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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...

#331

Post by logn »

eli_gottlieb wrote: post #318
logn wrote: post #305

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They literally had me do a deterministic finite automaton problem.

Ok, on the one hand, you should be able to answer the question with, "Get a standard-issue POSIX-conformant regex library. Next question!" On the other hand, knowing that DFAs are equivalent to regexes are equivalent to NFAs is already a step of theoretical knowledge that any "Just let me write code" so-called "dev" is likely to complain about being asked for.

I was asked that question about 7 years after reading Mastering Regular Expressions and about 10 years after taking Automata in college. It so happens that I am an expert in regex, have a patent in the field, regularly answer stackoverflow regex questions for fun, etc. Unfortunately, the question involved me actually drawing a DFA, trying to remember the notation, etc. At this point I don't even remember the particular question, only that I couldn't remember how to draw or read the diagrams.

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

#332

Post by NeutronBoy »

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.

This entire thread is based on a single tweet. It's all speculation.

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

#334

Post by rnovak »

briandear wrote: post #319
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…

Is a binary search tree a problem that the Dev would have needed to solve? In over 5 years as a dev, I have never once needed to solve a binary search tree. Why not ask the candidate how to perform a kidney transplant.. That's solving a problem too. White boarding algorithms is not relevant to the majority of Dev jobs. It's related, but not particularly valuable as a screener.

I'm not sure how asking someone who's going to be working in computer programming something about computer science is equal to asking someone who's going to be working in computer programming something about medicine. Those two things aren't equivalent. Could you perhaps clarify?

Engineering is the use of knowledge/science to solve problems, right? So why is asking someone to use knowledge to solve a problem not applicable to the hiring process?

To be clear, this isn't the same question as "why are manhole covers round", or "how would you move a mountain".

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

#335

Post by ciupicri »

exacube wrote: post #254

Firstly, you're not entitled to any job you want just because you wrote Homebrew. If you accepted an interview with Google, then you accepted the fact that Google will judge you based on your problem solving skills, just like every other person was asked. Secondly, I don't think this is a hard interview question; it's certainly fair. Did you expect to be asked knowledge-based questions that Google knows you're alread…

If 90% of Google's engineers use his software, it's reasonable to expect to be hired for continuing to work on that software.

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

#336

Post by bane »

I've phone interviewed with Google a couple times. I wasn't really interested in working there, but wanted to see what it was like. Both times, the people who interviewed me were decent, friendly folks and we had a good chat. They then dug into algorithm questions on topics I hadn't seen since my undergrad (I'm about 20 years into my career) and haven't touched since then -- though I've done a bit of algorithm work outside of that they weren't particularly interested in that.

I reached into my way-back machine and tried to derive some approaches where I simply didn't remember the answer (and I was very open about it). I made it to call backs both times, but they declined to move forward, probably because they wanted a younger person who remembered their big-Os off the top of their head, but I was okay with it. I told all the interviewers I had fun and I did.

Even if I had made it in, I'm not sure I would have taken the job at those times. So my lack of motivation ended up turning what could have been stressful into a fun look at their hiring practices.

However, I can see for people who are really dead set on working there, it can be a harrowing experience.

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

#337

Post by BinaryIdiot »

chrismsnz wrote: post #209
falcolas wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 not what the interview process is like at all. They're more interested in how you approach real world issues (the questions I got asked were conceivably real-life issues a company like Google would face with its products). If you can solve that issue by applying efficient and well understood data structures and algorithms, then that indicates you understand the problem space and solutions that may apply. It's…

My experience wasn't a real life type one more academic instead. My interviewer was really late and refused to let me finish my data structure implementation to optimize a single method instead. When we finished it was time for him to go. He wouldn't let me go back to finish my data structure as he didn't have the time.

I was later declined. Had a couple of friends at google ask the interviewer. He said I was declined for not finishing my data structure.

Their interviewing process was quite frustrating. I'm fine with getting declined but not under those circumstances.

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

#338

Post by callum85 »

jblow wrote: post #211
carc wrote: post #191

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 a…

I am dismayed by the way all the reactions on Twitter are piling on with outrage and/or relating similar experiences. Inverting a binary tree is pretty easy. It is not quite as trivial as FizzBuzz, but it is something any programmer should be able to do. If you can't do it, you probably don't understand recursion, which is a very basic programming concept. This isn't one of those much-maligned trick interview questio…

> If you can't do it, you probably don't understand recursion

No, I can't do it (don't even understand the question) but I certainly understand what recursion is, and can solve problems and make things work far more reliably than many of the more academic programmers I have worked with.

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

#339

Post by fsk »

kamaal wrote: post #283
aaggarwal wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, exactly, since it's Google, they can afford to have strong filters which will definitely filter out a bad hire, may be at the expense of rejecting a good candidate. Their policy might expect good candidate to get absorbed in Google one way or other, but they definitely want to filter a bad hire. However, in the recent years, I have seen this to be not working as expected. Still, I don't think it matters to Googl…

>>However, in the recent years, I have seen this to be not working as expected. It never worked, what do you think happens when you start asking these kind of questions in interviews? People just go out and spend insane amount of time memorizing solutions to interview questions on the internet. They continue the same after you have hired them. So their on the job productivity remains low. Please note, they need to pr…

I'd rather spend a year learning Python or Go or whatever, instead of spending a year practicing interview questions.

I never realized that some people put as much effort into practicing interview questions as I put into learning how to actually write software.

Does this mean technical interviews, even a structured interview, are completely useless? I.e., if you follow an interview script, eventually candidates find out about your script, and then it's useless.

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

#340

Post by zak_mc_kracken »

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…

> 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.

Only to bad interviewees.

You'd be shocked to hear the number of impressive résumés I have seen who turned out to be absolute no-hires after 20mn on a white board. By "absolute no hire", I mean the kind where some of the interviewers tell me in the debriefing "I will quit if we hire this guy".

Not all excellent engineers have impressive résumés but they all share a common characteristic in my experience: they all really enjoyed working on the problems I asked them to solve on the white board. I even had some of them be disappointed when we ran out of time because we were having interesting conversations about the problem.

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