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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...

#11

Post by sown »

bla2 wrote: post #3

Interviewing is stressful and all, but if the guy's reaction to not getting hired is to flame on twitter, not hiring might've been the right call.

I think both you and the post have a good point.

From his perspective, I bet he's frustrated for the reasons he point out. If he never talks about it out loud, how would any one know? Keeping people silent about this issue is in the company's interest because they'll not have to really change, and they'll hire someone eventually.

I mean, I know I sometimes choke on problems I'm trying to solve in the privacy, quiet, and comfort of my own home on projects I really care about.

I don't know what went on in the interview but given what he said, I think I would be upset, too.

Too hard to say, tbh.

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

#12

Post by joshstrange »

bla2 wrote: post #3

Interviewing is stressful and all, but if the guy's reaction to not getting hired is to flame on twitter, not hiring might've been the right call.

I'm sorry but Twitter is one of the few (if only) megaphones most people have to call out corporations for their actions. This is exactly the sort of thing that Twitter (IMHO) shines at, a platform to call down the goliaths. If I didn't already want nothing to do with working at google I would have been pushed further away by this tweet which is exactly what should happen. If google has the right to say no to someone that wrote an extremely valuable tool that 90% of their employees use then he has the right to inform the general public. Popular opinion seems to be one of the few things that can cause a corporation to change their minds or at the very least acknowledge the situation and he is expertly wielding it to his purpose. I applaud and support him in making this choice.

Edit: typo

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

#14

Post by sown »

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.

> At two different interviews I was given logic puzzles just so they could watch how I went about trying to solve them.

That's usually what they say, but I've found that if you don't solve the puzzles, you don't get hired ever.

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

#15

Post by mikek »

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 much do you want to work here." If you care enough, you can pass. That said, these types of interviews do favor fresh grads over experienced programmers (you have algorithms and data structures fresh in your mind), which means that they are flawed in IMHO.

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

#16

Post by r0naa »

vezzy-fnord wrote: post #8
bla2 wrote: post #3

Interviewing is stressful and all, but if the guy's reaction to not getting hired is to flame on twitter, not hiring might've been the right call.

I also somewhat laughed at the poster who stated "Apparently my GitHub wasn't enough."

Well, he is the author of numerous widely used open source projects. It is a bit redundant (and useless) to give him a "homework assignment when he has such an impressive portfolio that speaks for itself and of which you can assess the quality.

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

#17

Post by ceejayoz »

bla2 wrote: post #3

Interviewing is stressful and all, but if the guy's reaction to not getting hired is to flame on twitter, not hiring might've been the right call.

If occasionally venting on Twitter makes someone unhireable, most of us are fucked.

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

#18

Post by smackfu »

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.

This just gets back to the question of whether you are hiring based on interview skills or coding skills. If someone has shipped code that shows high coding skills, why would you reject them based on interview skills, if it's a coding job?

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

#19

Post by Osmium »

bla2 wrote: post #3

Interviewing is stressful and all, but if the guy's reaction to not getting hired is to flame on twitter, not hiring might've been the right call.

Playing devil's advocate here (because I, personally, wouldn't have done something like that), but I can see the insult. Here's someone with a very public proven track record (that they're fully aware of, if 90% of their engineers use his software), and they're asking questions like this. They're the wrong questions to ask in this case, surely? It's fair enough to ask them, but I can understand this person's frustration if that was genuinely the reason he hasn't hired (which we have to take his word for, since we didn't witness it ourselves).
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