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Google's “Director of Engineering” Hiring Test

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

#61

Post by adekok »

burkaman wrote: post #18

Is this common for higher level positions at Google? I've gotten a similar kind of phone screen, but for an entry level software engineer position, and getting a few "wrong" was not a big deal. It's just so they can avoid setting up a real interview with someone who doesn't know the basics. If the call actually went like this, it seems like you just hit a new/not very good recruiter.

> It's just so they can avoid setting up a real interview with someone who doesn't know the basics.

They're (allegedly) interviewing for a Director of Engineering. If google can't even google the guy and look at his track record, code, whatever, they don't deserve to have competent people working for them.

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

#62

Post by protomyth »

The Google person's response to the answer in question 5 would have pretty much ended the call with "can I talk to an actual engineer as you are doing poor keyword searches on my answers". I do admit to hearing the "I will stab you" voice in my head on that one[1]. This reflects really badly on Google.

Plus the answer on question 8 is the best worded answer to using big-O improperly I have seen.

1) http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=I%20will%20st...

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

#63

Post by JorgeGT »

ohitsdom wrote: post #29

It is scary if this is how Google hires engineering directors. Passing this test would select all the bad candidates! Answers to many technical solutions are "it depends". If you have a director that "knows" the right answer, they won't be very likely to encourage their engineers to experiment and find the best solution to the specific problem at hand.

A brilliant professor of mine liked to say "The Answer of the Engineer: it depends".

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

#65

Post by brazzledazzle »

endtime wrote: post #42

I've been at Google for five years as a SWE and I've been interviewing for 3 of those. I'd fail this pop quiz. This strikes me as bizarre and inconsistent with all the practices I'm aware of. The idea that we'd ask anyone this stuff, let alone director candidates, strains belief.

This seems like a pre-screen where the recruiter is trying to assess the viability of a candidate themselves. But I would assume that based on experience with recruiters elsewhere, no idea if Google has a higher bar for their recruiters.

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

#66

Post by SomeCallMeTim »

endtime wrote: post #42

I've been at Google for five years as a SWE and I've been interviewing for 3 of those. I'd fail this pop quiz. This strikes me as bizarre and inconsistent with all the practices I'm aware of. The idea that we'd ask anyone this stuff, let alone director candidates, strains belief.

I only have a sample size of one, but I blew threw a phone interview with Google about a year ago -- and the guy giving it was very technically skilled. We talked about the subtler aspects of the questions as we went.

They offered an in-person interview, of course, but I declined when I found out that they were only hiring for Google Payments in Boulder. I'm sure the job has interesting aspects, and maybe my imagination just isn't up to the task, but I have a hard time figuring out how I wouldn't go insane with boredom working on a system that just moves money around, not to mention frustration from working with the extra regulatory/process restrictions that must be in place to keep compliance up...

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

#67

Post by mgkimsal »

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 mean who would know just how long a MAC address is? Or what the actual SYN/ACK etc tcp flags are?"

This isn't even my domain, but I remember some of this stuff. I had to dig in to this area years ago, and was knee-deep in that level for several months debugging and configuring stuff. Some of it stays with you, even if you're not there any more.

For someone applying for a director of engineering, I'm kind of split as to whether this should be required "off the cuff" knowledge. Would certainly help, but seems it would depend on the culture of the company - how hands-on they expect director-level folks to be - some companies seem to want that, some don't.

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

#68

Post by throwaway76543 »

maverick_iceman wrote: post #32

This is very hard to believe. In most big tech companies technical interviews are conducted by technical people, not recruiters. Especially for a senior role like Director of Eng. the experience described here stretches credulity. Also most of these companies have policies which don't allow any feedback to be given on interview performance. In light of that the recruiter saying "you don't have necessary skills" is ex…

Many companies do a pre-interview screen performed by recruiters to filter obviously bad candidates. I have personally helped construct such screens -- though not at google.

Ensuring the recruiter understands the difference between an answer over their head and a wrong answer is crucial. What we did was to make sure the recruiters understood that answers they didn't understand needed to be surfaced to someone in engineering for a sanity check.

Often our strongest candidates would give an answer which recruiting wasn't capable of vetting. The key is making everyone aware that the answers may not fit the script, and that this is OK. Recruiters shouldn't be judging the technical details of an answer; they should be looking for "gosh I don't know I've never seen that."

Pre-screening is sadly necessary when doing high volume recruiting. There are a LOT of people out there who grossly inflate their competency.

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

#69

Post by cedarmonk »

wiyarmir wrote: post #11

Sounds like somebody very butthurt that did not bother to do a quick search and see that first call is with a recruiter who knows little or nothing about technology and is looking for exact-word answers.

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 they were clearly right.

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

#70

Post by dmoy »

endtime wrote: post #42

I've been at Google for five years as a SWE and I've been interviewing for 3 of those. I'd fail this pop quiz. This strikes me as bizarre and inconsistent with all the practices I'm aware of. The idea that we'd ask anyone this stuff, let alone director candidates, strains belief.

Likewise, identical situation, identical thoughts/response.

I want to follow up on this and see what the deal is. It just strikes me as fundamentally wrong.

I'm honestly hoping this is not actually a Google recruiter doing this; if it is, that's just broken.

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