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A Wretched Google Interview Experience

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Re: A Wretched Google Interview Experience

#351

Post by tzs »

abalone wrote: post #256

Ok, the RealTimeCounter problem got me thinking. It's a great question. It seems very simple, but as the author notes even PhD's are stumped by it. Here my solution. One very important purpose it serves is to see how well you can identify problems in algorithms. Probably I'm guessing it's not even important that you get it perfect, just that you can recognize and talk through the challenges. One challenge relates to…

With a little extra hardware, you can get perfect accuracy and low memory usage even if increment is called as frequently as once per nanosecond. Google is big enough and rich enough to afford a little custom hardware.

Here's the hardware I want added to the computer running the counter server: 4 lasers capable of pulsed operation at a rate of up to one billion pulses per second with a pulse width under 0.1 nanoseconds, 4 light detectors capable of detecting such pulses, and 4 corner reflectors.

The corner reflectors shall be placed 1/2 light second, 30 light seconds, 30 light minutes, and 12 light hours away from the computer, and each laser aimed at a different one of the corner reflectors. The detectors should be placed next to the lasers so as to detect the return pulses from the corner reflectors.

The computer then maintains 4 counters. When increment is called, each of the counters is incremented, and a pulse is sent toward each corner reflector. The return pulses decrement the counters, with the detector associated with the first reflector detecting the one second counter, and so on.

I realize there are some practical problems here, such as one of the corner reflectors needing to be placed approximately 90 AU from the computer. Of course the path could be folded using reflectors, and maybe could be sent through a medium with a high index of refraction to further reduce the distance needed, but my guess is that it would still be a bit out of range of current technology.

Re: A Wretched Google Interview Experience

#352

Post by jnbiche »

eropple wrote: post #198
jnbiche wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wow, I've really got to look into Go. Sounds so easy.

What he's described is pretty trivially done in most modern languages/frameworks. I can write the same in C#, Scala or C++11--swapping greenlets for standard threads, which honestly is unlikely to be a perf concern--pretty trivially. The hardest of the above would be C++, because boost::threadpool isn't officially part of Boost--though it works fine--and otherwise you'd have to get a little creative with boost::threa…

Yeah, I realize you can accomplish the same result in almost any language, but not nearly as easily. It's the syntactic sugar that impressed me, and the fact that's it's such an integral part of the language.

Re: A Wretched Google Interview Experience

#353

Post by tomrod »

informatimago wrote: post #260
tomrod wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is topcoder?

Use google :-)

So I signed up for an account, yet I was still unable to decipher what exactly it is. It says its a network 100K strong of coders and has the occasional competition. But I'm not sure what content is there to occupy time spending a year "playing top coder".

Re: A Wretched Google Interview Experience

#354

Post by jaredsohn »

tomrod wrote: post #353
informatimago wrote: post #260

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Use google :-)

So I signed up for an account, yet I was still unable to decipher what exactly it is. It says its a network 100K strong of coders and has the occasional competition. But I'm not sure what content is there to occupy time spending a year "playing top coder".

I think the main page seems confusing because much it is targeted toward businesses looking to have the site's users develop projects via contests.

If you click on Community->Developer it gets a little less confusing and shows a variety of contests. You can find some algorithm contests at Competitions->Algorithm->Single Round Matches->Launch Arena.

When I try this, I get an error message related to Java. When I last used the site, I ended up installing Java WebStart, downloading a JAR file for the arena, and running the JAR file from the commandline.

Overall TopCoder seems like more of a hassle to get started with than it should; fortunately, other sites like YC-funded HackerRank exist, although I'm not sure how the actual content and community compare.

Re: A Wretched Google Interview Experience

#355

Post by tomrod »

jaredsohn wrote: post #354
tomrod wrote: post #353

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So I signed up for an account, yet I was still unable to decipher what exactly it is. It says its a network 100K strong of coders and has the occasional competition. But I'm not sure what content is there to occupy time spending a year "playing top coder".

I think the main page seems confusing because much it is targeted toward businesses looking to have the site's users develop projects via contests. If you click on Community->Developer it gets a little less confusing and shows a variety of contests. You can find some algorithm contests at Competitions->Algorithm->Single Round Matches->Launch Arena. When I try this, I get an error message related to Java. When I last…

Thanks Jared!

I enjoyed HackerRank, even though the coding problems weren't too far off the beaten path.

Re: A Wretched Google Interview Experience

#356

Post by mzs »

I had similar situation many years ago for a different large company. Two before lunch interviews, and I bombed one. Then the rest of the day's interviews seemed easier and I did splendidly. I felt great. A few days later, two job offers from that company, but not from the group I had originally hoped for. I passed and took another job I was more excited about the group I would be with. Later I knew a friend that worked there, he told me that they used the first two interviews to decide which track of second interviews you get after lunch. So then you are with other candidates for other jobs if you have not done in the top of the first round. Something like this may have happened to this fellow, just that the other candidates in the secondary track won out over him making an even better impression.

Re: A Wretched Google Interview Experience

#357

Post by abraham »

JonFish85 wrote: post #31
cromwellian wrote: post #12

I think this is very unfortunate. I've seen a lot of good candidates get rejected for no obvious reasons. The lack of communication seems driven I think by the sheer deluge of the number of resumes/interviews going on at Google, and what appears to be, a reliance on temps and contractors as part of the process. I had a friend who interviewed at Google, who is an excellent software engineer I've worked with for years,…

Why don't more people walk out of interviews? Especially if someone set you up to fail, quite literally: interviewing for the wrong job. It's a waste of my time, it's a waste of your time as a company. On top of that, if you're going to throw out dickish comments like the article states (paraphrase: "ask your friend, he'll know the answer"), I wouldn't stick around. Is that the atmosphere at the company? Agree or dis…

The people interviewing you are real people too and sometimes very interesting people. They don't choose what job you are interviewing for, they just get told to show up at a time/place and get a resume/job spec.

Re: A Wretched Google Interview Experience

#358

Post by zorpner »

zorpner wrote: post #194
doktrin wrote: post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you're at liberty to share : did your acquaintances also disclose the incidents during the hiring process, only to be terminated randomly once employed? If so, that is utterly appalling. Bad enough that it should happen once (to the parent), but repeated incidents would point to some gross organizational dysfunction.

One of them did, I know, unsure on the other. I'll inquire to see if they're interested in providing that information or joining this discussion.

I heard back -- the incident in question for the other person occurred as a minor, so they could have it removed from their record, but had not yet done so. They explained this to the recruiter (a Google employee), who told them it would not be a problem, and so they didn't get it removed. Then they lost their job. Grotesque.

Re: A Wretched Google Interview Experience

#359

Post by radiusq »

csbrooks wrote: post #345
bubbleRefuge wrote: post #300

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sue them on grounds that their negligence caused irreparable damage to your future earning prospects. Settle for a hundreds of K's. Use the money to launch a contracting career. Incorporate, do C2C contracts. Background checks are uncommon. Been at it for 2 years now and love it.

I suspect that having sued a previous employer might block off more future employment opportunities than a conviction record.

How would they know?
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