Google stopping coding competitions • Hacker News Board

Re: Google stopping coding competitions

#331

Post by apetresc » Sat, Feb 25, 2023, 11:49 PM UTC

jrm4 wrote: post #309

apetresc wrote: post #195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The CEO is answerable to the shareholders, who do get paid when the company makes money.

Right. A few more people that I also don't care about because I'm not one of them.

Well, millions of Americans are one of them, either directly or through their index funds, retirement funds, etc. When you said "I don't care", I assume you meant "I" as a representative of some larger public class.

Surely you understand that jrm4's interests, specifically, don't factor much into corporate/national decision-making?

Re: Google stopping coding competitions

#332

Post by sbrother » Mon, Feb 27, 2023, 6:32 AM UTC

vineyardmike wrote: post #266

sbrother wrote: post #196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One thing that complicates this is that Google (and probably the rest of FAANG but I don’t have experience there) is happy to severely downlevel people versus the positions they could get elsewhere. They also aggressively cut compensation if you live outside of SF/NYC. I’ve done a couple stints as an L4 SWE at Google and it is one of the worst paying places I’ve worked - but that’s because I’m comparing it to larger…

> I’ve done a couple stints as an L4 SWE at Google I’m curious. Does this mean you’ve left Google and returned multiple times at the same level while having better jobs elsewhere? Not to be critical but why? (I ask because I’m considering returning to old places down/equileveled after being laid off somewhere and curious your reasons)

Yep, that’s exactly what I did. I came back during COVID (after leaving to move away from an office five years prior) and chose to return at the level I left at rather than deal with leetcode interviews. It was a rough personal time for me (two kids under five during COVID daycare shutdowns) and I wanted the stability/benefits of the big G, and didn’t want to take the risk of an interview that I didn’t have time/energy to prepare for.

I feel a little bit bad because I very much used their benefits and then left again to go to a more appropriately leveled job. But going back to L4 at a megacorp was kind of mind numbing, and the compensation got so bad after the stock drop and location based pay cuts that I couldn’t justify staying any longer.

Re: Google stopping coding competitions

#333

Post by UltimateEdge » Mon, Feb 27, 2023, 1:49 PM UTC

ghuysmans wrote: post #300

pdhborges wrote: post #110

Is there a backup for all the problems and solutions?

I'm working on tools to backup problems and analyses, including images and sample inputs: https://github.com/ghuysmans/ccwg-archive . Their API is open.

Do you know any other projects working on something like this? I imagine most commenters here would be very grateful for a google competition archive. The reason I'm asking is that I'm very surprised to see your repo/project with so little attention (in this thread and on GitHub).

Re: Google stopping coding competitions

#334

Post by donnie12345 » Sat, Mar 04, 2023, 5:50 AM UTC

moira11 wrote: post #301

eastWestMath wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah I’ve always been a bit leery of code competitions. I saw a lot of undergrads spend a lot of effort on these contests, and I was never convinced it was the best use of their time (especially because the university I did my graduate studies at had a professor who put a lot of effort into running the competitive programming club). I think a group of 15-20 bright and enthusiastic CS students under the guidance of a…

Such contests seem to be just a fun way to get students interested in algorithmics. Many of those who become passionate about Computer Science due to competitive programming go on to get PhD in CS and contribute with their research. Some highlights among Code Jam winners: Tiancheng Lou (won Code Jam in 2008 and 2009, went on to earn his PhD from Tsinghua University in 2012, currently start-up co-founder and CTO), Mar…

There is no correlation between a person's ability to solve such problems and his ability to do research.

Re: Google stopping coding competitions

#335

Post by donnie12345 » Sat, Mar 04, 2023, 5:53 AM UTC

lwneal wrote: post #115

blindriver wrote: post #18

Thank you Sundar for getting rid of the frivolous, Silicon-Valley-esque things like coding competitions for kids, extricating all of the humanity and decency that made Google so inefficient with money, and for doubling down on your focus to turn Google into the next iteration of Cisco, Oracle and IBM. It's exactly what this world needs, so you are the perfect leader for this.

Sundar is the Steve Ballmer of Google. And that's fine! Ballmer was a competent if uninspiring CEO: Microsoft under his leadership missed many new opportunities, but still made lots of money. Most importantly, Ballmer's tenure is what made it possible for Satya Nadella to pivot Microsoft into what it is today. Realistically, Windows Phone was never going to beat Apple, Bing was not going to beat Google, Yammer was no…

All these companies are built on exploitation of cheap labour