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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

#371

Post by ganeshkrishnan »

xorcist wrote: post #201
ganeshkrishnan wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is really absurd question to ask. Besides kill -s SIGTERM or even htop does the job. But like other commenters have pointed out the questions really depends on the person as there is no specific decided questions.

I sympathize with the general idea however this specific question isn't very representative of it. Signals 9 and 15 and much more well known by their respective value than their symbolic name. They are everywhere in program output and log files and if those things are your daily work then you recognize this whether you want to or not. It's like if you have touched computer code in any language then you probably know…

default of kill is SIGTERM so most devs wouldnt even remember the value of SIGTERM and SIGKILL=9 but this is in all ways an absurd question to ask.

A bit more relevant would be what's the difference between this two

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

#372

Post by simonebrunozzi »

nappy-doo wrote: post #315
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?

Mostly because I trusted ex-colleagues that "this time will be different".

I stopped interviewing with them, forever.

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

#373

Post by mychael »

DannyBee wrote: post #363
mychael wrote: post #360

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Whether you work there or not, I'm afraid you are misinformed. Three of my friends (all similar backgrounds) interviewing at Google this year have had completely different interviewing experiences. One even bypassed the phone screen and was flown to Mountain View for an IRL technical screening/interview. These are all for the same role. How does your data reconcile that?

Errr, i'm really unsure of the point you are trying to make and thus can't actually formulate a response. Is it: You think they should have had exactly the same experience/path? Regardless, any of the points i can think of don't really seem that relevant to your original point and my response. Did you respond to the wrong subthread?

I don't see the confusion. I'm saying its inconsistent and arbitrary. You're saying it is not.

I'm providing an example as to how it is inconsistent (friends experience) as well as an a priori rationale for why it's arbitrary (e.g Googliness is a fuzzy criterion that allows interviewers to make any arbitrary call).

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

#374

Post by mixmastamyk »

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…

> are plenty of crappy CRUD shops that won't ask you to enumerate palindromic primes.

Nope, every shop has convinced themselves they are changing the world, and do ask these questions, often on codepad.io. Even greeting card companies, hah.

I do contract work and interview often. Not one single place in the last two years hasn't tried these highly inefficient tactics on me.

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

#375

Post by mixmastamyk »

guiomie wrote: post #327
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…

I cant believe this flavor of an answer has to be rewritten every single time FAANG salaries are discussed here. Reading the replies to this thread, lot of bitter people. I myself did not feel like relearning all my undergrad CS problems, so I simply never applied to FAANG engineering job, that simple. They do it this way because they can, they have to weed out 99% of candidates, they are hiring for software engineer…

The problem is the rest of the industry looks to these companies for best practices and then proceed to cargo-cult them. If you think they can be avoided by applying to a greeting card or healthcare company instead, well I've got news for you.

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

#376

Post by fizwhiz »

rademacher wrote: post #351
fizwhiz wrote: post #347

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As someone who conducts interviews frequently on behalf of Google, I'm in a position to categorically reject your claim that someone with {PRESTIGIOUS_COMPANY_X || INDUSTRY_REPUTATION} is given an easier path. Please note that I haven't interviewed anyone with 30+ years of experience (yet) and I only interview candidates for SWE roles (not Research Scientist roles) so view my experience from that lens since because I…

I wasn't implying that the interview was easier for candidates with recognizable track records. Perhaps two sigma was not restrictive enough. I was merely suggesting that if a candidate has domain expertise and it is well known, that they may not subjected to the same leetcode hoop jumping as the bulk. Do you really want to remove bias for experienced candidates with a track record of substantial and nontrivial contr…

> I was merely suggesting that if a candidate has domain expertise and it is well known, that they may not subjected to the same leetcode hoop jumping as the bulk.

To put in bluntly, if you are such a candidate you are expected to know your algorithms cold and be expected to field your domain specific questions. So if you're a well-known compiler designer you would still need to know how to wield algorithms/datastructures for parts of the interview loop and then get into detail about compilers in the domain-specific parts of the loop.

That being said, it totally depends on the position you're interviewing for. If you're interviewing for Director/VP role in an engineering ladder, then some of the interview will need to be repurposed to getting signals about leadership and impact. That doesn't mean that you don't code at all though, it just means that the focus/weightage will be moved towards other dimensions (in addition to evaluating your system design and coding skills).

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

#377

Post by mixmastamyk »

Kurtz79 wrote: post #291
residentfoam wrote: post #64

I have recently interviewed at most of these companies, eventually managed to get some good offers at some of them, but let's be honest, I had to invest months in getting prep for the tech screening, whiteboard coding exercise and the whole non-sense jazz. I am sick of reading this blog posts because everyone knows, that is not how the majority of these interviews are conducted. I have more than 10 years of experienc…

As much as I agree that the process is bullshit, it is no different than studying for an exam, something we took for granted during school, just as a mean to an end (a degree), except that in this case there is arguably a much higher ratio of payoff/effort. There is no mystery involved, one of the more known books on the subject is "Cracking the Coding Interview", but really there is no mystery to crack. There is a t…

> it is no different than studying for an exam

From subject matter taken from multiple 4 year degree fields. Science, engineering, theory, implementation, data XYZ, project management, sys admin…

Never happens at Uni, because it would be impossible. 99% of folks would fail, like they do in tech interviews.

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

#378

Post by mixmastamyk »

jpatokal wrote: post #184
hueving wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>The system is _highly_ prejudiced towards suppressing false positives. This is the right decision, This is textbook Google propaganda that has been repeated at least since I last worked there 5ish years ago. It's bullshit though because the ratio of competent to incompetent engineers was the same as at FB, MSFT and NFLX (with the latter tending to prune the fastest). Just because you generate a system that spits out…

All the FAANGs operate under a very similar hiring model, because they all get far more applicants than they can hire and can afford to have a high rate of false negatives. "Everybody" can't adopt it even if they wanted to, because your average business doesn't get a million applications a year.

> "Everybody" can't adopt it

Oh, but they can and do. The difference between 100 and 1000 resumes is not material—both too many to look at. What I've found is those in the second bracket simply throw out those without a degree and then cargo-cult common practice.

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

#379

Post by gawkface »

brobdingnagians wrote: post #242
minimaxir wrote: post #225

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That 2015 tweet ( https://twitter.com/mxcl/status/608682016205344768?s=21 ) helped popularize the Google Interview memes, but things like Cracking the Code Interview still existed long before then.

One of the reply tweets linked an allegorical article about the pitfalls of whiteboard interviewing that I enjoyed quite a bit: http://www.unlimitednovelty.com/2011/12/can-you-solve-this-p...

That creme brulee article was delicious, thanks for sharing!!
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