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A Wretched Google Interview Experience

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Re: A Wretched Google Interview Experience

#311

Post by throwaway86 »

cdjk wrote: post #221
keithpeter wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Guilty as charged :-) As an interviewee, I have, more than once, thanked my hosts for their tea and cake and left early when I detected that the interview was turning into a chat. Would a collegiate interviewing model not work better for an intellectually driven organisation like Google? Each team interviewing for their own positions, but with some form of 'tenure track' process for the longer term?

I'm really surprised that's not how it works at Google, both from their perspective, from the perspective of the candidate. I would be extremely hesitant to interview or accept a job at Google if didn't know what I'd be working on, and it seems like you only find that out when you show up the first day.

You are correct. Your mentor from your new team comes to collect you after orientation, and you find out then.

You are also going nowhere for a long, long time.

Re: A Wretched Google Interview Experience

#312

Post by throwaway86 »

icedchai wrote: post #261
tobyjsullivan wrote: post #18

I do enjoy this author's flagrant disregard for Google's NDA they require you to sign and promise not to discuss the interview questions. I'm curious if they'll enforce it. For what it's worth, my one experience with Google recruiting last year was the polar opposite. They were curious and professional, of more knowledgeable recruiters I've dealt with, and timely in scheduling interviews. I had my first and only phon…

how would they enforce it? not hire him? send him a naughty letter?

Breach of a nondisclosure is breaking a contract. Civil tort. Lawsuit. And so on.

Re: A Wretched Google Interview Experience

#313

Post by faddotio »

typon wrote: post #104
cromwellian wrote: post #12

I think this is very unfortunate. I've seen a lot of good candidates get rejected for no obvious reasons. The lack of communication seems driven I think by the sheer deluge of the number of resumes/interviews going on at Google, and what appears to be, a reliance on temps and contractors as part of the process. I had a friend who interviewed at Google, who is an excellent software engineer I've worked with for years,…

> Given the sheer size of Google Microsoft has more employees and the three times I interviewed with them (and got accepted) it was a great experience, with perfect communication from their recruiters and interviewers. The one time I interviewed with Google (and got accepted, but I rejected them for MS) I pretty much went through a similar experience as the blog post, although the interviews themselves weren't bad, j…

Really?

Microsoft's HR departments are completely siloed by business unit, and they don't share notes. If the rec you're applying for dries up, they do F-all to guide you into a new one. Each time you engage with a different BU you're completely back to square one.

Re: A Wretched Google Interview Experience

#314

Post by throwaway86 »

cromwellian wrote: post #297
Aqueous wrote: post #246

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would consider Maps, Gmail, and G+, CRUD applications. What does it take to not be a CRUD application? I'm not sure. I think every web-based application in which enormous amounts of data are stored and manipulated qualifies as a CRUD application, even if they involve lots of intelligence and batch processing on the backend. Many of them are CRUD with a Big "R," as they mostly involve consuming data. Maybe my defini…

Your definition of CRUD is incredibly broad and covers just about any application that reads or writes anything to a datastore, regardless of whether the datastore is ACID or some custom storage system for something like a huge graph of geometric data. Do you consider Quake a CRUD application? How about GwtQuake, a web-based version that consumes big BSP files? What about Minecraft? CRUD to mean has traditionally mea…

To clarify that, the general thrust is to unify everything onto G+, eventually. Should be fairly obvious and I inferred as much even before I joined Google.

Good luck with that. I fear the day when my Apps domain is forcefully migrated to Hangouts. Hopefully there will be an alternative to Apps by then that is actually worth using.

(One of the people present during my firing needed to summon his boss using internal Hangouts. He eventually gave up, went back to his desk and got his laptop because the experience is completely unusable while mobile. It was hugely amusing to watch, and drove home the dogfood drama for me -- you know what I'm talking about.)

