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Google Hasn’t Changed Their Interview Questions

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Re: Google Hasn’t Changed Their Interview Questions

#61

Post by gaylemcd »

asnyder wrote: post #18

Sounds like she's still perpetuating the problem: Software Engineering interviews will focus on your standard coding, algorithm, and system design questions... Why are algorithm questions still being asked in a high-pressure environment? Very few people actually work on algorithms once hired and never in my experience has it actually been a good indicator of actual development competency. As DHH states: http://37sign…

"Such as "On a scale of 1-10, 1 being novice, 10 being creator of said technology, how would you rate yourself?" Then based on this answer I'll ask a question at that level. I find that most people screened don't actually know the basic fundamentals of the technologies they list."

See, and I hate questions like that.

If you're going to ask candidates to rate themselves in a technology, don't ask for a number. What I think a 7 is might be different from what you think it is. Just ask the candidate how comfortable they feel in a language. Words work better than numbers.

Also, you should know that many candidates are really scared by someone asking them to rate themselves on a scale from 1 to 10. You're kicking off an interview with a degree of intimidation that's probably unnecessary.

You're right though that many people don't know the fundamentals of the technologies they list. This doesn't mean that they're bad engineers; there's just a lot of confusion around at what point you should list a technology on your resume.

Remember that a lot of companies aren't particularly looking for competency in a particular language. Thus, drilling into the specifics of a technology doesn't assess much for them.

Re: Google Hasn’t Changed Their Interview Questions

#62

Post by drivebyacct2 »

raldi wrote: post #60
drivebyacct2 wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a complicated question with a complicated, nuanced, business-driven answer.

And yet someone had to answer it.

And my point is that there's about a zero percent chance that the person making that decision, or even giving significant feedback about it, is going to be within 20 feet of the people in question who will be implementing it.

Or more practically that they would do a roll-out release (as they did) and increase capacity as they go. All questions for devops, the product manager or some type of an "Architect" working with analytics to estimate demand and volume.

To imply that a single engineer in a room with no information about Gmail's infrastructure is supposed to know that without (any information about: technologies, storage, indexing, user volume, mail volume, etc) seems absolutely fucking stupid. If they want to hear me think aloud about these things and know that I can be cognisant of them... well... there are better ways of doing that than asking me stupid questions that it's stupid for me to even try and answer.

As someone else said, simply changing the question from "How many gas stations are there in NY" to "How would you estimate the number of gas stations in NY" makes it entirely different, IMO.

Re: Google Hasn’t Changed Their Interview Questions

#63

Post by gaylemcd »

drivebyacct2 wrote: post #62
raldi wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And yet someone had to answer it.

And my point is that there's about a zero percent chance that the person making that decision, or even giving significant feedback about it, is going to be within 20 feet of the people in question who will be implementing it. Or more practically that they would do a roll-out release (as they did) and increase capacity as they go. All questions for devops, the product manager or some type of an "Architect" working wit…

That's really not the case at Google (or, I would hope, at any company). The engineers would be very much involved with this decision, largely driving the ultimate conclusion.

Re: Google Hasn’t Changed Their Interview Questions

#64

Post by phamilton »

ubercore wrote: post #5

My phone interview with Google had something I would probably describe as a brain teaser (which is probably why I didn't get a follow up interview). It was something along the lines of explaining how an insect in a bottle could jump out if the bottle was frictionless. Something like that. Anyway, I don't remember specifics well enough to make a strong statement, but I would argue that this isn't an absolute in either…

I was asked how I would roll out a kernel upgrade to a datacenter on the Moon. I thought that was a little silly (though I get that it was an easy way to provide strict constraints on a problem).

Re: Google Hasn’t Changed Their Interview Questions

#65

Post by nostrademons »

asnyder wrote: post #18

Sounds like she's still perpetuating the problem: Software Engineering interviews will focus on your standard coding, algorithm, and system design questions... Why are algorithm questions still being asked in a high-pressure environment? Very few people actually work on algorithms once hired and never in my experience has it actually been a good indicator of actual development competency. As DHH states: http://37sign…

I've found that algorithms are one of those things that doesn't come up often in your daily work, but when you need them, you really need them, and otherwise you'll end up delivering a substandard product. It's very much like Joel Spolsky article on hitting the high notes:

http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/HighNotes.html

I've found that in my work, a tricky algorithmic problem comes up on average about once a month. It's a tiny fraction of the total work I do - but if I couldn't solve algorithmic problems, then there are whole projects that I simply couldn't tackle. We'd either do something substandard for users, or we'd throw bodies at the problem (which still happens a lot, unfortunately), or they'd need to bring in someone else to do my job.

