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Google's “Director of Engineering” Hiring Test

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Re: Google's “Director of Engineering” Hiring Test

#401

Post by edanm »

jknoepfler wrote: post #176
edanm wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This strikes me as an entirely trivial point, the meaning of the question was pretty clear. It wasn't "what is the literal return value". Many APIs will return error codes, and people still talk about them as "returning" certain values colloquially. Of course, if the OP's answer would've been "it returns an error code :) but I assume you're talking about..." I would think that's fine. Btw, that is the only thing I re…

There's a precise distinction, and thinking about it as "returning" anything other than an error code is chummy human thinking rather than the sort of precise knowledge the test was (supposedly) looking for. The question was actually worse than asking "I'm thinking of a number between 1 and 10, what is it?" because rather than applying a random filter to candidates, it punished the candidate for having precise knowle…

Yes, but we are all chummy humans with our chummy human thinking :) We are generally gifted with the ability of shorthand, context, and understanding that surpasses a purely technical understanding of words, and this is exactly the kind of situation where that helps.

I personally wouldn't want to work with someone who wasn't able to understand what I mean (in such an obvious case, at least) and wasn't able to answer to that meaning.

(Of course, I'd also personally prefer someone who would point out that this is inaccurate, but do so in a charming and off-hand way, to make me feel comfortable. A high bar, maybe, but for a director that's definitely a bar they should clear).

Re: Google's “Director of Engineering” Hiring Test

#403

Post by protomyth »

sfrailsdev wrote: post #392
joesmo wrote: post #270

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yup, those are SRE questions, but the fact that Google didn't interview him for the position he applied for makes them out to be even bigger idiots than I had them pegged at for using SRE questions on a director role. Regardless, just having such a stupid process exposed reflects badly on Google. In my own experience, Google isn't even able to call at the scheduled time so, while not the worst interviewers ever, they…

From what I've heard, google intentionally screws with timing, who you will be speaking to, and other factors in order to try to understand how you deal with changes in circumstances.

If that's true (and I would love to know if it is), then Google should know that is a big no-no in a lot of cultures, and there are much better ways to test for it. Some still hold the broken word to be an indication of people you don't want to deal with, ever.

Re: Google's “Director of Engineering” Hiring Test

#404

Post by odbol_ »

potatolicious wrote: post #375
DannyBee wrote: post #152

FWIW: As a director of engineering for Google, who interviews other directors of engineering for Google, none of these are on or related to the "director of engineering" interview guidelines or sheets. These are bog standard SWE-SRE questions (particularly, SRE) at some companies, so my guess is he was really being evaluated for a normal SWE-SRE position. IE maybe he applied to a position labeled director of engineer…

Disclaimer: I also work for Google, opinions are my own, etc etc. > "i always take "transcripts" of interviews (or anything else) with a grain of salt" I mean sure, a single instance of this might be overblown, exaggerated, or false in some way. But there is an avalanche of reports like this, to the point where it's become widespread industry insider knowledge. I enjoy working here, but the interviewing practices are…

The problem with Google's interview methods is that they all select for a very specific type of programmer: heavily math oriented, deep knowledge of obscure Computer Science theory, but not one test on knowledge of languages, architecture, design, or actual real-world problem solving. I walked into an interview with one guy and he literally did not even say hello: he just jumped straight into some problem I had to solve on the whiteboard.

The problem with that approach is you end up with a very homogenous team of really smart, logical people, but without the balance of more creative, empathic types. Ideally, a well-functioning team will have both, and will have people from many different backgrounds and educations, because that's when you get true collaboration and innovation: by mixing unrelated disciplines.

