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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

#311

Post by vonmoltke »

repsilat wrote: post #300
ma2rten wrote: post #231

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Disclaimer: I haven't read the article, but I work at Google. Most interviewers will ask the same question to multiple candidates. They will compare how you the candidate is doing compared to other candidates on the same question. Most interviewers will provide hints. I'm pretty sure that all candidates go though the same interview process. There is really not much that is unique to Google's interviews. The only thin…

> There is really not much that is unique to Google's interviews Having just gone through 10 days of on-site interviews (including two at Google), there are some things that are peculiar Google's process: - No talk about software engineering, - No talk about software design, - No talk about project management, working on a team, culture of any kind, caring about customers etc etc..., - No debugging, - No using unfami…

> It was the only place where I was given the option of doing all of my work on the whiteboard, too.

I just interviewed at Facebook, and I was only given the option of doing all my work on a whiteboard. I hate that medium for writing code (or any dense text, really).

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

#312

Post by ma2rten »

repsilat wrote: post #300
ma2rten wrote: post #231

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Disclaimer: I haven't read the article, but I work at Google. Most interviewers will ask the same question to multiple candidates. They will compare how you the candidate is doing compared to other candidates on the same question. Most interviewers will provide hints. I'm pretty sure that all candidates go though the same interview process. There is really not much that is unique to Google's interviews. The only thin…

> There is really not much that is unique to Google's interviews Having just gone through 10 days of on-site interviews (including two at Google), there are some things that are peculiar Google's process: - No talk about software engineering, - No talk about software design, - No talk about project management, working on a team, culture of any kind, caring about customers etc etc..., - No debugging, - No using unfami…

I interviewed at Facebook, Snapchat, Apple, Pinterest, LinkedIn and startups. The coding interviews were exactly the same. This was less than 3 years ago.

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

#313

Post by skybrian »

philwelch wrote: post #297
crdoconnor wrote: post #267

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Package management is a task filled with subtle pitfalls that is much, much harder than it looks on the surface. It's a lot like syncing files - e.g. how Dropbox looked similarly deceptively easy to build but really wasnt. IMHO the fact that the homebrew guy didn't get hired and that golang package management was a dumpster fire for years isn't coincidental. Both were part and parcel of a systemic bias that plagues G…

Google doesn’t do package management well because they don’t do package management at all; they have a monorepo. If anything, the systematic bias is that Google built their way around an entire class of problems that others still face.

This has something to do with why the Go team waited so long to solve package management. Having little experience with it, they tried leaving it to the community.

But I don't think you can generalize to the whole company. For example, the Dart package manager is pretty nice.

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

#314

Post by simonebrunozzi »

I've been interviewed by Google dozens of times over the past 7-8 or so years, have received two written offers and one verbal one.

First, I always refused the offer.

Second, the process has always been full of very disappointing flaws.

I know that interviews at big companies can be screwed, but among the top ones, I doubt any company is as terrible as Google is.

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

#315

Post by nappy-doo »

simonebrunozzi wrote: post #314

I've been interviewed by Google dozens of times over the past 7-8 or so years, have received two written offers and one verbal one. First, I always refused the offer. Second, the process has always been full of very disappointing flaws. I know that interviews at big companies can be screwed, but among the top ones, I doubt any company is as terrible as Google is.

why do you keep interviewing then?

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

#316

Post by nappy-doo »

esoterica wrote: post #65

Anyone who interviews at a "prestigious" company and then complains about how difficult the interview is kind of hypocritical. Google, and other FAANGs/unicorns, make you solve hard algorithms questions because they believe - correctly or wrongly - that in order to succeed as a company they have to filter out the vast majority of candidates who have poor algorithmic skills. They also pay a lot of money because that's…

> filter out the vast majority of candidates who have poor algorithmic skills

No. Google, FB, interview this way because you don't have the skills on their stack, and this is the common denominator. (Source: I'm an engineer/manager at multiple FAANGs for the last decade.)

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

#317

Post by repsilat »

vonmoltke wrote: post #311
repsilat wrote: post #300

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There is really not much that is unique to Google's interviews Having just gone through 10 days of on-site interviews (including two at Google), there are some things that are peculiar Google's process: - No talk about software engineering, - No talk about software design, - No talk about project management, working on a team, culture of any kind, caring about customers etc etc..., - No debugging, - No using unfami…

> It was the only place where I was given the option of doing all of my work on the whiteboard, too. I just interviewed at Facebook, and I was only given the option of doing all my work on a whiteboard. I hate that medium for writing code (or any dense text, really).

Hmm. I programmed on my own laptop (and ran the code) at Instacart, Apple, Airbnb, Dropbox, Stripe, Cruise, Flexport and Benchling. Late September/October this year.

At Google I wasn't allowed to bring my laptop, but they let me "program" in a text editor with syntax highlighting and automatic indentation. Most of the interviewers hadn't seen that before though.

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

#318

Post by JustSomeNobody »

ender7 wrote: post #145
onion2k wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This means that the interviewer is just as eager to find evidence for a positive score as a negative one -- there isn't an incentive to "getcha" with cheap or tricky questions. This is only true if the interviewer is uninterested in what happens after the hiring process. If they want to make sure they're winning a reputation doing great interviews for more good hires than bad hires then there's an incentive to be cau…

Such a feedback loop -- of identifying which interviewers give the "most accurate" scores -- doesn't exist. Nor is it clear how you would build such a system (how do you quantify a "bad hire" or "good hire" in such a way that isn't lost in the noise?). Interviewers are trusted to do the best job they can. Remember, interviewing is volunteer work, not something that will advance your career. The results of the intervi…

> Nor is it clear how you would build such a system (how do you quantify a "bad hire" or "good hire" in such a way that isn't lost in the noise?).

Sounds like a good interview question.

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

#319

Post by dgacmu »

JeremyBanks wrote: post #228
esoterica wrote: post #65

Anyone who interviews at a "prestigious" company and then complains about how difficult the interview is kind of hypocritical. Google, and other FAANGs/unicorns, make you solve hard algorithms questions because they believe - correctly or wrongly - that in order to succeed as a company they have to filter out the vast majority of candidates who have poor algorithmic skills. They also pay a lot of money because that's…

We’re not complaining that they’re difficult, we’re complaining that they’re stupid and a poor measure. This isn’t jealousy: I was hired by Google twice, but comparing my interviews and outcomes with friends and later coworkers, it seems like I just got luckier twice, and they dropped some way more talented people on the floor. The process is a total crapshoot, but like many things at the company nobody senior enough…

It's not really a crapshoot: It's a process with relatively few false positives and a fair number of false negatives. You and your "more-talented" friends are likely all above bar by some perspective on it, and the process let a subset of those through. It's imperfect (the number of false negatives is obviously higher than desirable), but that doesn't mean it's random.

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

#320

Post by jakelarkin »

Hysterisis wrote: post #130
jakelarkin wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

speaking of misspresentation, i never said youre "asked" a pure algorithm question only that the timely implementation is a necessary component of succeeding

thanks for explaining how coding interviews work to me thou, really had no idea based on the 200 i've administered in recent years or dozens taken in my career.

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