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Google's “Director of Engineering” Hiring Test

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

#891

Post by gbil »

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…

5 years ago after applying for a unix systems engineer position at google, I had a phone interview with more or less the same questions - more probably as this interview was interrupted, so for sure these are questions asked from google recruiters but for sure I would also be surprised if such interviews take place for such high profile position. I would assume things are done differently in such cases and not via the "usual" way.

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

#893

Post by 77pt77 »

venomsnake wrote: post #15

I feel sudden brick wall awaits in a recruiter career path once the google people read that. Not only because of that interview, but the questions transforms into - who else have we missed from the great guys ...

Doubt it.

This is a pretty standard google first interview. Nothing out of the ordinary.

The recruiter will not suffer for following standard proceeding.

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

#894

Post by aninhumer »

seanp2k2 wrote: post #845
empath75 wrote: post #790

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I basically lived in Wire shark for a couple of years working for a voip company and still use stuff like curl all the time and I don't think I could walk through an http request of the top of my head.

GET / HTTP/1.1\r\n and some kind of sensible response is not too much to expect someone to know. HTTP is super easy and I see the HTTP transaction test as "did you ever get curious as to how exactly a core part of the current Internet actually works". I'm sure that there are app developers out there who can spin crud stuff all day and have no idea about this, just as there are curious people who couldn't stand up tod…

> I see the HTTP transaction test as "did you ever get curious as to how exactly a core part of the current Internet actually works".

Sure I did.

Then I forgot most of the details because they didn't matter, and I knew I could look them up quickly if I ever needed to write a HTTP client/server for some reason.

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

#895

Post by oxyclean »

optimuspaul wrote: post #510
johndubchak wrote: post #485

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Perhaps that suggests you're giving them the wrong interview.

I agree. Why the hell would you ask someone at that level basic questions like fizz buzz? It's absurd. I also tend to shy away from asking coding questions in interviews, they don't tell me much about aptitude for critical thinking and culture fit. Skills can be taught but culture is much harder. ... But I'm not saying to throw in some questions that don't prove that they are actually competent, just be casual about…

I don't ask multiple questions like FizzBuzz, but I do ask for FizzBuzz. (I will explain the modulo operator if necessary because it doesn't come up that often in web development and people many forget about it until prompted.) Everything else about FizzBuzz (loop over a range, use a conditional, define a function, compare, etc.) is so basic you would think you wouldn't need to test it - but then you run into a person with 10 years experience who can't do it.

It's a (sadly) useful screen. Even more sad when you realize how popular and widespread that particular question is.

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

#897

Post by Fordrus »

jsmthrowaway wrote: post #766
Gigablah wrote: post #752

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Looks like he really did hit a sore nerve.

The repeated charge that I am somehow disparaging and discrediting an individual was my clue that I should probably disengage. I probably should have worded the first bullet differently, in hindsight, but still.

Well, the problem here is apparently one of human relations. You are absolutely, 100% remiss to expect that, when you state "it is tempting to draw that conclusion," that you are actually stopping short of drawing that conclusion. It's as bad a communication mistake as expecting Quicksort to perform well in all cases is - which is to say it simply does not conform to reality.

Raising the possibility of the accusation and defining the basis for raising the accusation are, for almost all intents and purposes, exactly the same as simple raising the accusation, especially in an internet forum, where nuance, body language, and tone are absent.

Thus, you really didn't avoid actually disparaging or discrediting this person there - instead, you attempted it via an obtuse use of a 'sneaky' method, and you bear deserved downvotes for doing so. If that was not your intent, you may look on this experience as a bug - the language you used did not communicate your intent to your discussion partners. It's almost always valuable to gain a deeper understanding of the functions you're using, though, whether they're from English or C++! Have a great day, and talk to you some other time! :)

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

#898

Post by Fordrus »

andrepd wrote: post #781
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.

>The difference is the individual you're disparaging is a real person with a reputation. So? If the criticism is invalid, then it's inoffensive. If it's valid, it's deserved.

You tell that to anyone who has ever been falsely accused of anything, and ask them if the invalidity of the accusation led to the experience of being accused, questioned, tried, and then found innocent being describable with the word "inoffensive."

(Then multiply whatever result you get from that by the propensity of the internet to hear an accusation and judge it to be true WITHOUT actually researching it/'putting it on trial', so to speak, and post your answer here, I'm sure it will make for fascinating reading! ;) )

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

#899

Post by johan_larson »

lazyjones wrote: post #241
NoPiece wrote: post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The most plausible explanation is the guy failed the interview, felt bad about it, then wrote a version of it to make him look good and Google bad to punish them.

I find the thought more plausible that Google had 100s or 1000s of candidates and they weren't willing to interview all of them directly because most are usually crap, so they let some incompetent contractor do a pre-screening.

I really wish our industry could create some generally trusted benchmarks of skill that we could take once and then be done with. As things are, we have to prove basic programming skill with every employer. You'd think this wouldn't be necessary with more than a decade of experience and several degrees in computer science from eminent institutions, but apparently it is. I'm fine with employers asking very particular questions about the domain of work, but we shouldn't have to prove sanity all over again every time.

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

#900

Post by dekhn »

seanp2k2 wrote: post #845
empath75 wrote: post #790

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I basically lived in Wire shark for a couple of years working for a voip company and still use stuff like curl all the time and I don't think I could walk through an http request of the top of my head.

GET / HTTP/1.1\r\n and some kind of sensible response is not too much to expect someone to know. HTTP is super easy and I see the HTTP transaction test as "did you ever get curious as to how exactly a core part of the current Internet actually works". I'm sure that there are app developers out there who can spin crud stuff all day and have no idea about this, just as there are curious people who couldn't stand up tod…

if you answer "GET / HTTP/1.1\r\n" I'm going to ask you if you left anything out.

Because you did: after that you have to provide a Host: .

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