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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

#151

Post by lcfcjs2 »

speedgoose wrote: post #24
dijit wrote: post #9

I interviewed at Google for an SRE:Systems role around a month ago; I can share my anecdotes. The first interview put me in contact with a recruiter who would basically be my guide throughout the process, at first he asked me some basic questions to feel out where I was weak and then told me to prepare those weaknesses for the next round. The next round was 2 phone interviews, lasting about an hour each and over diff…

I would never dare to suggest writing a new database in a professional context, even less during an interview. Probably as a joke at the coffee machine because it's ridiculous but otherwise no. It's so many distributed databases around there, no one is better than one good PostgreSQL for the majority of uses cases.

Not sure I would agree with this. People who say PostgreSQL for everything haven't ever needed a use case of Big Data, or quickly searchable datasets.

Re: Google interviewing process for software developer role in 2020

#152

Post by onlyrealcuzzo »

justbees wrote: post #131
cmckn wrote: post #36

I interviewed with Google last spring. My experience was different, but about as disappointing. I applied for a job, and received an out-of-the-blue email from a recruiter about a different job a couple months later (my resume must have landed in some "recent" bucket). The position was in Google Cloud. I was frustrated by the "you'll talk to a team after you've passed 100 hurdles" nonsense. I had one phone screen wit…

Ok, completely different take! I also interviewed there last spring, but I thought it was super positive, even though I didn't get the job. I had to push myself really hard to get the onsite and I think that was beneficial to me. I have no computer science background at all and it forced me to prep intensively between interviews. So, I kind of went into it figuring I probably wouldn't get it but who knows and that it…

My interview experience was so unbelievably amazing at Google that I accepted the job mostly because of that -- despite the fact that I had an offer two levels higher at another public software company.

It has not been a mistake.

As plenty of people have mentioned, more than a million people interview here every year. With that many interviews, I cannot imagine how bad some outlier horror stories can be.

In aggregate, something like 78% of people consider interviewing at Google a positive experience, despite the fact that only less than 2% of respondents actually go on to work here.

I dunno about every one else, but usually there's a high correlation with satisfaction and getting the job. The fact that hardly anyone ends up getting a job here, and the vast majority of people are satisfied seems like the process isn't terrible.

I doubt there's many companies with a better track record.

I hear nothing but good things about Microsoft recently, so I wouldn't be surprised if their numbers are better.

Re: Google interviewing process for software developer role in 2020

#153

Post by pisteoff »

hello_moto wrote: post #32
untog wrote: post #3

I'd be curious to know if this is typical. As someone that's never interviewed at Google but idly wondered at moments if I'd ever work there this sounds hellish. Not necessarily the exercises themselves (although they seem to have nothing to do with what any developer does day-to-day), but the sheer number of them and the amount of preparation required. I already have a full time job, I don't want to take on another…

> (although they seem to have nothing to do with what any developer does day-to-day) Depends on what you do at Google. Google Guava is a data-structure/algorithms-heavy great Java library. Dart and Golang are programming languages. I'd imagine you have to know how to write a compiler etc and the standard library definitely has sections for data-structure and algorithms. They pay tons of money and prefer people to sti…

> Depends on what you do at Google.

I imagine they have multiple PhDs working on those projects. For your bog standard SDE these interviews have very little to do with the day-to-day job.

Re: Google interviewing process for software developer role in 2020

#154

Post by matz1 »

JDiculous wrote: post #116
izacus wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, it really isn't: https://danluu.com/startup-tradeoffs/

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.

So using your numbers it took roughly 7 years to be a millionaire. Damn crazy good to me.

Re: Google interviewing process for software developer role in 2020

#155

Post by [deleted] »

FlorianRappl wrote: post #149

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 profess…

[deleted]

Re: Google interviewing process for software developer role in 2020

#157

Post by ng7j5d9 »

FlorianRappl wrote: post #149

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 profess…

That's funny, I just had a bad experience with Microsoft. I applied for a job on their site that had several locations listed, one of which was of interest to me.

A recruiter sent me a bunch of questionnaires to fill out and then connected me with a Tech Lead for the initial phone interview. The Tech Lead introduced himself and the position, said the position was available in 2 locations (neither of which were my preferred location), and that was that.

I followed up with the recruiter and she expressed surprise, since she saw the same job posting I did.

A couple days later, Microsoft's site tells me I was not chosen for the job, no further information.

But of course, that's just one experience, and it's a large company, and all that. Maybe I'll apply for something else there.

Re: Google interviewing process for software developer role in 2020

#158

Post by cheez »

compiler-guy wrote: post #140

Google is an enormous company. Well over 100,000 employees. The answer to any question in the vein of, "Does X happen at Google?", or "Does Google do X?" is almost surely yes: Somewhere at the company, some team is probably doing that. Google's interview process is notoriously bad for some folks, and that is absolutely true and something Google tries to fix. And there are absolutely plenty of unhappy people. Even if…

Numbers on both sides. Just because they have thousands of employees out of billions of people means nothing special about their process/culture. There are likely to be thousands of people in the world who are fine with it.

Re: Google interviewing process for software developer role in 2020

#159

Post by Domenic_S »

trhway wrote: post #67
cmckn wrote: post #36

I interviewed with Google last spring. My experience was different, but about as disappointing. I applied for a job, and received an out-of-the-blue email from a recruiter about a different job a couple months later (my resume must have landed in some "recent" bucket). The position was in Google Cloud. I was frustrated by the "you'll talk to a team after you've passed 100 hurdles" nonsense. I had one phone screen wit…

> I think they just needed to fill a lot of positions quickly. 3 years ago i got that impression too. Google seems to be scrambling to get into cloud business believing that they are somehow entitled to success in what is a completely foreign business for them. Anyway, it was a surprise mirroring the experience of a couple acquaintances (who is in the same boat - long time enterprise software devs) - the interview wa…

Google is quickly becoming famous for lowball offers. Unless you have a competing offer with someone they think is on their level, they won't budge. They play hardball too, even with another offer.

Re: Google interviewing process for software developer role in 2020

#160

Post by sickygnar »

downerending wrote: post #82
paulcole wrote: post #11

This shouldn't be shocking to anyone. There's clearly a staggering surplus of people who will jump through any and every hoop for the opportunity to work at Google. What's Google's incentive to change their process?

All true, but Google's reputation is starting to take a small hit on this. They'll always draw people who want high comp, but they may start having a harder time drawing people who really care about tech.

Yeah. I asked their recruiters to leave me alone. I haven't interviewed there, nor will I. Realistically I won't pass the interview, so it's no use wasting my time trying. I actually was sponsored by them for GSoC (google summer of code) - my proposal was accepted by a prestigious open source project (and my code merged/accepted), but there's no way in hell I would pass an interview, despite the fact that I'm probably considered a decent engineer by most of my peers. Google has convinced me I'm not smart enough to work for them.
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