Re: Google's “Director of Engineering” Hiring Test

#406

Post by ryukafalz »

throwaway2016a wrote: post #276
lucb1e wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I mean who would know just how long a MAC address is? Uh, my main languages are PHP and Python (high level stuff) and I'm a student (not someone with 10 years of experience) but I knew that. 3 bytes for the vendor block, 3 bytes for the device. > Or what the actual SYN/ACK etc tcp flags are? Yeah the actual bytes, who ever uses that? A MAC address I've seen plenty of times in my life as hex, and I've seen the TCP s…

> I'm a student (not someone with 10 years of experience) but I knew that. 3 bytes for the vendor block, 3 bytes for the device. That is why you know the answer. Come back in 10 years and let us know if you still know it. What you think might be mainstream in a computer science class are rarely used in application. And if they are they can be easily looked up. I used to know the exact effective distance of a CATV cab…

I don't have the length of a MAC address memorized (because why would I need to?), but I know what one looks like, so I can pretty quickly work it out in my head. A hex digit is four bits...

Maybe 10 years from now I'll have forgotten everything about the hex/binary/octal representations of numbers, but I certainly hope not!

Re: Google's “Director of Engineering” Hiring Test

#407

Post by raverbashing »

ozgung wrote: post #368
DannyBee wrote: post #152

FWIW: As a director of engineering for Google, who interviews other directors of engineering for Google, none of these are on or related to the "director of engineering" interview guidelines or sheets. These are bog standard SWE-SRE questions (particularly, SRE) at some companies, so my guess is he was really being evaluated for a normal SWE-SRE position. IE maybe he applied to a position labeled director of engineer…

So you're saying Google's recruiters don't tell what position they are interviewing for and that they found a 20+ years experienced engineering manager holding patents on computer networking under-qualified for an ordinary site maintenance position. Well, that sounds like a dumb recruitment process.

It seems to me parent's answer only reflects the general attitude at Google: they don't question anything they do, they don't do "customer support" and they don't display humility

Yes, I'm not expecting the conversation to have been exactly that, but it shows problems regardless.

Re: Google's “Director of Engineering” Hiring Test

#408

Post by nothis »

chrismorgan wrote: post #131
ryandrake wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What are the components that make up a color? "Well, it depends what color model you are using, which differentiates between additive and subtractive color mixing, the medium used (print, screen, etc.)... No. It's Red, Green, and Blue.

But hang on, the primary colours are red, yellow and blue! I know, they told me so in primary school.

Totally off topic (except for the fact that "correctness" of an answer can be a deeper problem than checking against a list) but when you look at how the cones in your eyes are connected to the brain to actually transfer color information it's indeed closer to Red-Green/Yellow-Blue (as described in Lab*). That's why we intuitively include yellow as a "primary color" even though you can just use RGB to describe it.

Re: Google's “Director of Engineering” Hiring Test

#409

Post by iconjack »

lordnacho wrote: post #13

I'm amazed he knew things in such detail. I mean who would know just how long a MAC address is? Or what the actual SYN/ACK etc tcp flags are? You just need to know what they're used for, and if you need the specifics, you'll find out with a single search. He seemed to know that as well though. Kernighan for bit twiddling algos, that kind of thing. It's a bit strange to have someone non-technical interviewing a techie…

Who would know just how long a MAC address is? Jeez man, these things are literally written as 6 bytes separated by colons. Asking a network engineer this question is about like asking a postman how long a zipcode is.

Re: Google's “Director of Engineering” Hiring Test

#410

Post by lucb1e »

throwaway2016a wrote: post #276
lucb1e wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I mean who would know just how long a MAC address is? Uh, my main languages are PHP and Python (high level stuff) and I'm a student (not someone with 10 years of experience) but I knew that. 3 bytes for the vendor block, 3 bytes for the device. > Or what the actual SYN/ACK etc tcp flags are? Yeah the actual bytes, who ever uses that? A MAC address I've seen plenty of times in my life as hex, and I've seen the TCP s…

> I'm a student (not someone with 10 years of experience) but I knew that. 3 bytes for the vendor block, 3 bytes for the device. That is why you know the answer. Come back in 10 years and let us know if you still know it. What you think might be mainstream in a computer science class are rarely used in application. And if they are they can be easily looked up. I used to know the exact effective distance of a CATV cab…

> What you think might be mainstream in a computer science class are rarely used in application.

Uh actually my classes didn't teach me that. Side projects did.

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