I see a lot of comments along the lines of "plenty of candidates" ... Which is probably true, but the candidates are preselected for tolerance of the process and capacity to study and prepare relentlessly. There is a reputational impact that over the long term has real consequences.
Google interviewing process for software developer role in 2020
171–180 of 422 posts
Re: Google interviewing process for software developer role in 2020
#172Alright, 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 techni…
Unfortunately sometimes it's just the luck of the draw on who you got as your interviewer. Remember that it is expected for false negatives so it is totally normal to just apply again in a year.
The thing you can do to help yourself is to study; there are only so many problems you can be asked. Most candidates don't. That gets you a lot of the way there. I used "Cracking the Coding Interview".
You are doing the right thing in interviewing as much as possible; interviewing is a skill that you get better with with practice. _Always_ ask your recruiter afterwards where your weak points were. Again, people make the mistake of thinking that their coding skills are entirely correlated with how they interview; this is 100% false. People can interview better but be technically weaker all-round and get an offer, or they can interview poorly and be the best technical candidate in the world and be rejected.
I hope this is helpful, I realize all of this stuff is demoralizing. As I said in my post, I strongly believe I wouldn't have passed a full Google interview round. Sometimes you just need luck on your side, but the more you interview, the better the odds things fall into place.
Re: Google interviewing process for software developer role in 2020
#173Google 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…
One thought that I had after reading the article was just how average his experience was. This is really the bog-standard "how my Google interview went" post and not some kind of outlier.
One complaint that I have seen over and over (even in this thread) is his frustrating moment #3: "Google doesn't respect your time". That's of course entirely subjective and many people may be ok with months of preparation, days of interviews and weeks of waiting for feedback (with recruiters occasionally going dark for months). But many folks are justifiably irked.
Re: Google interviewing process for software developer role in 2020
#174The biggest WTF I got out of this was: Writing code and tests in a Google Doc. I can't think of a much less friendly environment to write code in, except perhaps Notepad. I did it once (for an intra-company interview), and it was nasty to deal with. The WTF in second place was a blind requirement to know the mechanics behind a somewhat niche game that was big two years ago.
one of my in-person interviewers at Google forgot they had to do this - I spent like 38 minutes of our interview whiteboarding and then he said, "oh crap you're supposed to do this on the computer" - i furiously typed for a few minutes to try to replicate what i'd done. when i later talked to HR there was no mention of this in the interviewer's report.
It's of course better to blame you than to admit his own mistake.
This reminds me of a joke at my previous job, where we always said "the intern did it" when something was wrong :D. The intern that already left months ago of course.
Re: Google interviewing process for software developer role in 2020
#175Google wants people who are desperate to work at Google. The plus (for them) of getting someone to invest so much effort into getting in means that they will be committed for a while because of the sunk costs / defeated ultimate boss effect. Luckily there is a large supply of those people for now. They won't change their interview process until this stops being the case. Edit: I guess someone at Google didn't like th…
> because of the sunk costs
how is that a sunk cost? all the tech companies use the same leetcode questions. If anything it makes it easier to switch job out of google because oftheir prep.
Re: Google interviewing process for software developer role in 2020
#176Indians occupy most of the management positions in FAANG, and even though developers from other races/groups do very well during the interview process(I participated in), they barely pass, because they are not from the chosen race.
I would be highly surprised if Management in FAANG is not at least 80% of Indians, so please don't even bother applying here (yep, worked for AA and now G).
Re: Google interviewing process for software developer role in 2020
#177I 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…
The only time I interviewed with Google involved a phone screen that apparently went very well and then dead silence for three months: my recruiter has apparently gone on vacation for 2+ months and was finally getting back to me. In the intervening period I had taken another job (that turned out to have been worth more than the google job would have been). The recruiter was nonplussed when she called me out of the bl…
> She couldn’t believe I was not interested in continuing - how could I turn down Google??
Lol. I had the exact same experience back in the late 90s, but with... IBM. Arrogant as heck, took three months to follow up and were shocked to know I was no longer interested. It was beautiful.
Re: Google interviewing process for software developer role in 2020
#178Earlier 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.
My experience matches other people here. 3/4 of the interviewers were good but that 1/4 ruins everything. My last round was this guy who was clearly not interested in conducting the interview. He asked me a question and just sat there. He didn't engage, was very cold to questions and I had no clue if I was on the right track.
As an interviewer myself and having interviewed for startups (which is a different beast due to the additional selling involved in converting candidates) I've learnt to break the ice, encourage the candidates, treat them as human and guide them towards the solution if they're off by a little. I do also cut short some interviews when I realise the candidate is an obvious mismatch. I do so politely and in the interest of saving both of us some time.
So, when the Airbnbs, Dropboxes and Googles don't extend the same courtesy - even though I know they have the upper hand - I lose any interest I have in joining them by the end of the interview. I have had really good experience with BrainTree & Pinterest & a few others. So I do know not all companies are bad and even within the company there are good and bad interviewers and it's just a matter of luck. Still, the doubts about self-worth are hard to squash.
Edit: I call out Braintree in particular because they conduct interviews in pairs. At least one person's job to listen at all times. IMHO, this makes all the difference. Any signs of bias, narrow perspectives and hostile behaviour should - at least to some degree - be reduced with this model.
Re: Google interviewing process for software developer role in 2020
#179I wonder how much great talent they miss out on just because they can’t be bothered with this kind of process.
Re: Google interviewing process for software developer role in 2020
#180Google wants people who are desperate to work at Google. The plus (for them) of getting someone to invest so much effort into getting in means that they will be committed for a while because of the sunk costs / defeated ultimate boss effect. Luckily there is a large supply of those people for now. They won't change their interview process until this stops being the case. Edit: I guess someone at Google didn't like th…
I just don't think that's true. If people worked there because they were desperate to work there, they wouldn't pay industry-leading salaries.