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Google's “Director of Engineering” Hiring Test

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Re: Google's “Director of Engineering” Hiring Test

#321
post #278

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1) His level of knowledge is reasonable for someone who does networking programming full time 2) We are getting description from him. When I interviewed at Google, they asked me to prove that P is equal to NP, and I did, but they said that it took me longer than allotted 45 minutes and I didn't get an offer.

You proved P = NP??? In a little more than 45 mins or did you misunderstand the question?

His point was that, hearing only one side of the story, the OP could claim whatever they wanted.

Re: Google's “Director of Engineering” Hiring Test

#322

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Medical Recruiter: "What are mitochondria?" Applicant Doctor: "They're double membrane-bound organelles found in all eukaryotic organisms, commonly between 0.75 and 3μm in diameter, that generate most of the cell's supply of adenosine triphosphate" Recruiter: "No. They are the powerhouse of the cell".

I get it, but do doctors really know what the size of mitochondria are? I can't think of anything any further from the realm of their day to day.

everybody who is a doctor aced intro to biology because they were premeds. That means they looked at plenty of cell bio pictures with mitochondria (properly scaled to the cell size).

Doctors know a ton of random crap tangentially related to their jobs that they were forced to memorize.

Re: Google's “Director of Engineering” Hiring Test

#324

Sounds like somebody very butthurt that did not bother to do a quick search and see that first call is with a recruiter who knows little or nothing about technology and is looking for exact-word answers.

So apart from giving the right answers, you now have to intelligently predict when to give wrong or suboptimal answers to account for the inadequacy of the interviewer? Not that I'm blaming the recruiter here because he/she was just trying to do his/her job, but come on. If I were in his shoes, I would be pissed off not because of failing to land the job but because of being told that I gave the "wrong answers" when…

As a director are you not required to be an interface between the technical and non-technical?

If you can't dumb it down you're just going to waste peoples time.

Re: Google's “Director of Engineering” Hiring Test

#325

I'm amazed he knew things in such detail. I mean who would know just how long a MAC address is? Or what the actual SYN/ACK etc tcp flags are? You just need to know what they're used for, and if you need the specifics, you'll find out with a single search. He seemed to know that as well though. Kernighan for bit twiddling algos, that kind of thing. It's a bit strange to have someone non-technical interviewing a techie…

Same things I thought. His answers are amazing!

Re: Google's “Director of Engineering” Hiring Test

#327
post #278

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1) His level of knowledge is reasonable for someone who does networking programming full time 2) We are getting description from him. When I interviewed at Google, they asked me to prove that P is equal to NP, and I did, but they said that it took me longer than allotted 45 minutes and I didn't get an offer.

You proved P = NP??? In a little more than 45 mins or did you misunderstand the question?

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Re: Google's “Director of Engineering” Hiring Test

#329
post #278

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1) His level of knowledge is reasonable for someone who does networking programming full time 2) We are getting description from him. When I interviewed at Google, they asked me to prove that P is equal to NP, and I did, but they said that it took me longer than allotted 45 minutes and I didn't get an offer.

You proved P = NP??? In a little more than 45 mins or did you misunderstand the question?

If I were asked that question, my answer would be that obviously P != NP because the former doesn't have an N at the front.

The pain of being tossed out onto the pavement would totally be worth it.

Re: Google's “Director of Engineering” Hiring Test

#330

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've had questions that drilled down into what bytes are in a TCP/IP packet on an interview. If you say you know about TCP/IP on a resume, it's fair game. FWIW I got all the bytes but the checksum; apparently no one ever remembers the checksum byte. :) What's completely wrong with the situation is that the recruiter was saying "wrong" when he was giving detailed answers. The right solution is to have a non-skilled re…

The right solution is to have a technical person conduct this test.

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