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

Re: Google interviewing process for software developer role in 2020

#261

Post by gitgreen » Tue, Feb 25, 2020, 12:14 AM UTC

aglavine wrote: post #77

I failed my interview with Amazon, but I blame me. The interviewers were mostly nice amd helpful. I missed a few questions. It was a learning experience. Sure the interview process can improve, but I didn't find it a mess as some people here mention.

I failed my interview with Amazon and I blame them. They tried to rush me to an onsite after passing my online coding assessment. 4 different recruiters were in contact with me about the same position. Review materials were sent 5 days before the interview, I didn't know what Leadership Principles were before then. Travel arrangements weren't made until 3 days before the interview. A prep phone call where the recruiter tells me what DS&A material to focus on wasn't scheduled until 2 days before the interview. Material I was told not to focus on by one recruiter was brought up in one of my interviews. Another had such crippling anxiety that he couldn't finish a sentence making for a very agonizing hour where I made little progress on the parts of the questions/problems he could communicate.

I did the best I could given the circumstances and I have no regrets. Had I somehow passed it would've been very difficult to accept an offer given how chaotic the whole experience was.

Re: Google interviewing process for software developer role in 2020

#262

Post by seanmcdirmid » Tue, Feb 25, 2020, 12:16 AM UTC

onlyrealcuzzo wrote: post #152

justbees wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Out of 100 people who interview onsite at google, 78 are happy about it even though only 2 get job offers???? Those are some crazy statistics. Maybe they are satisfied that the interview process convinced them they didn’t want to work at google anyways? Because I don’t see how that could work out otherwise.

Re: Google interviewing process for software developer role in 2020

#263

Post by jedberg » Tue, Feb 25, 2020, 12:17 AM UTC

kevin_thibedeau wrote: post #259

jedberg wrote: post #255

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, but like I said, I wasn't an outlier in that respect. Everyone got the same treatment. It always started with a hiring manager reaching out directly.

> Everyone got the same treatment. Even those living 500+ miles away?

Ok fair. Usually those folks had their first couple interviews on the phone first and then we flew them in if the feedback was positive, and then compressed phase one and two into a single day. After phase one you got lunch and then either moved onto phase two or got told that it wasn't a good fit and got sent back to the hotel.

Re: Google interviewing process for software developer role in 2020

#264

Post by CamperBob2 » Tue, Feb 25, 2020, 12:27 AM UTC

The second interview was about the «2048 game». It was the first time I couldn't understand the task clearly, maybe because I hadn’t played the 2048 game at all. The questions were about a strategy to win in the 2048 game and an elegant solution to generate the next board state. Only two days later I realized that the 2048 game is some kind of «Game of Fifteen» and the solution could be found with the help of A search algorithm.*

That is just absolutely silly. How can they expect to hire quality people with a process like this? Someone who has never heard of the "2048 game" (including myself) would be at a steep disadvantage, regardless of their coding talents.

I'm very sure that I wouldn't pass this interview process, and I'm equally sure that I'm a more effective developer than many of the people who do pass it.

The only conclusion is that Google, not being stupid, is optimizing for something else.

Re: Google interviewing process for software developer role in 2020

#265

Post by kelnos » Tue, Feb 25, 2020, 12:28 AM UTC

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.

I think it speaks really poorly of an org if they can't even find 6-8 people who they're certain are actually positive about the company to conduct interviews. Especially the lunch interviewer, who is there to get and give a personal perspective on the process.

Re: Google interviewing process for software developer role in 2020

#266

Post by toephu2 » Tue, Feb 25, 2020, 12:29 AM UTC

nikanj wrote: post #188

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…

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

I guess you've never worked for a company that A/B tests products?

Re: Google interviewing process for software developer role in 2020

#267

Post by yibg » Tue, Feb 25, 2020, 12:30 AM UTC

kevin_thibedeau wrote: post #259

jedberg wrote: post #255

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, but like I said, I wasn't an outlier in that respect. Everyone got the same treatment. It always started with a hiring manager reaching out directly.

> Everyone got the same treatment. Even those living 500+ miles away?

I was 1000+ miles away and the whole thing took less than a week start to finish. From my observations that wasn't an anomaly.

Re: Google interviewing process for software developer role in 2020

#268

Post by rhizome » Tue, Feb 25, 2020, 12:31 AM UTC

steelframe wrote: post #206

foobiekr wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

To be fair, Google in the early-mid 2000s was actually a really good career option. If you played your cards right you could easily be comfortably retired today if you started at Google in, say, 2004. In fact I know someone who started at Google fresh out of college in 2005 and was in "FIRE" (Financial Independence, Retire Early) zone by 2017. They quit Google, didn't work for a couple of years, and then took a senio…

If I was hiring at a relatively tiny startup, a person who had only ever worked at Google and didn't need the job on top of it wouldn't be my first choice. Probably sounds good at meetings though.

Re: Google interviewing process for software developer role in 2020

#269

Post by toephu2 » Tue, Feb 25, 2020, 12:31 AM 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…

Sounds like you're bitter cause you got rejected by Google.

Google interviews tens of thousands of people yearly, you think your one anecdotal experience or that of a few friends allows you to generalize the entire interview experience for every single person interviewing at Google?

Re: Google interviewing process for software developer role in 2020

#270

Post by yibg » Tue, Feb 25, 2020, 12:36 AM UTC

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…

Besides not being related to day to day job a lot of these questions also select for a specific set of knowledge. If you've done that particular class of problems (graph, tree, dynamic programming etc), then you do well, if not then you don't. They also typically have a single or very limited number of solutions, so if you deviate early the chances of recovering is very low.

I see this style of interview questions pretty frequently and I really question their effectiveness, vs say something more open ended and fluid.