleasure to interview at. They have been really interested and all the engineers I talked to have been great.

Disclosure: Did not decide for any of these - went for a smaller company as it was overall what seemed best for me. Did not regret my choice even though the Microsoft offer is something I'd love to try out in a parallel universe.

Re: Google interviewing process for software developer role in 2020

#150

Post by fierarul »

munificent wrote: post #68
vanusa wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My "lunch interviewer" complained about the bureaucracy and said he was looking for another job after being there for ~18 months. Actually (with that) he wasn't being an asshole; he was doing you a favor. In revealing to you, quite candidly, just how disappointing the Google experience evidently is for a considerable portion of engineers.

Bias up front: I work at Google. > evidently is for a considerable portion of engineers. I only see evidence that the experience was disappointing for a single Googler, the lunch interviewer, not "a considerable portion" of them. The interviewer's data point is certainly valid, but it's not clear to me how much you can generalize it.

Evidently, the interviewee didn't meet just any Googler, he met the outlier, the only one unhappy there!

Humans don't work like that. That single data point and the experience he had allows quite some generalization.

Maybe this isn't how you build a ML model, but that ML model won't work very well when interacting with other people.

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