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No, I still don't want to work for Google

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Re: No, I still don't want to work for Google

#181

Post by griftah »

kevinh wrote: post #175
griftah wrote: post #155

She is building a social network for hobbyist gardeners. Apparently this is what humanity needs more than geek toys like self-driving cars and augmented reality sunglasses.

That's a bizarre critique. It's just more likely she would be working on youtube ad code than self-driving cars or augmented reality sunglasses, which most people would consider less constructive than a social network. Additionally, I think many people would consider Facebook more valuable than augmented reality sunglasses. If we're going to only build things that humanity "needs", we're going to needlessly limit our…

It isn't a critique. It's about her project Growstuff which she considers more important and valuable than Google's self-driving cars and Project Glass.

Re: No, I still don't want to work for Google

#182

Post by greenyoda »

jjwiseman wrote: post #161
varelse wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pretty much my naivete and experience as well (minus the 20% project because the one I wanted to do would have tipped some sacred cows had it succeeded)...

Exactly--I didn't quite say it explicitly, but part of the problem was my naiveté about working for a large company after a career of mostly startups. (And my summary of the project may have been overly short. It was a week of full-time work, with a plan of making it an ongoing 20% project.)

I don't think this is a large company vs. startup thing. In most companies, large or small, you're hired to fill a particular job opening (that's described as part of the recruitment process) and usually interviewed by the group of people who you'd be working with. Does anyone know of any other companies that do this kind of random assignment the way Google does?

Re: No, I still don't want to work for Google

#183

Post by michaelochurch »

tptacek wrote: post #104
dpritchett wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apologies in advance for the Gladwell link, but he's likely referring to Enron's "star system": http://www.gladwell.com/2002/2002_07_22_a_talent.htm

I'm not disputing that there were silly McKinsey-ite management practices in place at Enron. I'm disputing the idea that those practices had anything to do with Enron's failure. The reason 'michaelochurch invoked Enron in his comment was to link Google with Enron, as if to imply that Google's internal management practices would eventually result in a similar comeuppance. That's an absurd connection to make.

The reason 'michaelochurch invoked Enron in his comment was to link Google with Enron

This is pretty much it. The companies have diametrically opposite reputations, so it arouses not a small chuckle that their performance review systems are almost identical.

as if to imply that Google's internal management practices would eventually result in a similar comeuppance.

Unlikely, for a variety of reasons. For one thing, Enron's executives were criminals. I think that Google's top guys are decent but unseasoned judges of character, which is how stuff like Perf gets through. Companies like Google have an unusually high rate of decent people getting the top jobs, but said decent people are generally terrible at telling when their underlings are lying to them (which, if you're high enough up, is almost always).

Re: No, I still don't want to work for Google

#184

Post by rohern »

kevinh wrote: post #175
griftah wrote: post #155

She is building a social network for hobbyist gardeners. Apparently this is what humanity needs more than geek toys like self-driving cars and augmented reality sunglasses.

That's a bizarre critique. It's just more likely she would be working on youtube ad code than self-driving cars or augmented reality sunglasses, which most people would consider less constructive than a social network. Additionally, I think many people would consider Facebook more valuable than augmented reality sunglasses. If we're going to only build things that humanity "needs", we're going to needlessly limit our…

The original article specifically mentions self-driving cars and augmented reality sunglasses as "geek toys", FYI.

Re: No, I still don't want to work for Google

#185

Post by debacle »

potatolicious wrote: post #140
papsosouid wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Were they well known for it because they did it, or because people assumed they did it? An awful lot of people immediately jump to "stupid brain teasers" when hearing "they ask technical questions". I have people write code and solve actual problems during interviews, and have gotten several "these kinds of riddles are a waste of time" responses from people who are offended by the notion that I want them to be compet…

From my limited anecdotes of the time, I believe Google actually did it. We're not talking about programming-related brain teasers here, we're talking about non-programming ones. e.g., "3 light bulbs in a room" and "family crossing the bridge" being the classic examples.

Never heard the family crossing the bridge one. Which one is that?

Re: No, I still don't want to work for Google

#186

Post by gadders »

michaelochurch wrote: post #174
brown9-2 wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you referring to Enron's stacked ranking practice? I don't think Google does anything approaching that.

