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Google's “Director of Engineering” Hiring Test

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

#431

Post by dkonofalski »

Ph0X wrote: post #208
harryf wrote: post #196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I believe in the phone screen Google uses non-technical people to ask technical questions (as engineers are a scarce resource) so they're only able to handle "right or wrong" but you can probably work your way around that by being nice - this guy seemed to be being an ass...

I've had two phone screens with them and both times they were very technical people. Then again it was some time ago and with the bigger scale they may have changed it up. It is unfortunate, but as mentioned above, you need to just play the game until you get to the real part. It's like when I call customer support, I gotta play along with the non-technical people and get them to bump me up the chain to someone techn…

I'm glad that someone has some sense around here. I'm getting buried for saying the same thing. Everyone is making the assumption that the author of the post transcribed this interview instead of paraphrasing it. This was a culture interview, not a technical interview, and the fact that the author misinterpreted it only strengthens the interviewer's decision to not consider them further. They are very obviously not a good fit for a Director-level position at Google.

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

#432

Post by kajecounterhack »

odbol_ wrote: post #404
potatolicious wrote: post #375

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 so…

(Standard disclaimer, speaking for myself)

1. Your interviewer didn't give you a good interview or follow guidelines. In interview training they tell you the first thing you must do to start an interview is to ask if the candidate would like to get some water / use the restroom, then break the ice before starting any questions (applicable also during phone screens).

2. Proper interviews actually are supposed to lean heavily toward real-world problem solving approach rather than arcane knowledge. For example, when I interview I look for rational decisions at every turn (not a random example but considering boundary cases, adding a new example to help you visualize the solution should give information gain rather than be something random). My questions are not math oriented, nor do they require deep knowledge of obscure theory. Based on what questions my coworkers ask, I know at least for my team this is not a correct characterization.

What we do test for: understanding of fundamental data structures and algorithms, ability to thrive in uncertainty (ask clarifying questions! state your assumptions!), ability to break a problem down and solve it from first principles.

Good interview questions are required to have multiple solutions.

And then you have the generalization at the end about creativity and diversity; in my limited experience we seem to get pretty decent diversity and even if there is some homogeneity (we need more women and minorities) it's certainly not the kind you described. No, it's not a bunch of mathy theory wizards writing code at Google, it's way more diverse than that. Not perfect, but not awful like you're describing.

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

#434

Post by AnimalMuppet »

pjungwir wrote: post #313
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…

I was interviewed once by someone who would cut me off after just a sentence or two. He asked a fairly open question like, "Tell me about hash tables." I knew I should have just said, "Lookups are constant-time," but I started off with a description of their behavior instead, and sure enough he cut me off and said, "Lookups are constant-time." Some people are just not very good interviewers, but also some tech people…

> ... like they can memorize but not think.

Which is really bad, when they're trying to hire people for a job where thinking is the fundamental skill...

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

#436

Post by megous »

intoverflow2 wrote: post #324
cedarmonk wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So apart from giving the right answers, you now have to intelligently predict when to give wrong or suboptimal answers to account for the inadequacy of the interviewer? Not that I'm blaming the recruiter here because he/she was just trying to do his/her job, but come on. If I were in his shoes, I would be pissed off not because of failing to land the job but because of being told that I gave the "wrong answers" when…

As a director are you not required to be an interface between the technical and non-technical? If you can't dumb it down you're just going to waste peoples time.

Dumbing stuff down is not the same as giving the exact answer on some cheat sheet you've nerver seen.

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

#437

Post by gubby »

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.

This is not the case (I work for Goog).

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

#438

Post by rb2k_ »

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.

> they found a 20+ years experienced engineering manager holding patents on computer networking under-qualified for an ordinary site maintenance position.

To be fair, I've interviewed people at previous companies that had patents and 15 years at IBM on their CV and completely failed even the most basic system / coding questions. (fizzbuzz style).

There are a lot of people that read great on the CV but then it turns out that they mostly kept a chair warm and organized meetings over the last decade without actually retaining any technical knowledge.

Not saying that was the case here, but it happens and it's probably worth checking people on their stated qualifications.

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

#439

Post by spott »

powera wrote: post #384
powera wrote: post #382

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is the SRE prescreen. At least it's the one I was asked in 2007, almost verbatim. Possibly too verbatim.

Also, his answer on #9 is wrong, or at least his explanation of the conversation is terribly confusing With 10000 numbers, it's only efficient to create a lookup table with 8-bit integers, not with 16-bit integers. Based on his LinkedIn profile, I don't think anyone at Google would have thought of him as a "director of engineering". Being an "R&D director" at some unknown company at 24 is entirely un-comparable to a…

Who's answer is wrong? Cause no-one suggested a 16bit lookup table.

His answer was to look at 64 bits at a time and do a [0] Kernighan style count. The "correct" answer was an 8-bit lookup table. Which is right is going to be highly dependent on the data and the architecture you are using.

[0] http://stackoverflow.com/questions/12380478/bits-counting-al...

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

#440

Post by kajecounterhack »

rockdoe wrote: post #426
kajecounterhack wrote: post #419

Earlier quoted context omitted.

(Same disclaimer) If you interview frequently, at least for SWE, this is certainly not how we go about things. ghire guidelines for SWE don't allow for questions like this, or behavior like this. Is it possible this was an SRE interview? I guess, but it really sounds ungoogly and these questions sound like they don't give great signal. I'd be ashamed if this is how we hire SREs. Is there really an "avalanche" of repo…

You should be ashamed then, because these are definitely the questions used on SRE phone screens.

Thanks, I am realizing now that it was SRE. All I can say is I'm definitely a fan of how we interview SWEs and I'm sorta bummed this is how SRE interviews go. TIL.
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