Google interviewing process for software developer role in 2020 • Hacker News Board

Re: Google interviewing process for software developer role in 2020

#211

Post by blackflame7000 » Mon, Feb 24, 2020, 11:03 PM UTC

Kalium wrote: post #111

karatestomp wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All I can figure is that's by design. The process selects for some combination of IQ and how bad you want it, basically. If you can't or don't want to put in 10-15hrs a week prepping, for a few months, on top of your actual job (god knows nothing I actually do at work as a programmer helps me be better prepared for this kind of shit), to then subject yourself to a crushing marathon of a day, they don't want you. They…

Between everything I've read about it and my own experiences, I get the sense that Google's interview process is by design a mirror of grad school. If you aren't willing to spend weeks to months prepping for the test so you can impress a committee (that you will hear from three months later), you just don't want it enough. I'm not sure this is a great way to hire engineers, but at the same time I'm sure it feels pret…

Sometimes the people that want it the most don't have other options. It's like a clingy date.

Re: Google interviewing process for software developer role in 2020

#212

Post by joshuamorton » Mon, Feb 24, 2020, 11:06 PM UTC

choppaface wrote: post #205

rifung wrote: post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This other Googler likely already has a competing offer— that’s how he got promoted last year. Source? I'm very skeptical this is true. I am not a huge fan of Google's promotion process but it isn't that bad.

I have two friends who told me they were trying to get competing offers so that they could use it in their promo packet. One was in the ads team, extremely sharp guy, trying to make Staff level in his 3rd year there. Joe Beda, one of the creators of Kubernetes, had a giant competing offering from Facebook. Turned it down to stay at Google, got some more freedom, and now we have Kubernetes (!). If you look on Blind, t…

I've literally never seen mention of this on blind. I see jokes about leaving and then returning at L+1, but never "forcing promo" via a competing offer.

Re: Google interviewing process for software developer role in 2020

#213

Post by simonkafan » Mon, Feb 24, 2020, 11:07 PM UTC

The only way to make companies like Google stop this arrogant bullshit interviews is if no one applies anymore. But as long as hundered desperate freshman Software Engineers fill their pipe because of "money and free food", they can continue this game.

Re: Google interviewing process for software developer role in 2020

#214

Post by allenu » Mon, Feb 24, 2020, 11:10 PM UTC

johannes1234321 wrote: post #29

mtnGoat wrote: post #28

All I have heard are nightmare stories from everyone I know whom has interviewed at a FAANG(or the likes). It's crazy how disrespectful(and frankly insulting) these companies are to candidates, under the guise of trying to get the best. I would assume the best aren't sitting around on their hands for months waiting for offers, nor are they overly willing to be jerked around.

Maybe it's a good filter for them. If people start complaining in the interview process they will complain at work, too. Maybe such a process only keeps the ones who are eager and willing to work there and will continue their tasks even when jerked around ...

I agree. I think that's at play here even if Google or their hiring department will never admit it.

Having a long, drawn-out process will dissuade a lot of older workers with families who may not have time to invest in practicing for the interviews or scheduling them all, again maybe something Google benefits from if they want to have young workers who are more easily shaped and eager to devote more time to their jobs.

Re: Google interviewing process for software developer role in 2020

#215

Post by blackflame7000 » Mon, Feb 24, 2020, 11:10 PM UTC

triceratops wrote: post #183

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.

> Lose 40% to taxes and you're looking at $180k/yr. Who's paying 40% taxes on $300k/year? Your math is wrong straight off the bat. Including 401k and match, this hypothetical person is making at least $200k after taxes. Even more if they're married or have a dependent or two. And as others have noted, $135k/year will make you a millionaire in 7 years even if it's cash under your mattress. You'll make it there even fa…

> Who's paying 40% taxes on $300k/year?

People in California.

> $135k/year will make you a millionaire in 7 years

Yea if you are a person who somehow has 0 expenses over the course of those 7 years. Again, all but impossible in California.

Re: Google interviewing process for software developer role in 2020

#216

Post by blackflame7000 » Mon, Feb 24, 2020, 11:13 PM UTC

allenu wrote: post #209

gregory144 wrote: post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you expand on that? How do you get out of paying taxes?

