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I keep reading about how bad Google's interview process is. But has anyone done any proper large scale research on what is the best way to hire software engineers? All the comments here seems like opinions of people based on themselves and no one provides a proper alternative. Just curious!
I'm reminded of an amusing rant by Adam Carolla: "I had no idea how… f*ckin horrible most people are at their jobs." https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i6GVt35Eoz4 Definitely includes tech-interviewers. As I get older I've started pushing back on these bad interview decisions, but can't help feel it's a losing proposition without support from fellow developers.
Can you give a couple examples of questions you’ve pushed back on? How and why did you do so?
On the other hand, I haven't declined any that are given as homework, except one where the guy said it would take 8-10 hours. Two years ago was the most recent time someone asked about my "greatest weakness" and I simply lol'd.
So, while I realize the content of the questions themselves could be problematic, that's not generally what I push back on. Perhaps if the question was totally off the wall rather than merely a gotcha.
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There aren't millions of high IQ people applying and vying to work at Google.
You decided to latch on to one possible inaccuracy in what I said and disregard the overall point. Even if we agree that millions is not correct, 100s of thousands or thousands of people? Point is for every 1 qualified person hired at Google there are probably 100s of (at the very least) qualified people rejected. So Google can be unbelievably picky before any they see any bad effect from their hazing interviews on t…
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You decided to latch on to one possible inaccuracy in what I said and disregard the overall point. Even if we agree that millions is not correct, 100s of thousands or thousands of people? Point is for every 1 qualified person hired at Google there are probably 100s of (at the very least) qualified people rejected. So Google can be unbelievably picky before any they see any bad effect from their hazing interviews on t…
I didn't disregard your overall point, I just made a comment that didn't happen to relate to it.
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I didn't disregard your overall point, I just made a comment that didn't happen to relate to it.
My bad, I apologize if it was rude, it just came across like that to me.
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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.
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Before an onsite? That's a reasonable range.
At Google? L5 is a reasonable terminal level there, as in you can have a successful career and never go beyond L5, and no one will bat an eye. L6 is a senior position, and not just in terms of title.
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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 agree, to some extent. It's not terribly difficult to make a package manager. But it's a strong positive signal: it's hard for someone who is really bad at software to design a popular system like that. Also, it's unlikely for someone who is a really bad employee to take the initiative to even execute a task like that. Regardless, I don't think qualifications like this should bypass the interview. The author almost…
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Same in 2006 when I joined. Yet the myth just never dies.
See comment from gedy elsewhere in the thread. Multiple people have pointed out these kinds of questions being asked well past 2006. Since there is no incentive for a large number of engineers to cook up stories about their interview experience at Google, I am calling this smoke as having some fire behind it.
This is an open internet forum for anyone to type anything they feel like in. Of course, as far as you know, I might be an Uzbeki 12-year old, so that argument only goes so far...
I can imagine that Google interviews for other roles than Software Engineers can have any kind of wacky questions. But mostly these stories sound so much like the stories that used to go around about Microsoft interviewing, only with the company name switched, that I have to think it has to do with their inherent virality somehow.
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See comment from gedy elsewhere in the thread. Multiple people have pointed out these kinds of questions being asked well past 2006. Since there is no incentive for a large number of engineers to cook up stories about their interview experience at Google, I am calling this smoke as having some fire behind it.
But what's the incentive for a large number of Google engineers to surreptitiously ask questions of a style that's explicitly banned? I think there is incentive for failed interviewees to cook up stories - or at least to tell something very one-sided - because none of us like to believe we failed at something and feel better if we persuade ourselves it was stacked against us.