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Google's “Director of Engineering” Hiring Test

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

#901

Post by Fordrus »

jsmthrowaway wrote: post #758
WildUtah wrote: post #756

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apophasis

Do you really think there's no such thing as a simple observation without intent? I'm not allowed to find it odd that a Web site about a Web server operated by the same Web server went down under a Web load, and remark upon it yet stop short of drawing or stating a conclusion because I don't have all the facts? How many times do I have to say that I have no intent, here? Apply Occam and cui bono . I don't even bloody…

See, now, the thing is, Occam's razor would, when you use my experience on the internet to train it as a heuristic, absolutely, 100% tell me that you were being a mean, stupid, malicious sack of excrement in this case, because ALL of the reasons you state re: "What reason would I have to destroy this person's reputation?" are ones I've heard time and time again as excuses from someone who turned out to be a troll who was destroying somebody for fun.

And that is the baseline Occam on the internet: the simplest explanation with the fewest assumptions is that the person on the other end is a troll who is destroying someone or something because destroying things is fun. Nobody needs any reason, on the internet, to want someone to go down in flames. Seriously, I have to make many more assumptions to assume good faith on your part than otherwise - the only reason I would bother applying another heuristic, that is, not to attribute to malice that which can be explained by incompetence, would be because it isn't worth the skin I'll lose off my typing fingers to engage you. You seem interesting and worth engaging, which I why I'd tell you things like, "raising an accusation is functionally similar to making the accusation."

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

#902

Post by mikeash »

Terr_ wrote: post #820
mikeash wrote: post #668

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Last time I got that question, I started with nerve impulses.

Still not enough: If you wish to explain a web-request, you must first invent the universe.

"Describe an HTTP request? Tricky.... What's the mass of the electron in this hypothetical?"

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

#903

Post by mikeash »

ubernostrum wrote: post #775
mikeash wrote: post #666

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Static versus dynamic typing is so fundamental that I don't see how a programmer could be remotely competent without having been exposed to those concepts enough to have internalized them. It would be like an accountant not knowing what the number 4 is. Yes, you can look it up, but if you need to then how did you ever get this far?

OK, ask me that question about defining the difference and I'll argue with the question, and back up my argument with examples of how type systems are far more of a spectrum of different cases than a stark static/dynamic binary. And then your non-engineer phone screener who's expecting the answer to match the scripted sheet will conclude that I don't know this "fundamental" thing and thus am unqualified.

This is proposed as a question that an engineer would ask, not some base-level screener.

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

#904

Post by TheOtherHobbes »

rimantas wrote: post #626
djsumdog wrote: post #555

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My kick-out questions: "Could you write out what an HTTP request and response looks like on the board?" I'm really surprised at how many people can't do this. If you've spent five years developing web, surely you've had to look at raw requests, either debugging using netcat or with wireshark or just looking at the information in the Chrome/Firefox debugger? "What's the difference between a GET and a POST request?" "W…

I'd be able to write HTTP request by hand, I've done that quite often, however I would not expect that to be a common skill. Looking at something, even often does not in any capacity mean that you would be able to reproduce that from memory.

Exactly. These are memory tests, not ability tests. Beyond a very basic level, memory tests are too random to be useful.

I once aced a geography exam because I happened to read up on the economics of Nigeria just before I took it. By sheer luck, there was a question about Nigeria in the paper.

If I'd read about Zimbabwe instead I'd have been screwed.

Neither possibility provided much insight into my competence as a geographer.

Even if a job spec needs specific knowledge of key facts, you can't generalise from pass/fail memory questions to broad spectrum competence, or lack of it.

If a candidate has no idea what an HTML request is, that's one thing. If they know damn well what a request is but can't list all the elements in a stressful interview while you're staring at them, - because in fact they spent the last year working on database code, and the API stuff was the year before that - that's something else entirely.

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

#905

Post by TheOtherHobbes »

zeppelin101 wrote: post #533
_t0du wrote: post #520

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, general interviewing (unrelated to tech) contains various amounts of "are you lying on your resume" type questions. If someone walks in with a breakdown of 10 years dev, 5 years management, they should be able to at least comfortably answer system/coding type questions. As in, if you do something every day for 10 years, you don't forget all of it in 5. I had a candidate in a few months ago that was interviewing…

How can you not know what MVC stands for? It's pretty much a buzzword!

I'm sure a lot of people know what MVC stands for. I don't think there's anyone on the planet who can be sure they know what it really means.

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

#906

Post by dekhn »

teraflop wrote: post #210
gberger wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But what if Google is down and you are tasked with diagnosing it?

I bet Google has their own internal "backup Google", for just such an occasion.

yes it's called "Stevens" https://www.amazon.com/TCP-Illustrated-Vol-Addison-Wesley-Pr... although you might also check TAOCP.

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

#907

Post by david-given »

HereBeBeasties wrote: post #610
djsumdog wrote: post #572

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think coding questions are really important. You see their logic flow. Now stupid coding questions (in a list, find all the number pairs that add up to another number in the list) are terrible. They're complex and even good programmers need time to think about them. Fibonacci is one that people expect, so they look up all the variations and you get people who are good test takers (would ace a GRE/MCAT) but not good…

I often ask the web browser one and find it quite illuminating. Best answer so far started with something like "Well, there's a microswitch in the keyboard if it's a decent one, and a circuit that debounces the input - err, is it a USB keyboard or a PS/2 one? Hmmm... How long do I have to answer this question?" THAT is the guy you want to hire...

I did actually start my answer to that one with 'Look, I'm just going to skip over the microcontroller in the keyboard and the USB protocol --- is that OK?' and was met with a calm, 'That's fine.'

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

#908

Post by mliker »

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…

I agree with DannyBee. The author of this post seems to suffer from a bit of arrogance and inflated sense of his own abilities. It's likely he tweaked the story a bit to make himself feel better. I've seen many high level directors do this since at that stage in their careers, they can't possibly imagine themselves to not get an offer from a company.

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

#909

Post by dekhn »

kkapelon wrote: post #865
masto wrote: post #629

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you had literally the same questions, worded the same, there's something horribly broken (or you got the same broken recruiter). I think you're remembering similar questions (e.g. they asked the one about the potato) but the details make a huge difference.

Scan the whole comments section now and you will find multiple people saying they got the exact same questions (I am one of them)

You mean, when they asked about quicksort, they used the precise wording in the blog post? Or was it worded in a different way, say, closer to the versions posted elsewhere on the internet? The difference is important. I do not believe the recruiter asked "Why is quicksort the best?", I think they asked a different question.
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