Google Interview Experience • Hacker News Board

Re: Google Interview Experience

#11

Post by thefastlane » Sun, May 29, 2016, 5:56 PM UTC

bogomipz wrote: post #5

khedoros wrote: post #2

I had a similar experience (and result) recently, although it was my first time interviewing with Google, and I did my coding in Python. I want able to get any detail whatsoever about why I was rejected; the feedback Vijay got would have been appreciated!

Isn't Python a decent choice for whiteboarding algorithms style interviews? Visually Python is quite streamlined and also Python alleviates having to write a bunch of boilerplate. I'm curious why using Python would be an issue for a Google type interview? It was my understanding that one of the reasons for these style interviews was to get away from being language specific - in other words if someone has good CS fund…

the practice (generally) at present is that you are asked to choose a specific language ahead of time from a list the recruiter offers you. python is one of them, so is C++. but many languages aren't. for example, you could not go in and do your interview with, say, OCaml or Clojure.

Re: Google Interview Experience

#12

Post by bogomipz » Sun, May 29, 2016, 6:01 PM UTC

gbin wrote: post #6

bogomipz wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn't Python a decent choice for whiteboarding algorithms style interviews? Visually Python is quite streamlined and also Python alleviates having to write a bunch of boilerplate. I'm curious why using Python would be an issue for a Google type interview? It was my understanding that one of the reasons for these style interviews was to get away from being language specific - in other words if someone has good CS fund…

Using Python for an interview at Giogle is absolutely not a problem. Source: I interview candidates there.

Thank for the feedback, at some point though is that looked down upon if the candidate isn't also equally fluent in at least Java and C++?

Re: Google Interview Experience

#13

Post by akhilcacharya » Sun, May 29, 2016, 6:44 PM UTC

gaius wrote: post #10

akhilcacharya wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Personally, I'm more surprised it takes most people multiple times and months of prep when you hear is Stanford freshmen getting internships with no additional effort save for reading CTCI.

Well the tests are all optimized to filter for early 20s from a handful of CS programmes.

Hmm, can you expound on this?

Re: Google Interview Experience

#14

Post by namelezz » Sun, May 29, 2016, 7:42 PM UTC

kkirsche wrote: post #9

As someone who dreams of one day making it therI, this scares the crap out of me and makes me feel like everything I know and have worked for isn't possible. It's really disappointing to hear that this is the interview style as I struggle coding with people watching and judging every little thing that I do.

Don't be discouraged by the OP's story. The OP has several years of experiences in C as a firmware developer(read his LinkedIn) so the interviewers may have high expectation in his "coding abilities". Lesson from the story: know your sh1t well. Good luck!

Re: Google Interview Experience

#15

Post by khedoros » Sun, May 29, 2016, 7:47 PM UTC

bogomipz wrote: post #5

khedoros wrote: post #2

I had a similar experience (and result) recently, although it was my first time interviewing with Google, and I did my coding in Python. I want able to get any detail whatsoever about why I was rejected; the feedback Vijay got would have been appreciated!

Isn't Python a decent choice for whiteboarding algorithms style interviews? Visually Python is quite streamlined and also Python alleviates having to write a bunch of boilerplate. I'm curious why using Python would be an issue for a Google type interview? It was my understanding that one of the reasons for these style interviews was to get away from being language specific - in other words if someone has good CS fund…

Yes, I think it's decent (and that's the reason I chose it). I don't think it was an issue in my interview process; I was just trying to say that I had a similar experience to the OP, but I also wanted to mention some differences.

Google's questions tend to be about data structures and algorithms, and fairly language-agnostic (although you're expected to know the language that you choose well, and use it elegantly).