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Google's “Director of Engineering” Hiring Test

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

#581

Post by coredog64 »

ww520 wrote: post #506
odbol_ wrote: post #404

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

It tells more of the interviewer than the interviewee. They don't ask the questions you mentioned because they don't know or they don't know how to best judge the answers. They asked the questions they know well, that show you what the breadth of their knowledge is. It's like the saying A-players hire A-players while B-players have a hard time judging A-players.

B-players know an A-player when they see them, they don't hire them because they feel threatened.

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

#583

Post by kerneis »

Morgawr wrote: post #450
ozgung wrote: post #368

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

This to me looks like an initial phone screening interview. It's not actually a "technical" interview (there is no code to write and the person that interviews you is a technical recruiter and not an actual engineer). As far as I know (I might be wrong so take this with a grain of salt) your first screening interview is usually used to decide in which direction you want to proceed (for example if you want to be hired…

This.

I passed several rounds of interviews at Google over a number of years (phone screening, phone interview, on-site). This is definitely a phone screening, where the recruiter expects "standard" answers to "standard" questions. Remember that interviews are somewhat of a game. Trying to be smart at this stage is the wrong move.

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

#584

Post by _Marak_ »

The Google interview process is a disaster.

Incompetent HR is apparently the norm. When I finally got to my ( 8th? ) interview there, I was asked by a very senior manager whether or not I had ever used Github before.

Considering Google cold contacted me based on the specific email address and projects I make available on my Github profile, it was kinda was confusing. Ohh yeah, he also asked me what CSS stood for.

I ended up stopping the interview early myself.

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

#585

Post by mcbits »

If I ran Google, I would just send unsolicited offers for a three-month trial contract to people who fit the profile of a talented software engineer with a friendly personality and who recently started searching for jobs. Yes, I know, "that's why you don't run Google," but I don't think it's that crazy. For example, I may or may not be a good fit, but even if I am, the chances are slim that I'll ever have the confidence to apply.

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

#586

Post by noobermin »

rb2k_ wrote: post #438
ozgung wrote: post #368

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 o…

It's fair to discuss in the abstract, but seriously, in the OP the interview that failed him didn't fail him for an ordinary site maintenance position because he wasn't capable, it was because the recruiter was incompetent.

Of course, a sample of one (anecdota) which is most likely the min of the distribution is always the worst way to judge a distribution, but this is still upsetting.

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

#587

Post by dboreham »

potatolicious wrote: post #430
odbol_ wrote: post #404

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> "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" I'd be marginally okay with it if the interviews actually selected for this sort of engineer! I've seen multiple people who fit this description to a T who flunked the process, hard. If the goal here is "pick the hyper-mathy, deep-CS t…

Off-topic pet peeve but why is "OK" now apparently spelled "okay" these days? (especially in bandwidth-limited situations such as SMS or IM). OK is not short for "Okay", OK?

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

#588

Post by bogomipz »

dekhn wrote: post #253
lucb1e wrote: post #216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know some hash functions are not meant to create unique fingerprints (they're to pick a bucket to put/look in), but what do you mean by the opposite of a fingerprint?

The goal of a fingerprint hash is to convert an input space of "large" values to an output space where the output space values are much shorter- typically fixed size and two similar input values have effectively random outputs (without spending the CPU cycles to implement a cryptographic hash). This permits a wide range of optimizations (a document can be fingerprinted, and looked up by its fingerprint, to see if it'…

"The goal of a fingerprint hash is to convert an input space of "large" values to an output space where the output space values are much shorter- typically fixed size and two similar input values have effectively random outputs"

But this is also the goal of non-crypto hash function like those used in a data structure no? Basically mapping a large space of inputs to a smaller space of outputs.

I would say the cryptographic hash is one the that has "desirable" security properties, things like not being able to recover the original input message using the hash, a tiny change in the input causes a substantial change in the output, or that its very unlikely that two inputs will produce a collision.

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

#589

Post by vram22 »

tptacek wrote: post #186
mox1 wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The question was what function "returns" an inode. Those functions return a error code, you pass in a stat structure and the function populates that structure. He was saying (correctly), that they don't return (in the classic C sense) the inode. They return an error code. To me that is a big difference... int lstat(const char path, struct stat buf); vs stat* lstat(const char *path); 2 completely different functions.

In C, what stat does is how you return multiple values from a function. lstat has the same signature as stat: it passes the stat structure back through an output pointer.

>In C, what stat does is how you return multiple values from a function.

IIRC, you can return structs from functions in C. You have to access the values in the returned struct with dot notation, of course, like point.x .

Pre-ANSI C may not have had this, but later, it did. Remember reading it in the 2nd (ANSI) edition of the Kernighan & Ritchie C book, and also used it myself in some programs.

https://www.google.co.in/?q=can+you+return+a+structure+in+c

Edit:

Might want to consider the cost of copying, depending on the perf requirements, size of the struct, whether the function call is in a tight loop, etc.

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

#590

Post by mikeash »

falsedan wrote: post #569
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…

This looks like a typical pre-interview recruiter phone screen… they're looking for shibboleths that identify the candidate as a genuine computer person who took CS 101, and exclude candidates who spam every job with bogus CVs. I'd start every candidate with this screen, unless I personally knew them & was familiar with their technical ability. > none of these are on or related to the "director of engineering" interv…

I'd hope it's not too typical, since four out of the ten official answers are wrong, and even one of the questions manages to be wrong. (Specifically, the "why is quicksort the best?" is just completely ridiculous.)

It's one thing to blindly apply a simple questionnaire without thinking about the answers that come back, and yet another thing to do it with a questionnaire that's doesn't even get stuff right.

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