Moreover, I've found that there's a cultural shift that happens when enough people are familiar with algorithm design within a company. A lot of other places I've worked are basically "Make the user fill out a form, dump it in a database, format it for display." When a significant fraction of your employees are capable of hitting the high notes, this becomes "Make the user interact with your system in the manner they're most comfortable with, extract meaning out of their ordinary behavior, compute interesting results, and show it to them." The complexity moves from the user to the software, and as a result, users would rather use your software. There are whole subsystems within Google Search - synonyms, spelling, refinements, authorship, snippets, ranking, translate, voice search, etc. - that would never have happened if there weren't a critical mass of people willing to dive into difficult problems.

Re: Google Hasn’t Changed Their Interview Questions

#66

Post by gaylemcd »

nakedrobot2 wrote: post #22

I had dinner with 4 googlers, one of whom was very proud to ask the Prisoner's Dilemma to lots of interviewees. Sorry but this article is false.

No, it's not. Brainteasers are banned and have been forever (or at least since 2005). However, everyone has a different definition of what a brainteaser is. You think the Prisoner's Dilemma is a brainteaser, but other people (as you see in the comments below) do not.

Re: Google Hasn’t Changed Their Interview Questions

#67

Post by raldi »

drivebyacct2 wrote: post #62
raldi wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And yet someone had to answer it.

And my point is that there's about a zero percent chance that the person making that decision, or even giving significant feedback about it, is going to be within 20 feet of the people in question who will be implementing it. Or more practically that they would do a roll-out release (as they did) and increase capacity as they go. All questions for devops, the product manager or some type of an "Architect" working wit…

> Or more practically that they would do a roll-out release (as they did) and increase capacity as they go.

What if, increasing capacity as they go, they discover that they're going to need 140 billion dollars worth of hard drives?

Before the rollout can happen, someone has to decide whether or not to greenlight the project. And that person needs to come up with an estimated cost. Before the rollout begins.

> To imply that a single engineer in a room with no information [etc]

Who implied that?

Re: Google Hasn’t Changed Their Interview Questions

#68

Post by proksoup »

gohrt wrote: post #40
proksoup wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"How would you estimate the number of cars sold in a year?" This boggles my mind. Where? For what purpose? Is the expectation that the candidate googles that question? I would google lots of different things until I found some answers (car manufacturers sales reports from car magazines, news articles that may have the answer, literally for the phrase "number of cars sold in a year" etc, etc). If you want me to talk t…

Consider the Google engineer who implemented the OneBox feature that answers "how many cars are sold in a year?" How did he do it? Consider the Wolfram Alpha engieer who implemented the same feature. How did she do it? (It becomes an interesting question, eh?)

But they didn't? Google doesnt answer it remotely close to what I find by searching deeper with each.

It's so ambiguous at the google search engine can't answer it.

Re: Google Hasn’t Changed Their Interview Questions

#69

Post by DanBC »

proksoup wrote: post #11
gaylemcd wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Asking "how would you estimate the number of cars sold in a year?" is not a brainteaser. It's an estimation / market sizing question. You can deduce a reasonable estimate from the population size and other assumptions. A brainteaser is something like "A man pushed his car to a hotel and lost his fortune. What happened?" That's a brainteaser -- and nothing Google would ask.

"How would you estimate the number of cars sold in a year?" This boggles my mind. Where? For what purpose? Is the expectation that the candidate googles that question? I would google lots of different things until I found some answers (car manufacturers sales reports from car magazines, news articles that may have the answer, literally for the phrase "number of cars sold in a year" etc, etc). If you want me to talk t…

The ambiguity is what makes it relevant to search.

What does a user mean if they enter [how many cars sold in a year?]

The ambiguity shows that the specific answer is less interesting than showing your working; having the discussion about how to get an answer.

Re: Google Hasn’t Changed Their Interview Questions

#70

Post by sigsergv »

gaylemcd wrote: post #61
asnyder wrote: post #18

Sounds like she's still perpetuating the problem: Software Engineering interviews will focus on your standard coding, algorithm, and system design questions... Why are algorithm questions still being asked in a high-pressure environment? Very few people actually work on algorithms once hired and never in my experience has it actually been a good indicator of actual development competency. As DHH states: http://37sign…

"Such as "On a scale of 1-10, 1 being novice, 10 being creator of said technology, how would you rate yourself?" Then based on this answer I'll ask a question at that level. I find that most people screened don't actually know the basic fundamentals of the technologies they list." See, and I hate questions like that. If you're going to ask candidates to rate themselves in a technology, don't ask for a number. What I…

I'm always answering “7” or “4”.
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