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Why I Don’t Talk to Google Recruiters

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Re: Why I Don’t Talk to Google Recruiters

#281

Post by dsk139 »

jonmoshier wrote: post #273
dsk139 wrote: post #254

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is true. I'm an engineer that started recruiting six months ago part-time and was able to bill six figures pretty quickly. I realized that colleagues in recruiting had a really tough time making efficient matches. The best recruiters can not only make efficient matches, but they also connect the dots to reach out to matches in the pool of passive candidates they talked to when a new role opens up. Even better th…

How'd you get started doing recruiting? I've been talking with recruiters lately and I find myself doing enough tech explaining to recruiters that I've wondered if I could consult for them. Interested to hear about your experience.

Feel free to e-mail (in profile). Started by trying to build tools for recruiters and interviewing recruiters for customer feedback. Found a good fit with a recruiter who placed my whole NY team before our startup got acquired and he offered me a consultant gig. Really enjoying it so far. Great way to monetize a mix of engineering career consulting + staying on top of startup trends.

Re: Why I Don’t Talk to Google Recruiters

#282

Post by [deleted] »

jonmoshier wrote: post #273
dsk139 wrote: post #254

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is true. I'm an engineer that started recruiting six months ago part-time and was able to bill six figures pretty quickly. I realized that colleagues in recruiting had a really tough time making efficient matches. The best recruiters can not only make efficient matches, but they also connect the dots to reach out to matches in the pool of passive candidates they talked to when a new role opens up. Even better th…

How'd you get started doing recruiting? I've been talking with recruiters lately and I find myself doing enough tech explaining to recruiters that I've wondered if I could consult for them. Interested to hear about your experience.

[deleted]

Re: Why I Don’t Talk to Google Recruiters

#283

Post by SomeCallMeTim »

chrshawkes wrote: post #269
SomeCallMeTim wrote: post #212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> We should avoid the notion that naive string concatenation is a problem that impedes our ability to deliver software, except for niche applications, this is not the case. The attitude that really basic Computer Science concepts like algorithms and algorithmic complexity are irrelevant is exactly why software projects are so frequently FUBAR. The Dunning-Kruger reference is spot on. The original author doesn't even…

Can you provide an example of an open source code base which is messed up due to ones inability to understand algorithms?

I don't have an open source example; I tend to actively avoid such projects, and so I tend to accumulate lists of the ones that seem well engineered rather than the opposite.

The Quora app, though: If I'm writing a reasonably long answer and I delete a paragraph, it can take more than 10 seconds to complete. There's some profound inability to understand algorithms in there somewhere, I can guarantee it.

There was just a headline on Hacker News a few days ago about a "reject!" function, if I remember correctly, that ended up with an n^2 algorithm for several major Ruby releases because someone fixing a bug didn't understand the consequence of their change. I don't have the link, though.

EDIT to fix the name of the Ruby function and to add the link. [1] Thanks to user nighthawk454 who dug it up!

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13691303

Re: Why I Don’t Talk to Google Recruiters

#285

Post by eridius »

valuearb wrote: post #115
stuckagain wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know about the average but at Google I probably write a new call to std::set::find twice an hour, and it's important to know that std::set is a red-black tree, and how std::set::find is implemented and how much that costs and so forth. Fluency with data structures and algorithms is not some kind of brain candy. It's absolutely necessary to get the job done.

I've been a developer for 30 years, helped start a half dozen companies. Since college I've never written a single tree traversing algorithm, and would need to Google red-black tree to know what it is. There is a whole world of development that is OS specific, UI specific, shipping commercial applications. Shipping quickly is always a higher priority than performance, because adequate performance is usually trivial t…

You don't generally need to write tree-traversal algorithms because other people have already done so and you can use their implementations. But you should still understand the tree traversal algorithm, so you know what the thing you're using is doing, what its complexity is, etc. And if you understand it, then you should be able to reimplement it yourself.

