Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Interviewing at Google, Facebook, Foursquare, Dropbox, Fog Creek, etc

haufler.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

51–60 of 123 posts

Re: Interviewing at Google, Facebook, Foursquare, Dropbox, Fog Creek, etc

#51

Post by raldi »

sparknlaunch12 wrote: post #6

Great overview of the different interview styles being used. I cannot say I am convinced you always get the best people through. I don't have any aspirations to interview at Google, but did stumble across an 'Google Interview' book at the local bookstore. It makes great reading. WSJ did an article on Google interviews late last year, including answers. Here are the questions (click the link below if you want answers)…

As someone who interviews prospective Google engineers, I can confirm what others are saying: The WSJ is full of shit. None of those questions would ever be asked here.

Especially that ridiculous, idiotic Monopoly one that journalists seem to love.

Re: Interviewing at Google, Facebook, Foursquare, Dropbox, Fog Creek, etc

#52

Post by ecspike »

tikhonj wrote: post #42
MattRogish wrote: post #8

Do kids still learn C in college? It's been my experience that new grads are primarily taught in Java... That said, we do all our interviewing in the langage I expect them to be developing in - namely Ruby, JavaScript, and/or SQL. Is that the norm or do people still interview candidates using, say C or Java, for Ruby/Python/JS positions? I suppose if we were interviewing someone who didn't know Ruby but knew Java, we…

The language depends on the school. At my university, classes use Scheme, Prolog, JavaScript, C, C++, SQL, Java, MIPS, Ruby, Objective-C and way too much Python (it's the new Java :(). Basically, each professor uses whatever language they want--you're (reasonably) expected to pick up a new language in a weekend. I wouldn't be surprised if there were classes using other languages as well that I just haven't heard abou…

Graduated in '03, I did a mix of ASM, C++, Scheme, Fortran, Pascal but depending on the courses you picked, you could have stayed theoretical and only taken C++ and ASM.

Re: Interviewing at Google, Facebook, Foursquare, Dropbox, Fog Creek, etc

#53

Post by alecbenzer »

current intern at google here

I got the same email from HR telling me that it should take around 3 weeks to hear from a host. She emailed me back 5 minutes later about setting up the interview.

Not saying this makes your 3 months okay, but just pointing out that there seem to be cases at both extremities.

Re: Interviewing at Google, Facebook, Foursquare, Dropbox, Fog Creek, etc

#54

Post by mquander »

dfc wrote: post #37
mquander wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Absolutely. That's why I paid my smart classmates to do all my take-home tests in school; it's an efficient, effective way to get the right answers! I don't know if you interview people, but I do, and it's hard. I try hard to come up with questions that probe people's knowledge in specific ways and help discriminate between large ranges of ability. It's fucked up to try to ruin the information I'm getting by cheating…

Looking up everything during an interview is a principled position? What principle are you standing up for? The right to google?

I'm replying to the parent, who seems to think it's principled in the sense that it is the best way to operate in the real world, therefore he will do it in an interview.

Re: Interviewing at Google, Facebook, Foursquare, Dropbox, Fog Creek, etc

#55

Post by antoko »

eta_carinae wrote: post #38
shaufler wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would have to disagree that what I did was "cheating". Software engineers are given problems to solve, and their job is to solve these problems efficiently. You don't always have the solution to every problem off of the top of your head. That's why programmers use Google, StackOverflow, and documentation as resources. The primary skill employers are looking for is learning how to learn new things quickly. And I bel…

It is cheating. Interviewing is different from a real job. You need to show you can do more than look up solutions on the web. I can't blame you for trying to cheat your way into a job and I certainly blame the interviewer for not seeing through your cheat, but make no mistake: you cheated.

Wow! Did you even read the comment above? The interviewer asked for the source and the candidate responded with stackoverflow.

in this instance that is absolutely not cheating.

Re: Interviewing at Google, Facebook, Foursquare, Dropbox, Fog Creek, etc

#56

Post by toemetoch »

FWIW, if you're doing hobby projects or working on open-source software: when you get one of those CS related brain teasers start your answer with this if you get the opportunity:

"Oh, I encountered something similar while working on ."

Notice the little smile on the interviewer's face and how the interview derails in a chat about projects.

Also applies if you don't know the answer but would like to know to unblock that issue you had.

Re: Interviewing at Google, Facebook, Foursquare, Dropbox, Fog Creek, etc

#57

Post by MattRogish »

tedunangst wrote: post #43
MattRogish wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not saying being a polyglot is bad - it's certainly very awesome and desirable; but if your interview process is all in C, you're gonna turn away folks that can't do it. That seems suboptimal to me, although if you're FogCreek I guess you get so many people applying you can make C literacy a requirement. I learned C++ back in, oh, 1996. I haven't coded in it much since about 2001. I'd fail virtually any C++ exam…

I think it's very important to mention that C is not C++. Expecting people to know C, even if not used frequently, is not unreasonable imo. Testing people on C++ would be burdensome. Fog Creek has no C++ literacy requirement.

Good catch; edited my original post, thanks!

Re: Interviewing at Google, Facebook, Foursquare, Dropbox, Fog Creek, etc

#58

Post by endtime »

hack_edu wrote: post #31
mquander wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Absolutely. That's why I paid my smart classmates to do all my take-home tests in school; it's an efficient, effective way to get the right answers! I don't know if you interview people, but I do, and it's hard. I try hard to come up with questions that probe people's knowledge in specific ways and help discriminate between large ranges of ability. It's fucked up to try to ruin the information I'm getting by cheating…

Yeah, but I fired the last guy who billed me for that time he needed to re-discover the quadratic equation. An interview should evaluate the skills one needs for the job, not puzzles that make you feel smart. Were I interviewing someone, I would happily accept an answer something along the lines of "that's been solved already, I would use an existing library so I can move on and solve my real problem" with regard to…

The goal is obviously to figure out how good people will be at solving real problems. But it's not realistic, practical, or fair to come up with an unsolved problem for each interview.

Re: Interviewing at Google, Facebook, Foursquare, Dropbox, Fog Creek, etc

#59

Post by tedunangst »

tptacek wrote: post #29

This is a great post. My takeaway: if someone in an interview asks if you know what a particular idiosyncratic data structure is, always say "no".

I would say always tell the truth. When people revealed they already knew the answer to my question, I'd probe a little deeper to check, but then move on to harder questions. That could only ever improve their chances because there's no penalty for wrong answers in the bonus round. All depends on the interviewer, though.

Re: Interviewing at Google, Facebook, Foursquare, Dropbox, Fog Creek, etc

#60

Post by mkmcdonald »

jrockway wrote: post #46
emperorcezar wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I do web development, so arbitrary algorithms questions seem to me to be not applicable to what I do 99% of the time. The other 1% I can easily look up the answer, or at least look up the details I need to find the answer.

That's fair, but that's not the sort of position Google is hiring for. We value general computer science more highly than specific Javascript (for example) experience. I can't offer an explanation or analysis of that, but that's how it is. (But if you do have specific experience and know the basic CS, that's ideal.) Other companies do the opposite, so there's plenty of jobs for either type of person.

> We value general computer science more highly than specific Java[S]cript (for example) experience.

Perhaps this is why Google's JavaScript is so notoriously poor.

Post reply on HN