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Google: 90% of our engineers use the software you wrote (Homebrew), but...

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Re: Google: 90% of our engineers use the software you wrote (Homebrew), but...

#41

Post by mikek »

sp332 wrote: post #33
mikek wrote: post #15

At a certain point, your resume should speak for itself. The fact that experienced engineers with impressive resumes are put through these types of interviews is insulting and frustrating to the interviewees. Succeeding at these whiteboard questions requires weeks of preparation. You need to practice, practice, practice. After enough practice, you are pretty likely to pass. So ultimately, it is more of a test of "how…

How do you practice answering whiteboard questions?

Look at glassdoor.com or careercup.com for questions from a certain company. Practice using paper and pencil.

Have a friend do a mock interview with you.

Re: Google: 90% of our engineers use the software you wrote (Homebrew), but...

#42

Post by driverdan »

squiguy7 wrote: post #9

Interviewing seems broken to me too. I have spent the last few months trying to get a job out of college and everyone seems to be interested in how well you can regurgitate CS fundamentals. They are seemingly less interested in seeing how you solve problems and work through the process of software. I would be more than happy to see this process change, I am just not sure what it entails.

I guess it depends on where you're interviewing and what their expectations are of you. Since you've just graduated they may expect you to be very junior and just want to make sure you have a good CS foundation. They should ask problem solving questions but it wouldn't be weird if they just focused on what they think you know.

Re: Google: 90% of our engineers use the software you wrote (Homebrew), but...

#43

Post by kenrikm »

mikek wrote: post #15

At a certain point, your resume should speak for itself. The fact that experienced engineers with impressive resumes are put through these types of interviews is insulting and frustrating to the interviewees. Succeeding at these whiteboard questions requires weeks of preparation. You need to practice, practice, practice. After enough practice, you are pretty likely to pass. So ultimately, it is more of a test of "how…

These types of interviews work really well for the "I got 1600 on my SATs and went to {insert high profile school here} crowd" There are books out there just to prep you for Google interviews I see these as very similar to SAT test prep books. I'm not so sure Google is really interested in hiring the best engineers but rather a specific type of engineer.

Re: Google: 90% of our engineers use the software you wrote (Homebrew), but...

#44

Post by thanksgiving »

bstamour wrote: post #24
squiguy7 wrote: post #9

Interviewing seems broken to me too. I have spent the last few months trying to get a job out of college and everyone seems to be interested in how well you can regurgitate CS fundamentals. They are seemingly less interested in seeing how you solve problems and work through the process of software. I would be more than happy to see this process change, I am just not sure what it entails.

Devil's avocado: if they're truly CS fundamentals, then they should be baked into you good and deep during the course of your college education. It shouldn't be painful at all.

I graduated this spring and I don't know how to do that. Now, I am not a boy genius but I doubt it is a CS fundamental.

Re: Google: 90% of our engineers use the software you wrote (Homebrew), but...

#45

Post by gkoberger »

bstamour wrote: post #24
squiguy7 wrote: post #9

Interviewing seems broken to me too. I have spent the last few months trying to get a job out of college and everyone seems to be interested in how well you can regurgitate CS fundamentals. They are seemingly less interested in seeing how you solve problems and work through the process of software. I would be more than happy to see this process change, I am just not sure what it entails.

Devil's avocado: if they're truly CS fundamentals, then they should be baked into you good and deep during the course of your college education. It shouldn't be painful at all.

I took CS 101 classes almost a decade ago, and since then, I have never once needed to write a binary search tree outside of an interview.

I think "CS Fundamentals" are really just "abstract concepts used to teach programming", and calling them fundamentals is disingenuous.

Re: Google: 90% of our engineers use the software you wrote (Homebrew), but...

#48

Post by michaelvkpdx »

As goes the recruitment, so goes the employment.

If you wanted to work for an organization where everyone likes to show off their skills to one another in the interviews, you'd have gotten the job, and you'd be one of them.

The best interviews I find are like a first day of work (but unpaid). Your experience and skills are established by resume and portfolio. The interview shows whether you can work with the team and wrap your head around the org's problems. If you're having to show off- well, that's how your work will be, too.

Google's interviews convinced me, years ago, that there's no way I'd ever want to work there. And that feeling hasn't changed one bit. Much like FB, it's an org whose coding needs are really pretty trivial and the real work was done and finished a long time ago (but there's plenty of need for debugging, egos especially). If you want to work there and surf the gravy train, cool for you.

Re: Google: 90% of our engineers use the software you wrote (Homebrew), but...

#49

Post by presty »

sp332 wrote: post #5

Was it really because he couldn't do the problem, or was it that he didn't handle himself well in the interview? At two different interviews I was given logic puzzles just so they could watch how I went about trying to solve them.

a little bit more info

https://twitter.com/mxcl/status/608698037100244992 https://twitter.com/mxcl/status/608687283869503488

Re: Google: 90% of our engineers use the software you wrote (Homebrew), but...

#50

Post by fweespeech »

sp332 wrote: post #33
mikek wrote: post #15

At a certain point, your resume should speak for itself. The fact that experienced engineers with impressive resumes are put through these types of interviews is insulting and frustrating to the interviewees. Succeeding at these whiteboard questions requires weeks of preparation. You need to practice, practice, practice. After enough practice, you are pretty likely to pass. So ultimately, it is more of a test of "how…

How do you practice answering whiteboard questions?

Get a couple books on algorithms, memorize like its CS 101 basically.
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