5 ms·

You may well be asked how a distributed sort would work in principle, and be asked to code a small part of it. Any reasonable answer that shows you can think on

by gefh 11y ago

You may well be asked how a distributed sort would work in principle, and be asked to code a small part of it. Any reasonable answer that shows you can think on your feet would be evidence in favor of hiring. It sounds like you didn't get hired, and I'm sorry about that. Interviewers' preferences are of course diverse, but for at least the last 5 years, probably 10, Google interviews favor practical solutions to problems we face every day. Some of those are theoretical CS, many are not.

alexnewman 11y ago
Lol normal Google arrogance. Yea they only seem to ask theoretical questions basically out of that famous book
- alexnewman 11y ago
  Why did i get -4 vote here....
- late2part 11y ago
  Maybe, maybe not. Most people's surface area of problems don't even approach Google's problems. The kind of things most companies aspire to solve, Google automated a decade ago. So, this esoteric CS theory may be more practical inside Google than your external vantage point can consider.
  - cmrdporcupine 11y ago
    The problems being automated years ago means the vast majority of Google engineers don't ever get close to having to work on those solutions. One of things that disappointed me after joining G was that many of the problems I found fun to solve at previous employers were a) solved already and b) solved by people much smarter and senior than me. It's a great place to work for all sorts of reasons. But working on cutting edge stuff, well, that requires that you be good at fighting on both meritocratic and political fronts. The majority of the people that came in the same acquisition as me left before their golden handcuff payouts finished, because of this.
    - fritzo 11y ago
      "with more rules we have solved most of the problems in the world. That just leaves the weird events" -Steve Coast The remaining problems are indeed weird, and succumb only after application of every available tool: "asking around", CS theory, low-level debugging, visualization, heavy logs analysis, pouring over source code, strolling aimlessly, mining commit history, politicking, brainstorming...
- GauntletWizard 11y ago
  I think it more likely you have a bad grasp on what is and isn't theoretical for Google.
existencebox 11y ago
As a datapoint, a while back I was asked (for a G interview within the last 10 years) to code an RB tree from start to finish. I'll admit I was a little miffed at how distanced this seemed from anything I would potentially do; I was not interviewing for a high theory/deep algorithms group. That being said, in my other experience with a G interview, the entire process was much more mundane and as expected. For the record, I have both been hired and not hired by G and not necessarily paired with the above interviews as you'd expect. I mention this instance largely because my friends at the big G tell me such a question is generally frowned upon, and not part of standard practice, (So I don't feel bad speaking openly about it) but more importantly it gives me a way to see how people can get a skewed perspective on a company given a... unique interview question when the overall guidance within the corp wouldn't align to asking that.
- asuffield 11y ago
  (Tedious disclaimer: not speaking for anybody else, my opinion only, etc. I'm an SRE at Google.) "Within the last 10 years" covers several generations of refinement to the interview process. I'd suggest forgetting about anything more than a couple of years old. The major thing to keep in mind is that these days, your recruiter will ask you up front what subject areas you are strongest in, and you should expect to get interviews about those things.
  - drx 11y ago
    What's the process like these days?
    - mayanksinghal 11y ago
      Faster (at least it's attempting to be) without losing any quality metrics.
- eru 11y ago
  > I was not interviewing for a high theory/deep algorithms [...] Implementing a well known data structure is pretty far removed from `deep algorithms' and `high theory'.

by gefh 11y ago

alexnewman 11y ago

Lol normal Google arrogance. Yea they only seem to ask theoretical questions basically out of that famous book

alexnewman 11y ago
Why did i get -4 vote here....
late2part 11y ago
Maybe, maybe not. Most people's surface area of problems don't even approach Google's problems. The kind of things most companies aspire to solve, Google automated a decade ago. So, this esoteric CS theory may be more practical inside Google than your external vantage point can consider.
- cmrdporcupine 11y ago
  The problems being automated years ago means the vast majority of Google engineers don't ever get close to having to work on those solutions. One of things that disappointed me after joining G was that many of the problems I found fun to solve at previous employers were a) solved already and b) solved by people much smarter and senior than me. It's a great place to work for all sorts of reasons. But working on cutting edge stuff, well, that requires that you be good at fighting on both meritocratic and political fronts. The majority of the people that came in the same acquisition as me left before their golden handcuff payouts finished, because of this.
  - fritzo 11y ago
    "with more rules we have solved most of the problems in the world. That just leaves the weird events" -Steve Coast The remaining problems are indeed weird, and succumb only after application of every available tool: "asking around", CS theory, low-level debugging, visualization, heavy logs analysis, pouring over source code, strolling aimlessly, mining commit history, politicking, brainstorming...
GauntletWizard 11y ago
I think it more likely you have a bad grasp on what is and isn't theoretical for Google.

existencebox 11y ago

As a datapoint, a while back I was asked (for a G interview within the last 10 years) to code an RB tree from start to finish. I'll admit I was a little miffed at how distanced this seemed from anything I would potentially do; I was not interviewing for a high theory/deep algorithms group. That being said, in my other experience with a G interview, the entire process was much more mundane and as expected. For the record, I have both been hired and not hired by G and not necessarily paired with the above interviews as you'd expect. I mention this instance largely because my friends at the big G tell me such a question is generally frowned upon, and not part of standard practice, (So I don't feel bad speaking openly about it) but more importantly it gives me a way to see how people can get a skewed perspective on a company given a... unique interview question when the overall guidance within the corp wouldn't align to asking that.

asuffield 11y ago
(Tedious disclaimer: not speaking for anybody else, my opinion only, etc. I'm an SRE at Google.) "Within the last 10 years" covers several generations of refinement to the interview process. I'd suggest forgetting about anything more than a couple of years old. The major thing to keep in mind is that these days, your recruiter will ask you up front what subject areas you are strongest in, and you should expect to get interviews about those things.
- drx 11y ago
  What's the process like these days?
  - mayanksinghal 11y ago
    Faster (at least it's attempting to be) without losing any quality metrics.
eru 11y ago
> I was not interviewing for a high theory/deep algorithms [...] Implementing a well known data structure is pretty far removed from `deep algorithms' and `high theory'.