At Google, "Perv" history is part of the transfer packet, which means that people with average political-success (sorry, I mean "performance") histories become immobile, creating a low-morale underclass that is good for mailing-list drama but bad for the company. It turns average employees and no-fault lack-of-fit cases into problem employees who have to be pushed out. It's disgusting, and people who believe this is…

"Perv" history? They can see what you search for in incognito mode? :-O

Re: No, I still don't want to work for Google

#187

Post by michaelochurch »

jjwiseman wrote: post #103
varelse wrote: post #28

I worked at Google for a short stint. I found the tech interview easy and I wasn't asked anything particularly ridiculous. I received a job offer shortly thereafter and accepted. As someone who regularly interviews prospective engineers at my current gig, I see no problem with expecting candidates to arrive prepared to answer algorithm questions or questions about their strongest programming language. Ditto for someo…

Blind allocation got me too. They told me how allocation worked before I joined, but I was hopeful that they would put me on a project that had some overlap with what I was interested in and what I had worked on for the past 15 years (computer vision, robotics, natural language processing). No. I found out on the last day of orientation I would be doing YouTube ads. I knew there was no way I could do that for 18 mont…

20% time can easily destroy your career. Most managers view it either as a waste of time or a flight risk. If the manager has to put someone on the 5% shit-list (which has more to do with his performance than yours) and you're 20%ing, then you're probably screwed.

Blind allocation is imbecilic, but I think even the idea that people need to be "allocated" to projects is moronic. It doesn't belong in this fucking century. Closed allocation makes managerial dinosaurs think they control something, but they lose control of the most important thing, which is their ability to retain talent and enthusiasm. If Google wanted to actually deserve its reputation, they'd man up and go for Open Allocation: http://michaelochurch.wordpress.com/2012/09/03/tech-companie...

Re: No, I still don't want to work for Google

#188

Post by michaelochurch »

samstave wrote: post #48
varelse wrote: post #28

I worked at Google for a short stint. I found the tech interview easy and I wasn't asked anything particularly ridiculous. I received a job offer shortly thereafter and accepted. As someone who regularly interviews prospective engineers at my current gig, I see no problem with expecting candidates to arrive prepared to answer algorithm questions or questions about their strongest programming language. Ditto for someo…

I went through a 3-month long interview with google in 2007, they said I did great in the interview and told me they'd be sending me an offer. Two days later they rescinded and said they would not be giving me an offer without explanation. I was really pissed off. A couple years later they contacted me again for a job and started the interview process, then I told them what happened the last time. They then said they…

Get any offer in writing, and if it's rescinded, the words you want are: promissory estoppel.

Re: No, I still don't want to work for Google

#189

Post by tedivm »

rachelbythebay wrote: post #94
raldi wrote: post #41

Please don't propagate the myth that Google asks prospective programmers questions like, "How many golf balls could you fit on a bus?" Google interviewers list the questions they asked when they write up their conclusions, and anyone who asked a question like that for an engineering interview would be immediately contacted by the hiring commitee and told not to do it again.

What's actually in the post: "If you are a Google recruiter, and you want me to interview for SWE or SRE or any role that has an algorithm pop quiz as part of the interview, [...]" I was asked about algorithms for my internal reinterview to transfer from SRE (O ladder) to SWE (T ladder) in 2010. It was the usual sorting algorithm complexity stuff. That's never been my strong suit, and I'm sure I disappointed the inte…

What do you mean by "O Ladder" and "T Ladder"?

Re: No, I still don't want to work for Google

#190

Post by rohern »

varelse wrote: post #28

I worked at Google for a short stint. I found the tech interview easy and I wasn't asked anything particularly ridiculous. I received a job offer shortly thereafter and accepted. As someone who regularly interviews prospective engineers at my current gig, I see no problem with expecting candidates to arrive prepared to answer algorithm questions or questions about their strongest programming language. Ditto for someo…

> " If you're unwilling to provide proof you're not a bozo, you're probably going to be just awful to work with as well."

I do not see any justification for this in the general case.

It is true, I have seen it myself, that even students who receive good grades in a CS program can be bozos when it comes to actually building things. However, these same people are likely to do well on a coding interview because these people study for coding interviews. These students can also be miserable to work with, as their high opinion of themselves leads them to be uncooperative and terrible at communication.

I would much prefer to work with someone who has built wonderful things than with someone who can study to ace a coding interview. I would also much prefer to befriend someone in the first category (who wouldn't?).

I do not see the fault in an engineer with a full portfolio of past projects, be they personal or open source, expecting to be evaluated on the basis of that work rather than on some arbitrary algorithms assignment. In fact, I would be likely to have greater respect for such a person should she refuse the quiz, as clearly she values her time and is not willing to have it wasted to satisfy a recruiting bureaucracy.

And let's be clear about why algorithmic questions and interviews of this sort exist at all: because companies like Google are not interested in finding the next Thomas Edison, Nicola Tesla, etc. They are interested in finding engineers to do grunt work. Google already knows who its stars are, they are the guys sitting in the room during executive meetings.

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