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Google's interview system: it's not about solving the problem

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Re: Google's interview system: it's not about solving the problem

#121

Post by dkarbayev »

an4rchy wrote: post #14

I am not sure if this is in the interest of any company but why not provide feedback, as it can only help the interviewees in the future and the companies attract better talent. Even if it's not standardized, a rubrik across X attributes with a scale and a number. (Which is what I am assuming they are doing anyway -- as it sounds likes the interviewers are rating them across different dimensions) Not sure if this is…

I went through (and failed one part out of 3) onsite interview at Booking and afterwards they provided me a nice feedback with topics that I should strengthen. I totally agreed with the feedback as I felt I’m failing questions on those topics during the interview. Oh, and the recruiter even suggested to reapply when I strengthen those weak skills.

Re: Google's interview system: it's not about solving the problem

#122

Post by SquishyPanda23 »

MarkSweep wrote: post #71
SquishyPanda23 wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

FWIW, I went through the interview process and I actually really enjoyed it. My attitude going in was that I was evaluating what it would be like to work there, and I treated the interviewer as a coworker solving a technical problem, where I was taking the lead. The questions I got were pretty much exactly the sort of hing you see on LeetCode, but I hadn't seen any of the questions before. I know from studying for ot…

> Everybody was super nice, they all wanted you to do well I had the same experience. Afterwords I thought I did pretty well because I got to a solution to all the problems eventually. Later when I discussed not getting the offer when a friend who works at Google. He said they try to guide the interviewee to a solution before the time limit. Which is reasonable, you want the interviewee to feel more confident and not…

I haven't been on the interviewing side, so I can't really comment on some of this.

But the impression I got as the interviewee was that every question ramped up in difficulty. The slope of the ramp-up depended on the question. So maybe in your case, you didn't get as far on the difficulty ladder as other people that were interviewed.

I was pretty shameless in asking for hints when I needed them, but it was typically of the form "I see this tradeoff here, and my gut says to do X, is that reasonable?" I'm sure some of that counted against me, but I was blunt about what I needed to make a decision and solve the problem, and I think overall that reflected well on my ability to problem solve on a team.

I would definitely not recommend doing every problem in CLRS. I would recommend doing just about every problem in Cracking the Code Interview (because they have nice answers), and then getting into a rhythm of doing LeetCode problems every day until the interview.

Re: Google's interview system: it's not about solving the problem

#123

Post by SquishyPanda23 »

pmiller2 wrote: post #97
SquishyPanda23 wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

FWIW, I went through the interview process and I actually really enjoyed it. My attitude going in was that I was evaluating what it would be like to work there, and I treated the interviewer as a coworker solving a technical problem, where I was taking the lead. The questions I got were pretty much exactly the sort of hing you see on LeetCode, but I hadn't seen any of the questions before. I know from studying for ot…

Here’s the thing: patterns you will spot doing Leetcode problems are almost useless for anything else. The only purpose for working enough problems to see those patterns is to have more successful interviews.

This is absolutely true.

But one interesting side effect of the interview process is that everybody at a place like Google or Facebook or Amazon has a non-trivial understanding of efficiency.

Re: Google's interview system: it's not about solving the problem

#124

Post by komali2 »

ender7 wrote: post #115
starpilot wrote: post #24

Yet another "trust the system" message from the authority figure who enables the system. Similar: - Police officer: Just follow our instructions, be cooperative. - Car salesman: Just be upfront with what you want. Tell us about yourself, and we'll earnestly try to help you. The message is the same; the authority "just wants to help," but in reality the relationship is adversarial to a larger degree than it is coopera…

Some perspective from the interviewer's side may help here: - A Google interviewer's (and I would assume any interviewer's) primary goal is to come out of the interview with enough confidence to give a positive or negative score. If they sit down to write feedback and have to give a neutral score, the interview wasn't productive. This means that the interviewer is just as eager to find evidence for a positive score a…

I think it's a year later, now, for return interview?

