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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...

#191

Post by carc »

To be fair, inverting a binary tree is a pretty easy question. Google also tells you BEFORE you start the interview process that it'll be very data structure/algorithm oriented and asks that you please prepare (and take as much time as you want doing so). They even say that they want you to prepare because they know a bad candidate that prepares can look better than a good candidate that doesn't prepare - then want all candidates on a level playing field so they can make accurate judgements. All that being said, I still think that there is lots of room for improvement in the process.

edit: really good english skills

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

#193

Post by [deleted] »

ruswick wrote: post #158
rnovak wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't necessarily agree though, I think if you can reason about a problem, you are infinitely more valuable than someone who memorizes problems and just applies them blindly. Correct me if I'm wrong, but a binary search tree is a very simple data structure. It has rules, and just by it's definition, and the definition of "inverted", you should be able to come up with an iterative solution, even if it's just walking…

Typing "how to reverse a binary search tree" into google is not the same thing as solving a problem. If these problems were so reliant on individual problem solving ability, there wouldn't be dozens of books with reams of answers to these questions on the market. These questions test memorization and nothing else.

[deleted]

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

#194

Post by nostrademons »

eonw wrote: post #127
smackfu wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Very good point. It's like, why do you want to work for Google if you aren't into algorithms?

other then search and maps, how many of their products use algos heavily though? many projects i have worked on over the years required very little knowledge of algos.

All of infrastructure. You end up using LSM trees, Paxos, variations on binary search trees, checksums, Reed-Solomon, bloom filters, external sorts, and all sorts of other academic algorithms when you deal with distributed systems.

Docs/Drive does a lot with operational transforms and CRDTs, ever since Wave was merged into it (c. 2011). Remember that all Google Docs are collaborative.

All logs analysis & experimentation relies heavily on statistics, as well as online algorithms for reservoir sampling, quantiles, and a number of other statistical quantities.

Machine-learning is pervasive, throughout Shopping & News (it's all over these), GMail (spam, priority inbox, categories), Search, Ads, self-driving cars, Brain, and many other areas of the company.

Chrome and Android both do a lot of traditional OS & systems programming.

The main product area that didn't use algos heavily was Google+, although even this had some interesting stuff in stream ranking and search.

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

#195

Post by seiji »

falcolas wrote: post #140
thethimble wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Think of the problem from Google's perspective though. At some point, you have tens of thousands of candidates and you need a system to quantify how good they are. Further, it's reasonable to have false negatives (people you don't hire that should have been hired) but really bad to have false positives (people that you hire that you should not have). Together, these boil down into the de facto whiteboarding interview…

If only whiteboarding interview processes actually weeded out false positives. In practice, they select for people with good memorization skills. If you can remember the details on a ten dozen different algorithms and data structures, you can pass one of these without having a single lick of creativity or skill. I say this as an employee who has worked alongside many unskilled drones who made it past the algorithmic…

That's a great point.

Infatuation with "coding competitions" and high flux intelligence tasks is often an anti signal.

Sure, what they demonstrate looks good at face value, but unless you attach a micromanager over their tasks, they'll constantly deviate to the new-shiny every week instead of staying on task for the long haul.

I know even YC has been bitten a few times by accepting people who are top-performers in very narrow contexts (e.g. people obsessed with winning coding competitions every single weekend) only to see they can't do anything coherent for more than a week at a time.

Just because someone is great in a narrow context doesn't mean they can carry that over the months and years needed to deeply iterate (and suffer through the low points) on successful projects.

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

#196

Post by Alupis »

sseveran wrote: post #181
Alupis wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You think like a Google interviewer. The OP is the type of person that, six months from now would be demanding special treatment because "he wrote Homebrew". Writing a package manager (been done before, a lot of times) is far different from writing machine learning algorithms (new field, blazing the trail for the industry). One requires an engineer, one requires a scientist. The OP flamed out because Google was loo…

You have done an awful lot of speculation here.

> You have done an awful lot of speculation here.

The entire interview and hiring process is conducted on mostly pure speculation of how a future hire will produce, and mesh with the team/company.

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

#197

Post by rgbrenner »

Alupis wrote: post #70

Has no one stopped to question what Google may have been looking for in a candidate? The OP has written some great apps, sure, but there is a huge difference between writing a package manager for Mac (among other Mac/iOS apps and utilities) and writing incredibly complex, highly performant algorithms for say search indexing, machine learning, ai, etc... In that context, knowing CompSci basics like Binary Trees (usual…

being able to invert a binary tree makes you qualified to develop machine learning, ai, etc code? that's a pretty low bar. If that's the level of knowledge you need to do that, then can it really be called AI?

If that's really what they intended for him to develop, then why not ask questions about machine learning or AI?

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

#198

Post by mentat »

It's interesting the amount of hate and either rumors of bad experience or bad experiences directly. I interviewed for an SRE position last September and they were clearly trying very hard to make it a good experience no matter the outcome. I flubbed a couple of questions and they didn't make an offer, but the impression that they cared about my experience as an interviewee lasted. I wonder why my experience was so dramatically different from many here.

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

#199

Post by sshumaker »

jowiar wrote: post #66

Last week I walked away from a Google offer that included a 70% raise. A large portion of this was a rather dehumanizing interview process, along with the realization that the process doesn't select for people I want to work with, and weeds out most people who I do. I managed to do just enough in my interviews to squeak through, but in doing so realized that it wasn't for me. Walking through the cafeteria made me fee…

I think you may have left with the wrong impression. If you ask Googlers or Xooglers alike, most agree that the people here are actually the best thing about Google. Like anywhere else, there are some bad apples, but compared to most other places the people here are on average more talented, nicer human beings and more helpful. Certainly compared to your typical startup or other BigCo.

In my nearly 3 years here, that is my experience as well. I've also spoken to many engineers who have left who lamented the quality of their fellow engineering talent at their supposedly 'hot' startup, compared to their former team at Google. Or having to deal with way more unprofessional (or crazy) management, prima-donna teammates, etc.

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

#200

Post by devy »

chubot wrote: post #72

I think there is some validity to the general point, but I'm not commenting on that. Just quibbling: I don't think anywhere near 90% of engineers use homebrew? Google development is done on Linux, and Homebrew is a Mac thing AFAIK. I have never used Homebrew. Android development can be done on Macs but I doubt they use Homebrew. Certainly not for anything important.

Re: "and Homebrew is a Mac thing AFAIK." -> FYI There is a fork of Homebrew called Linuxbrew now. http://brew.sh/linuxbrew/ FYI.
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