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Google's “Director of Engineering” Hiring Test

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

#731

Post by dkonofalski »

scrollaway wrote: post #710
dkonofalski wrote: post #646

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Where do you see a "Director of Engineering at Google" above claiming the interview is "super strange"? There are other (supposed) Google employees in this thread that are the source for every single one of my assertions. Also, as a member of "everyone", how can you disagree with that statement when no one has even bothered to call out the fact that we only have one side of the story and it's the side of the story th…

Your point that it's a "culture interview"? Or your point that it's probably not a verbatim transcript, which nobody argued? Or is it your point from way back that these are skills needed for a Director of Engineering, which apparently this wasn't an interview for?

My point that the author of the post misinterpreted the interview (which was apparently not at all for a Director-level position), my point that we only have one side of the story, and my point that the paraphrasing was done intentionally in such a way as to make the interviewer look bad instead of the interviewee. Or, if you want to simplify it, my point that this person is clearly not Director material, as they would like everyone to think.

Also, you're moving the goalposts here. At the time this was posted, the author of the post claimed it was an interview for Director, people were claiming that the interviewer acted exactly as written, and I, along with others, were claiming that either the author left out information, misunderstood it, or edited it.

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

#732

Post by lucb1e »

rockdoe wrote: post #516
lucb1e wrote: post #472

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks for the elaborate answer! I knew about things like acoustic fingerprints but not that people use the term "hash function" to describe something that indicates similarity. Could something like Hamming distance be called a hash function too? It's not mentioned on its Wikipedia page.

No because that works between pairs. It's a comparison method, not a mapping.

Ah I see. Thanks!

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

#733

Post by jameshart »

crdoconnor wrote: post #521
DannyBee wrote: post #497

Earlier quoted context omitted.

First, it is definitely standard process to tell him (if they didn't, that's a definite failure). Again, remember you only have one side of the story here. I like to try to gather facts before assuming things. IE Ready, aim, fire, not fire, ready, aim. Admittedly more difficult in this case (and certainly, i have no access to it) Second i'm going to point out a few things: Experience may translate into wisdom, it may…

>Judging an entire recruitment process based on one side of a story from a person who's clearly upset about an interview, It's not just this guy. There have been others: https://twitter.com/mxcl/status/608682016205344768 There's another measure I use to measure the quality of their hiring process. The output. Namely the track record of products Google has developed in house in the last 10 years. I've also heard a few…

Yep, those engineers they took on in the last ten years must suck, they've only managed to develop technologies that grew Google's annual revenue from 10 billion dollars in 2006 to 75 billion in 2015. That's the kind of track record that has to make you question the hiring process, right?

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

#735

Post by dilemma »

jsmthrowaway wrote: post #726

I am doing neither of those things. I said it was tempting, because it puts things I've read about G-WAN into perspective (the claims I saw some time back when I was shown a heads-up versus nginx were questionable, and it's an interesting data point). That's why it's an unrelated addendum, and it's completely unrelated to the blog post at all. I have no desire to discredit someone I have never met and whose name I do…

I never said anything about your integrity but you inferred from my comment just like others will do from yours.

The difference is the individual you're disparaging is a real person with a reputation. You, like me, are a throw away account on a message board. You have no integrity because you have no identity.

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

#736

Post by kev009 »

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 blog is exactly what an SRE interview is like.

I breezed through these kinds of questions with the recruiter since I'm younger have a fairly fresh CS background.

Then, my first SRE staff interviewer primarily asked how I would build a data center on the moon. I work on the FreeBSD kernel and TCP full time. I know what BDP, window sizing, head of line blocking, etc are way beyond what a typical SRE would and how communication latency would cause major issues. That confused the questioner. I can't think of anything else I'd have said wrong, my background is systems engineering and I know more about power distribution, HVAC, and data center design than I care to. The lady was skeptical of my answers and it felt really humiliating even though I would rate myself more knowledgeable than my questioner, because of the candidate/interviewer positioning and failure.

The next man, on another day, asked me a bunch of math trivia like estimating the angles on the hands of a clock and orders of magnitude guesses of a small item like a marble to fill a room. I told him I was no longer interested in working for Google and he was really startled because "he didn't get to ask me systems questions yet".. well, good luck with that.

Everyone was really sad at that point, including the recruiter. Nobody from Google has contacted me again, which is a relief. I found the entire process gross.

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

#737

Post by Gigablah »

dilemma wrote: post #735
jsmthrowaway wrote: post #726

I am doing neither of those things. I said it was tempting, because it puts things I've read about G-WAN into perspective (the claims I saw some time back when I was shown a heads-up versus nginx were questionable, and it's an interesting data point). That's why it's an unrelated addendum, and it's completely unrelated to the blog post at all. I have no desire to discredit someone I have never met and whose name I do…

I never said anything about your integrity but you inferred from my comment just like others will do from yours. The difference is the individual you're disparaging is a real person with a reputation. You, like me, are a throw away account on a message board. You have no integrity because you have no identity.

I wouldn't call an account almost three years old a "throwaway" anymore.

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

#738

Post by micaksica »

lazaroclapp wrote: post #687
mst wrote: post #623

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The number of web devs I've encountered who regard my ability to talk HTTP over telnet as black magic makes me sad.

In all fairness, if you can talk normal HTTP 1.1 over telnet with some service, someone configured TLS wrong ;) And if you can talk HTTPS over telnet unassisted... well, I am truly impressed.

There's always openssl s_client

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

#739

Post by _wmd »

kev009 wrote: post #736
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 blog is exactly what an SRE interview is like. I breezed through these kinds of questions with the recruiter since I'm younger have a fairly fresh CS background. Then, my first SRE staff interviewer primarily asked how I would build a data center on the moon. I work on the FreeBSD kernel and TCP full time. I know what BDP, window sizing, head of line blocking, etc are way beyond what a typical SRE would and how…

> even though I would rate myself more knowledgeable than my questioner

Don't get me wrong, I'm guessing you know your stuff, but you also strike me as someone who may likely have failed on culture fit down the line. Interviewers are often more sensitive to attitude than they ever are to aptitude, and for good reason, your HVAC knowledge may be irrelevant once you discover the custom designs in use behind closed doors, and a bad attitude toward learning where you're weak can be a much more fatal problem for a new hire.

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

#740

Post by dilemma »

Gigablah wrote: post #737
dilemma wrote: post #735

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I never said anything about your integrity but you inferred from my comment just like others will do from yours. The difference is the individual you're disparaging is a real person with a reputation. You, like me, are a throw away account on a message board. You have no integrity because you have no identity.

I wouldn't call an account almost three years old a "throwaway" anymore.

Underwrite his mortgage and ask him to be the godfather of your firstborn.
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