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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

#301

Post by yawaramin »

ryandrake wrote: post #31

Unlike most of HN (it seems), I like hearing from recruiters, because despite the very low signal-to-noise ratio, there's always that remote chance that one of them could be able to set me up with a "dream job". It's zero cost to me to politely reply to a recruiter and ask for more info, and I try to at least respond to everyone. What I've found is that they must have a lot of candidates they're juggling because fall…

I think OP's reply 'I am happy to interview but only with the hiring manager I will be directly reporting to' is quite polite.

Re: Why I Don’t Talk to Google Recruiters

#302

Post by stcredzero »

krzyk wrote: post #241
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…

In every single company I've been for the last 15 years, I haven't had any algorithmic problem to solve, most programmer jobs is just making software as quickly as possible and fix performance issues only when they appear. I really don't think that every programmer in Amazon or Google is faced with algorithm problems everyday, that's probably localized to some projects that deal with those, not the majority of progra…

I haven't had any algorithmic problem to solve, most programmer jobs is just making software as quickly as possible and fix performance issues only when they appear.

I sense a contradiction between the 1st clause and the last clause.

Expecting every programmer to know how to solve given problem on a whiteboard is like expecting every life gourd to know how to do a water escape

Expecting every programmer to know the basics of recursion and about 10 basic algorithms and the reasons behind their time/space complexity analyses is like expecting every life guard to know what a drowning person looks like (nothing like what they show in movies and TV shows) has the ability to tread water without using arms, and knows how to tow a panicked, struggling swimmer without letting them kick you in the stomach.

A programmer who can't explain the three bits of knowledge in my comment above is like a lifeguard who simply knows how to swim and doesn't know what a drowning person looks like. Over 90% of the time, all you have to do is sit in the tower chair and blow your whistle at troublemakers, but in the occasional instance, you will have to know something special, with a higher cost than usual if you don't know.

Re: Why I Don’t Talk to Google Recruiters

#303

Post by patmcguire »

ryandrake wrote: post #31

Unlike most of HN (it seems), I like hearing from recruiters, because despite the very low signal-to-noise ratio, there's always that remote chance that one of them could be able to set me up with a "dream job". It's zero cost to me to politely reply to a recruiter and ask for more info, and I try to at least respond to everyone. What I've found is that they must have a lot of candidates they're juggling because fall…

My conversations have usually gone like this:

"Hey, you look like a great candidate for $AWESOME_JOB"

"Great, let's talk"

"Oh, you're not really what they're looking for, can I interest you in $GARBAGE_JOB or $BASEMENT_AT_YELLING_CORP"

But by then I've showed interest, so I start getting calls. Not worth it.

Re: Why I Don’t Talk to Google Recruiters

#304

Post by mdekkers »

tetraodonpuffer wrote: post #29

I think when a company reaches a certain size it is hard to expect that there is such a thing as "a manager looked at my github/qualifications and decided they need me so they will tailor the interview to my skillset". At this point it feels the interview process is becoming more of a combo between a hazing ritual and a lottery than something actually useful to ascertain if the person interviewed would be a good matc…

It is strange though that in a country where there is at-will employment one is basically told that hiring the "wrong person" could destroy the company or something and so the interviewer has to make really really really really sure that the candidate is absolutely ok.

What it does is destroy the recruiters reputation and KPI charts.

Re: Why I Don’t Talk to Google Recruiters

#305

Post by nighthawk454 »

SomeCallMeTim wrote: post #283
chrshawkes wrote: post #269

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 jus…

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

Re: Why I Don’t Talk to Google Recruiters

#306

Post by perfmode »

yawaramin wrote: post #297
perfmode wrote: post #255

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But Google's code quality is quite high...

I don't know about their code quality, but we consume some of their data via APIs and they periodically randomly change their non-nullable data types to nullable. Fun times hotfixing those in prod.

When data comes in over the wire, you probably shouldn't be making assumptions about what's nullable. You should write a parser that fails gracefully if it receives unexpected input.