I think the 40% number is the point of contention. The highest tax bracket for 2019 is 37%, and that's a marginal rate, so no one is going to be paying 37% of ALL of their income. More likely it'll be in the range of 20-25% of all income.

You forgot about state tax in addition to federal taxes.

Re: Google interviewing process for software developer role in 2020

#217

Post by Bhilai » Mon, Feb 24, 2020, 11:13 PM UTC

president wrote: post #181

max_velikanski wrote: post #176

Indians 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).

This is quite obvious in Silicon Valley but nobody talks about it because they are then called “racist”.

Based on the diversity numbers reported by Google[[1] in 2018, 59.7% of leaders hired in 2018 were White. This number was 63% in 2017, 65% in 2016, 69% in 2015 and 68% in 2014 (I only found numbers only from last 5 years)

Overall workforce representation numbers tell us that Google's leadership team in 2019 is 66% White so I am not sure if what you are claiming is right.

[1]: https://diversity.google/annual-report/

Re: Google interviewing process for software developer role in 2020

#218

Post by mden » Mon, Feb 24, 2020, 11:13 PM UTC

bsder wrote: post #164

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.

> The interviewer's data point is certainly valid, but it's not clear to me how much you can generalize it. The fact that someone in the interview chain is willing to tell you significant negative information dramatically raises the Bayesian prior. An interview chain is normally extremely well vetted for people who are positive-only. The fact that this failed is a dramatic cause for concern.

For anyone who hasn't done interviews and are curious, the interview chain is not vetted in any way or form at most places. Typically in bigger companies there is a one or two hour session where you are told what you can and can't ask from a legal perspective. Sometimes there will also be a tech question bank you might be expected to ask questions from.

Having worked at four companies I have yet to see there being any serious discussions on merits of which questions to ask, the style of interview to be conducted, how to grade candidates reliably, or the amount of help and guidance to give candidates. In short as far as I can tell the whole tech interview process is generally a mess.

I have tried to push for discussions on all of the topics above and most engineers simply do not find the topic interesting enough to engage at length. There's a lot to discuss and everyone complains about the current state of the interview process across the whole field yet few do more than complain. Alas that is life.

As for vetting for "positive-only", I am not sure that's something that can even be done. Usually conducting interviews is part of your performance and you are expected to do them or it will reflect poorly on you as an employee. So every senior engineer or above typically will aim to do some amount of interviews and, let's say you are one of them and you are not very happy, when you get asked by your manager whether you are a positive employee, you are very unlikely to say no.

Also unhappiness is a pervasive quality regardless of title and you can very easily find high level managers and one year out of college engineers that are equally unhappy if you were to ask them candidly. This is a separate topic, but we as an industry have potential to make our workplaces incredibly engaging and rewarding but that potential somehow seems so very hard to achieve.

Re: Google interviewing process for software developer role in 2020

#219

Post by zitterbewegung » Mon, Feb 24, 2020, 11:13 PM UTC

meowface wrote: post #203

nikanj wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They hire people they don’t need, to build products they’ll kill in a few quarters. Must be weird working in a company with one well-identified money fountain, and then endless side projects that don’t really matter at all

If you had one solid money fountain, isn't that what you'd also do, though? Throw a lot of other things at the wall which you expect would have a high chance of failure but high reward if they succeed. (Though Amazon seems to have managed something similar without randomly shutting down AWS services and such.)

They have been doing this since before Alphabet. Now the future of that strategy seems uncertain and it doesn’t seem like it will be in their future strategy.

Re: Google interviewing process for software developer role in 2020

#220

Post by 9nGQluzmnq3M » Mon, Feb 24, 2020, 11:15 PM UTC

choppaface wrote: post #166

“You can pass every interview with A grades and still not get a job, because a senior Googler decides that you're the wrong person to be hired.” Google doesn’t need you. They probably already have a clone of you. They have gobs of rank-and-file SWE effort on reserve should one of their key products fail. The process is designed to entertain the hiring manager and certain key employees. They don’t want you for your pr…

> The process is designed to entertain the hiring manager

Hahaha no. Please talk to a hiring manager at Google, especially if they're trying to fill an even slightly niche role, about how tough it is to get anybody through the hiring process.

Also, for "generic" roles like SWE, the hiring manager has literally no input into the process: the hiring takes place first, and team allocation only happens afterwards.