Re: A Wretched Google Interview Experience

#315

Post by throwaway86 »

smsm42 wrote: post #293
throwaway86 wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not any better if you get hired. Google recruiters will tell you whatever you want to hear, including things that are not necessarily true. I was assured that a minor issue in my background would not be an issue multiple times (I have email proving this), then Google hired me and let me work for more than two months. I got comfortable, I moved to Mountain View, began real honest work and set about making an impa…

I wouldn't want to work in a company where people just disappear and nobody is allowed to talk about what happened. That sounds a bit too dystopian for me.

I assume, and hope, the manager emailed the team after I was walked. If not, I would agree.

Re: A Wretched Google Interview Experience

#316

Post by hughlomas »

abalone wrote: post #302
hughlomas wrote: post #296

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A few hours ago when reading the article I was also intrigued by the question and journeyed down a similar path regarding the moving window and the trade-offs. After toying with a couple of improper solutions I came to a very similar conclusion. The basic idea being that each time increment() is called, you store the difference since the last increment, and to count you simply add up the offsets until you reach your…

Your array will grow indefinitely. Not a viable solution, it seems to me. Incidentally someone else posted a round robin database solution. It's probably the way to go. That's more or less where I was headed with quantizing offsets.

Well to be pedantic it will grow, at worst, to (24 * 60 * 60 * 1000000000), if you are calling increment() every individual nanosecond. Though you are right that it is ignoring realistic memory issues. I was approaching it more as a thought exercise to address the moving window.

Re: A Wretched Google Interview Experience

#317

Post by abalone »

hughlomas wrote: post #316
abalone wrote: post #302

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your array will grow indefinitely. Not a viable solution, it seems to me. Incidentally someone else posted a round robin database solution. It's probably the way to go. That's more or less where I was headed with quantizing offsets.

Well to be pedantic it will grow, at worst, to (24 * 60 * 60 * 1000000000), if you are calling increment() every individual nanosecond. Though you are right that it is ignoring realistic memory issues. I was approaching it more as a thought exercise to address the moving window.

No, that's just the maximum possible in a single day.

Re: A Wretched Google Interview Experience

#318

Post by 300bps »

jps359 wrote: post #228
300bps wrote: post #117

I had a very similar experience. I work at an investment bank and was recruited by a large company that does proprietary trading including high frequency trading. I went for the interview which was scheduled to be an all-day thing. In addition to having been in IT for a very long time I am also very knowledgeable on capital markets having successfully taken CFA (Chartered Financial Analyst) tests. The CFO of the comp…

I personally have a background unrelated to finance but have a pretty decent tech/math background. Do you have any suggestions on good entry points into the finance sector, or any advice regarding enrolling in the CFA program/preparing for the examinations?

There's a website called AnalystForum that is very helpful - they can get you started on going for the CFA charter. For Level 1, use Schweser. For Level 2, use Schweser + CFA books. For Level 3, you'll know what you're doing and what works best for you.

The tests are the hardest thing you'll ever do. With little finance background, expect to study about 400 hours for each test and be aware that each test has a 30%-40% pass rate depending on the year it's given.

Re: A Wretched Google Interview Experience

#319

Post by icedchai »

throwaway86 wrote: post #312
icedchai wrote: post #261

Earlier quoted context omitted.

how would they enforce it? not hire him? send him a naughty letter?

Breach of a nondisclosure is breaking a contract. Civil tort. Lawsuit. And so on.

I understand that can happen. But I doubt, very much, that it would happen over something as trivial as disclosing information about an interview.

Re: A Wretched Google Interview Experience

#320

Post by hughlomas »

abalone wrote: post #317
hughlomas wrote: post #316

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well to be pedantic it will grow, at worst, to (24 * 60 * 60 * 1000000000), if you are calling increment() every individual nanosecond. Though you are right that it is ignoring realistic memory issues. I was approaching it more as a thought exercise to address the moving window.

No, that's just the maximum possible in a single day.

It seemed obvious to me that you would trim it if it became larger because the most it asks for is the count of a single day.

However, now that I think about it increment() could called multiple times during a single nanosecond, in which case I guess it would be multiplied by whatever the maximum number of executions per nanosecond would be. My once per nanosecond comment earlier was an erroneous assumption.

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