Re: Google's interview system: it's not about solving the problem

#125

Post by brobdingnagians »

periferral wrote: post #81

I interviewed for a Product Manager role at Google and my experience was awful. Put this things in perspective, I was a Director of PM managing a team at my current role and working a lot with customers, presenting in speaking engagements etc as part of my day to day. I get into the interview and the person on the other side seems to know very little of my background. He says he is a PM and starts with how much is go…

I feel like this hits the nail on the head. They aren't looking for smart, motivated people who will work well on the team. They think they are, and that's what they say they are doing, but large companies have a hard time really doing that. There are so many other motivating factors and interests in the interviewers, the committees, the corporate structure, etc. If you are running your own company and building the product and you know you are going to work with a person you are interviewing, you can select, consciously and unconsciously, for all kinds of things that are important to you as an individual and you are free to pick the person you think has the "smarts you want", which might be technical, personal, emotional, etc. And which might compliment your own skills. But there are all sorts of strengths, and you can be biased enough to select for the ones that work with/for you. in a massive company, you get a watered down set of some sort of skills selected for by a competing line of somewhat disinterested (which can be a bad thing) people trying to meet some "objective" one-size-fits-all criteria.

Re: Google's interview system: it's not about solving the problem

#126

Post by komali2 »

MarkSweep wrote: post #71
SquishyPanda23 wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

FWIW, I went through the interview process and I actually really enjoyed it. My attitude going in was that I was evaluating what it would be like to work there, and I treated the interviewer as a coworker solving a technical problem, where I was taking the lead. The questions I got were pretty much exactly the sort of hing you see on LeetCode, but I hadn't seen any of the questions before. I know from studying for ot…

> Everybody was super nice, they all wanted you to do well I had the same experience. Afterwords I thought I did pretty well because I got to a solution to all the problems eventually. Later when I discussed not getting the offer when a friend who works at Google. He said they try to guide the interviewee to a solution before the time limit. Which is reasonable, you want the interviewee to feel more confident and not…

What's crls?

Re: Google's interview system: it's not about solving the problem

#127

Post by scarejunba »

komali2 wrote: post #126
MarkSweep wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Everybody was super nice, they all wanted you to do well I had the same experience. Afterwords I thought I did pretty well because I got to a solution to all the problems eventually. Later when I discussed not getting the offer when a friend who works at Google. He said they try to guide the interviewee to a solution before the time limit. Which is reasonable, you want the interviewee to feel more confident and not…

What's crls?

Initials of the authors of Introduction to Algorithms and a way to refer to that book.

Re: Google's interview system: it's not about solving the problem

#128

Post by komali2 »

ReverseCold wrote: post #102
foobarbazetc wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If that’s all it took maybe those interview funnels aren’t actually that great. IME, my worst interview process ever was at Google. All I remember from it was some question about burning a piece of string. The coding part was relatively easy. The best interview process I ever did was at Yahoo in 2008. Everyone was very friendly but the questions were tough. I found the “expert” level of the people interviewing me hig…

The string problem where you burn it in creative ways in order to measure a certain amount of time?

Probably:

You have two identical ropes. If you light a rope on fire, it will finish burning in exactly one hour. The burn rate is inconsistent - there is no relationship between how much of the rope has burned, and how much time has passed, until the rope has fully burned away.

How can you use the two ropes to measure 15 minutes?

Given that it's printed in cracking the coding interview, Google has almost certainly banned this problem.

Re: Google's interview system: it's not about solving the problem

#129

Post by bsamuels »

SquishyPanda23 wrote: post #123
pmiller2 wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here’s the thing: patterns you will spot doing Leetcode problems are almost useless for anything else. The only purpose for working enough problems to see those patterns is to have more successful interviews.

This is absolutely true. But one interesting side effect of the interview process is that everybody at a place like Google or Facebook or Amazon has a non-trivial understanding of efficiency.

lol, let me introduce you to the new gmail ui

Re: Google's interview system: it's not about solving the problem

#130

Post by Hysterisis »

jakelarkin wrote: post #116
Hysterisis wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You generally aren’t asked to implement a specific algorithm. You’re asked to solve a broad open ended question. You get 45 minutes, sometimes more if the interviewers can see that you’re close. These days Google offers the option of a chromebook instead of a whiteboard.

ah yes i'm sure everyone is out there leisurely deriving from first principles their implementation of XYZ graph algorithm which happened to be useful in the course of solving said "open ended question"

You’re purposefully misrepresenting what I said to satisfy your preconceptions.
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