It's the robustness principle.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robustness_principle

Re: Why I Don’t Talk to Google Recruiters

#307

Post by sib »

georgyo wrote: post #278
ryandrake wrote: post #31

Unlike most of HN (it seems), I like hearing from recruiters, because despite the very low signal-to-noise ratio, there's always that remote chance that one of them could be able to set me up with a "dream job". It's zero cost to me to politely reply to a recruiter and ask for more info, and I try to at least respond to everyone. What I've found is that they must have a lot of candidates they're juggling because fall…

Head hunting is very profitable. If you get a recruiter email for a company that is not that company, it's _always_ junk. 100% of the time, it is a waste of time. Ignore those, and look for the ones that are from the actual company. They have their own recruiting team that you are going to be dealing with anyway, and aren't playing the numbers game or shuffling their candidates between many different companies trying…

" If you get a recruiter email for a company that is not that company, it's _always_ junk. 100% of the time, it is a waste of time."

This is false. My last two roles were both initiated by 3rd-party recruiters.

Re: Why I Don’t Talk to Google Recruiters

#308

Post by stcredzero »

ryandrake wrote: post #265
krzyk wrote: post #241

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In every single company I've been for the last 15 years, I haven't had any algorithmic problem to solve, most programmer jobs is just making software as quickly as possible and fix performance issues only when they appear. I really don't think that every programmer in Amazon or Google is faced with algorithm problems everyday, that's probably localized to some projects that deal with those, not the majority of progra…

I agree. Most companies SAY they want algorithm experts and API ninjas, and computer science wizards, because it sounds like the right kind of thing to say. But most of the actual work out there is either 1. plumbing some data from one layer in the stack to the other (typical CRUD app) or 2. writing glue code to integrate one vendor's middleware to another vendor's middleware, or 3. fixing bugs in some 10 year old le…

But most of the actual work out there is either 1. plumbing some data from one layer in the stack to the other (typical CRUD app) or 2. writing glue code to integrate one vendor's middleware to another vendor's middleware, or 3. fixing bugs in some 10 year old legacy application, or if you're lucky, 4. getting an application to work barely well enough in order to ship it on time.

And most of a lifeguard's job is sitting around blowing a whistle at troublemakers. Does that mean you'd be fine with a lifeguard who only has those two actions in his skillset? Also, as someone who has held a number of jobs that involve your 1 through 4 above: knowing basic algorithms is beneficial to the job. You don't need that knowledge often, but when you do, it has outsized benefits. Also, you wouldn't know that, unless you had that knowledge while doing that job. If you didn't have that knowledge, you wouldn't know how it would have benefited you.

The fact that "in-depth knowledge" is applied to "traversing binary trees" makes me sigh and feel uneasy.

Re: Why I Don’t Talk to Google Recruiters

#309

Post by fizixer »

justin66 wrote: post #291
fizixer wrote: post #174

The lesson based on your experience could be the advice you gave. But it could also be: Don't get your expectations too high. If you have achieved something in your programming career already, you've done it. Something to be proud of. "Bad" interviewing practices of top companies, and the outcomes that follow, don't and shouldn't undermine your self-worth. Just take the whole interviewing experience as a chance to me…

> Just take the whole interviewing experience as a chance to meet new people, have a mentally stimulating exchange, and that's it. You're not wrong, but if one needs to put a premium on their time it's a little more complicated than that. Particularly if you need to take time off and travel for an interview, it'd be nice if the whole thing was more than a minor social experience.

Yeah I should've mentioned that. Well I guess I did in a way when I started by saying either the lesson from the blog post or the lesson that I talked about.

To summarize, if you put a premium on your time then we reach the conclusion in the blog post. If you are willing to reduce the premium, then we have the alternative conclusion that I suggested.

Re: Why I Don’t Talk to Google Recruiters

#310

Post by lettersdigits »

roguecoder wrote: post #230

The reason I won't work at Google is because Google is incapable of hiring the engineers I want to work with. It's not a matter of whether I could pass that interview; it is whether I want to work with the code of people who can pass that interview. Whether I want to get code reviews from people who can pass that interview. Whether I want to rely on the code of people who can pass the interview not to break down in i…

> The reason I won't work at Google is because Google is incapable of hiring the engineers I want to work with

That's a very bold (even arrogant, sorry) statement about 57,000+ (googled it) employees.

So 57,000 are worse devs then you ? This is what i hear from your statement, correct me if I am wrong ..

Many extremely talented people want to work for Google. They will take the tests, even if they don't agree with the hiring system at all .

Maybe they want to work at Google despite its incapability (according to you) in the hiring and testing process.

> it is whether I want to work with the code of people who can pass that interview

Have you found any correlation between poor code and being able to pass Google's interview ?

(edit: new lines)

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