Very hostile to deaf and handicapped folks
Google's interview system: it's not about solving the problem
391–400 of 432 posts
Re: Google's interview system: it's not about solving the problem
#392I wonder if they have done the experiment where after some basic screening, a relevant work history and decent personality that if you just randomly admit them if they do just as well as anyone else. You could still do the algorithm problem solving style interviews but just don't make a rejection decision based on them. The idea here would be to randomly approve people who would normally be rejected and see if they d…
That’s sounds like a very interesting, expensive, and borderline unethical experiment. I don’t think it’s fair to play with people’s lives like that, and firing those who don’t work out sounds like a nightmare, but I’d love to see the data that would come out of such a study.
Maybe.. the hypothesis is whether these algorithm problem solving whiteboard interviews test and predict job performance. Plenty of people have argued that they don't. The anecdotal evidence is that they don't.. because the people who fail these interviews are still gainfully employed elsewhere in tech jobs. Google should have some evidence that they do, or else it's a waste of time (although not necessarily for all jobs). I don't disagree with these whiteboard problem solving interviews because they test basically whether you can think like a computer scientist which may be the primary skill they want. There must be a correlation between thinks like a computer scientist and can program. But I think there are plenty of folks who can program even though they don't think like a computer scientist.
Re: Google's interview system: it's not about solving the problem
#393Very hostile to deaf and handicapped folks once they’ve passed all four segments: The interview process
Re: Google's interview system: it's not about solving the problem
#394Anyone 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…
> They also pay a lot of money because that's the only way to attract enough candidates who can pass their hiring bar. If they stopped asking hard interview questions and increased their candidate acceptance rate they wouldn't need to pay people 300k/year to fill their open positions. I have 16 years of total experience. Their initial offer to me indicated they thought I would take $231k/year for the privilege of wor…
Maybe you just got a low offer and didn't perform to the standard they expected. Sometimes the companies give a lower offer because you didn't perform at the level they were expecting. (e.g. Performing at senior instead of staff)
Check out levels.fyi.
Re: Google's interview system: it's not about solving the problem
#395I've interviewed three times in the last five or so years there, and I don't get the feeling the depth is as claimed in the article. Perhaps, it's also the interviewers not implementing it as intended. If these points were indeed important, I'd expect feedback addressing them. All feedback I received was about doing well or not well on certain questions. No meta whatsoever. I didn't make it for good reasons, but I fe…
the typing thing is a killer- they practically have to transcribe the entire thing so there is 0% chance of making any kind of human connection with your potential coworker.
the typing kind of defeats the whole "understand what it feels like to work with you on a daily basis" goal.
Re: Google's interview system: it's not about solving the problem
#396Earlier quoted context omitted.
I always see this trotted out as proof of how bad Google’s interview process is, and I always wonder: what makes people think creating homebrew was particularly difficult or impressive? Package managers are a dime a dozen. It has also never been conclusively explained what “invert a binary tree” means (see the tweet a sibling comment linked to — that’s what the Homebrew guy claimed he wasn’t hired for not being able…
I love how you belittle one of the most successful package manager systems out there.. We can apply the same logic to almost anything.. Because nothing is truly original and "difficult/impressive" are pretty broad metrics. Feel free to give us your definition. Software engineering is about building functional systems for humans. Quite frankly, Google needs to hire more people that are able to deliver products that ac…
so much this!
in my job i've dealt with dozens of Google engineers across a few teams... 95%+ of the time I don't get useful answers, and sometimes no answer at all. We have found many bugs in their systems, as well as broken API endpoints that did not work as advertised. Dealing with one issue right now that no one at google has been able to assist with in over 12 months. Of course with all the turn around on some teams, the issues just keep getting passed to the next guy.
they are by far the worst of the FAANG-level engineering teams we deal with, competency is severely lacking.
Re: Google's interview system: it's not about solving the problem
#397Earlier quoted context omitted.
You’re purposefully misrepresenting what I said to satisfy your preconceptions.
speaking of misspresentation, i never said youre "asked" a pure algorithm question only that the timely implementation is a necessary component of succeeding thanks for explaining how coding interviews work to me thou, really had no idea based on the 200 i've administered in recent years or dozens taken in my career.
Maintaining your level of aggression and resentment can’t be healthy.
Re: Google's interview system: it's not about solving the problem
#398Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's not downvoted.
It was.
But it’s not anymore. For all we know it was just a single early downvote, but your comment criticised the whole community. The guidelines ask us not to make comments about downvoting, as they make for boring, shitty discussions like this, and because a downvoted state on a comment is often temporary, whereas a discussion about it is permanent.
Re: Google's interview system: it's not about solving the problem
#399Earlier quoted context omitted.
That’s sounds like a very interesting, expensive, and borderline unethical experiment. I don’t think it’s fair to play with people’s lives like that, and firing those who don’t work out sounds like a nightmare, but I’d love to see the data that would come out of such a study.
Maybe.. the hypothesis is whether these algorithm problem solving whiteboard interviews test and predict job performance. Plenty of people have argued that they don't. The anecdotal evidence is that they don't.. because the people who fail these interviews are still gainfully employed elsewhere in tech jobs. Google should have some evidence that they do, or else it's a waste of time (although not necessarily for all…
I don't think whiteboard interviews do show one can "think like a computer scientist." What they might show is that one can recognize that a toy problem can be solved by some algorithm that was research paper-worthy some years ago. Do you think the authors of those papers wrote them, or came up with the fundamental algorithms in 45 minutes?
Regardless, what companies should be looking for is "can this person do the job." "Can this person think like a computer scientist" is a poor proxy for most jobs. It would be more appropriate to want to find out "can this person think like a software engineer," but, instead, we get "can this person regurgitate problem 257 from LeetCode."
I would argue that the negative signal is probably pretty high from this style of interview. That is, you're unlikely to have someone who's capable of writing down a nontrivial piece of code who can't actually write any code. But, the positive signal, the "can this person do the job" signal, is very very low.
I'll give you an example of a question I've been asked multiple times in a 45-60 minute interview: implement a text-based connect 4 game.
This is a totally valid programming task. That's why it's an assignment in some beginning CS classes. Without such tight time pressure and scrutiny as an interview implies, I would expect any working software engineer to be able to come up with working code in a fairly short period of time. Under interview conditions, where one has to not only come up with working code, but chatter constantly while doing so, it becomes a lot harder, simply because one has to multitask a little. Writing code and talking about it simultaneously is hard, and it's not a skill that's necessary to the vast majority of software engineer positions. Writing down tricky algorithms on a whiteboard without notes is not a skill that's necessary to any occupation as far as I can tell.
Re: Google's interview system: it's not about solving the problem
#400Earlier quoted context omitted.
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).
I'm deeply unimpressed with Google's hiring process (I think it works for them because their roles are coveted, not because it's especially good). But you haven't established that their process is "arbitrary", only that it's inconsistent. In particular: I don't see any evidence you've provided that "Googliness" is the reason one of your peers got to skip phone screens.