Re: Why I Don’t Talk to Google Recruiters

#286

Post by brendangregg »

At Netflix I was interviewed by the manager I'd work for (in fact, I was interviewed by two managers, as I had the option to join one of two teams). As part of recruiting I had many conversations with my potential manager about what exactly I'd do, and how my skills can be best put to use. I ended up picking Netflix, and it's been great working here. I wish more companies interviewed in this way.

I've had the other type of experience at a major tech company, similar to what was described in this post. Interviews that were generic and not focused on what I'd been told by the recruiter the job was. I spent all day exercising brain cells from University classes a decade ago, rather than my industry experience. I remember feeling odd about it afterwards: that's the first time I've had to recall those skills since University, yet I've been working in this role for a decade and haven't needed to remember that doing the actual job...

Re: Why I Don’t Talk to Google Recruiters

#287

Post by sidlls »

SomeCallMeTim wrote: post #212
arenaninja wrote: post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you're misquoting the article, and the "Dunning-Kruger" is uncalled for. Here's the full quote: > If she would have started her email with "We're looking for an algorithm expert," we would never have gotten any further and would not have wasted our time. Clearly, I'm not an expert in algorithms. There is no point in giving me binary-tree-traversing questions; I don't know those answers and will never be inter…

> We should avoid the notion that naive string concatenation is a problem that impedes our ability to deliver software, except for niche applications, this is not the case. The attitude that really basic Computer Science concepts like algorithms and algorithmic complexity are irrelevant is exactly why software projects are so frequently FUBAR. The Dunning-Kruger reference is spot on. The original author doesn't even…

> The attitude that really basic Computer Science concepts like algorithms and algorithmic complexity are irrelevant is exactly why software projects are so frequently FUBAR.

You must mean "some software projects" and not "frequently." And who's proud of ignorance? Ignorance of what? And, what's more, why should it be considered a negative if someone isn't concerned, or even is proud, about ignorance of certain things.

Re: Why I Don’t Talk to Google Recruiters

#289

Post by sbpayne »

sidlls wrote: post #261
stcredzero wrote: post #148

There is no point in giving me binary-tree-traversing questions; I don't know those answers and will never be interested in learning them. Let's presume this is out of preference and not ability. It's a pretty basic concept. If your preference stops you from learning something as basic as this as a programmer, then it doesn't seem likely that you will be motivated to keep up with even more abstruse concepts. Nearly e…

Conjecture: the majority (by far, probably on the order of 75%-80% or more) of programming and engineering problems to be solved in a typical company or typical application will not see significant differences in performance by selecting a naive implementation. For example, in your string concatenation example, the naive solution is good enough except in situations where large numbers of strings are to be concatenate…

Sure. But at the scale of e.g. Google, Amazon, etc. how often do you think they are performing these lower level computations?

From my experience: very frequently.

So it's useful at these corporations for all engineers to have this understanding, I think.

Re: Why I Don’t Talk to Google Recruiters

#290

Post by ryandrake »

btilly wrote: post #140
ryandrake wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> They're not looking to fill any particular role. They're just looking for smart people I've found this to be decidedly not true, from many recruiter contacts. They have a role in mind they're trying to fill and if you point out that it's far more junior than what you're looking for, the conversation's over. Think about how must companies hire. The hiring manager fights internally and finally gets a req for a very s…

I've seen the opposite, from close observation on both sides. The recruiter may start out with a role that they are trying to fill, but they have plenty of other roles that they could be happy to put you in. And furthermore for the right candidate, they don't have to figure out the role up front. When I was hired by Google, SRE poached me out of a pipeline to a different group. (Accepting that offer was a mistake on…

Interesting, thanks for the insight. Funny how two people can look at the same recruiting environment in the same industry and have two totally different experiences.

> That said, plenty of candidates start the process by being too arrogant about what they can demand. Recruiters know to look for that and stop wasting their own time taking these people seriously.

Maybe, but I think it saves both sides time. If I'm shopping for a new sports car and a salesman approaches me with a great deal on a 10 year old pick-up truck, it's helpful for both of us if I make my expectations clear right away.

Most Recruiters: "I have this role you'll be great for! Let's see if it's a great match!"

Better Recruiter: "What are you looking for? I work with a lot of companies and probably have a great match!"

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