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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

#351

Post by protomyth »

ethbro wrote: post #343
perfmode wrote: post #324

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Third party apps wouldn't fail if they were correct in the first place. Failing gracefully on unexpected input is the way a competent engineer would structure their program.

Is there a functional difference between "my production code suddenly stopped processing work because it rejected a newly nullable input value" vs "my production code suddenly stopped processing work because it crashed on a newly nullable input value"?

If the crash gives an attack vector for a security threat then there is.

Personally, "Be conservative in what you do, be liberal in what you accept from others" is a bad policy in the modern world. It should be "Be conservative in what you do, be strict as if you don't trust them in what you accept from others".

Re: Why I Don’t Talk to Google Recruiters

#352

Post by sumeno »

ryandrake wrote: post #123
taway_1212 wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My logic is that if something needs to be actively sold (pushed via recruiters), it's most likely average at best. I'm betting that the best jobs don't go through recruiters (or maybe they do if that's the company-wide policy, but the hiring manager already has a candidate in mind when they posts the ad).

You've hit on a truth here. Most of the jobs available through recruiters are what I like to call "dog jobs". The ones that aren't filled internally and don't instantly get a line of top candidates because they are so good or pay so well--the ones that NEED someone to sell them. Those are the jobs that are available on job boards and that recruiters and are trying to fill--not the awesome ones. Think about it like th…

This assumes that the Venn diagram of "top candidates" and "people actively looking for jobs" overlaps significantly. The best candidate for a job may not be looking for a job so companies pay recruiters to find them.

If the quality that companies were getting from regular applications was better than the quality they get from their recruiters why would companies pay to have recruiters?

Re: Why I Don’t Talk to Google Recruiters

#353

Post by dekhn »

ubernostrum wrote: post #246
hueving wrote: post #202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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. This same exact argument could be used to require every interview candidate to know assembly. >and the person who likes to think about such things…

This same exact argument could be used to require every interview candidate to know assembly. You're not thinking big enough. My usual extension of the argument is to suggest that part of the interview process should be to give the candidate a bucket of sand and some ore, and make them smelt everything and build their own CPU from scratch. Because, y'know, it's important to cover fundamentals!

That sounds like a really fun interview. "Given a bucket of sand, build a machine that computes pi to the nth decimal".

(I'd give people extra credit for coming up with creative and interesting variants based on Buffon's needle, rather than building the full infrastructure to do lithography).

Re: Why I Don’t Talk to Google Recruiters

#354

Post by stcredzero »

sidlls wrote: post #287
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…

> 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 thing…

You must mean "some software projects" and not "frequently."

In the 2000's and prior, it was common knowledge that the majority of software projects failed. Even if they succeeded on paper and shipped, they weren't actually used. By some estimates, it was something like 75% of software projects.

If you look at the contents of "ecosystems" like Steam and the the various app stores, you'll see much the same. Most of the software out there is a defacto failure, and much of it is due to the ignorance of the programmers resulting in substandard programs.

Re: Why I Don’t Talk to Google Recruiters

#355

Post by nkassis »

Philipp__ wrote: post #227

Am I the only one that kinda forgets these kinds of stuff, like binary-tree-traversing? What I mean by that is that I forget the implementation (let's say in C) very often, and have to go back and look at text book/google/and spend time implementing it. While conceptually I can explain and present everything, at any time, and show you that I understand specific data structure and algorithm, it's use cases, strengths…

No you are not alone. The expectation is you've reviewed and practiced these subjects before going in. Hopefully with a few weeks of practice you should be able to remember them enough to write them out on a board. But yeah it can be thought, the interviews are stressful and not good for introvert candidates or those who struggle under pressure. (I'm in the latter group. practice helps).

It's not a great system but it's the best they have come up with so far. It's frustrating because it's got a high false negative rate. Failing it isn't a indication of you on the job skill.

Re: Why I Don’t Talk to Google Recruiters

#356

Post by dekhn »

davidw wrote: post #172
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…

> I'd rather hire someone who knows exactly why it's O(n^2) "How do we satisfy unlimited wants with limited resources?" - economics to the rescue again. Everyone would love to hire Linus Torvalds for that matter, but there are plenty of programming jobs where you don't really need to, or don't want to, or can't spend that kind of money. There are plenty of useful, productive positions for people who aren't up on thei…

I would not hire Linus Torvalds. For all his technical capability (which I've followed as a linux and git user for some 25 years now) many of his externally visible statements are not acceptable for any modern workplace (this has been discussed a number of times, I know people have differing opinions, but if Torvalds worked at a modern corporation with a real HR department, his words would get him in trouble.)

Re: Why I Don’t Talk to Google Recruiters

#357

Post by Apocryphon »

amorphid wrote: post #231
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…

Instead of requiring someone to know a b-tree, how about just teaching it to them in an interview, and then walking through an exercise to see if they get it? That'd be more impressive to me. If someone claims to know what a b-tree, test them on a more advanced concept that builds on using a b-tree that they are unlikely to know. Then teach them that and see if they get it. Make the interview more about working toget…

Definitely a good idea to decouple rote memorization from the interview process.

Re: Why I Don’t Talk to Google Recruiters

#358

Post by btilly »

ryandrake wrote: post #290
btilly wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 sho…

Yeah, I've seen those recruiters. And they tend to not be honest about who they are actually working for. So, for example, you'll get contacted by someone who is recruiting for a job at a big name company, from someone who isn't from that company and doesn't know what is actually available from there. They only know about the one role that they were told about.

These things are generally a mess if you start out that way. Waste of time and money on both sides.

Re: Why I Don’t Talk to Google Recruiters

#359

Post by SomeCallMeTim »

poikniok wrote: post #350
SomeCallMeTim wrote: post #271

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This same exact argument could be used to require every interview candidate to know assembly. ...because knowing assembly is actually useful to a high level developer? If it were, then yes, I'd say they should know assembly too. But I know assembly; I've written entire published games in assembly language. And yet I don't believe knowing it is actively useful any more. Knowing the basic concepts like how strings, i…

This is a great post and I completely agree, it is amusing however to note that Quora is known in the competitive programming community for having developers quite strong at algorithms, sometimes I guess that doesn't make it through to the software though.

I'd put money on the fact that those competitive programming Quora developers aren't working on the Android app. Or even on the Android/Mobile API back-end, which seems to fail frequently -- and lose information you've entered into the app, which doesn't do the obvious things like queuing up requests to be pushed later when they initially fail.

So. Much. Fail.

The Amazon Alexa/Echo app is similarly poorly programmed. Takes like 10 seconds just to boot up, which you need to do if you want to look at your shopping list -- and if the gets pushed to the background, you need to boot up the app again. Sigh.

Re: Why I Don’t Talk to Google Recruiters

#360

Post by unknown2374 »

lettersdigits wrote: post #310
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 th…

I don't think he/she means that they are worse. We all want to work with developers who can help us learn and get better. From what I understand, he/she just means that their process of hiring has no correlation to the quality of code that they produce. Their hiring process is incapable by design of hiring those people BASED on those skills he/she is looking to work with, but sometimes they do end up hiring capable engineers with no credit to their process.
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