4 ms·
If these are the type of questions that they feel qualify you, maybe it's a good thing that I don't work for Google. I, for one, am sick of programming intervie
by derwiki 17y ago
If these are the type of questions that they feel qualify you, maybe it's a good thing that I don't work for Google. I, for one, am sick of programming interviews where they test aptitude by giving you riddles that end up getting posted online, so that interviews become more of "have I heard this question before or not" than a true measure of intelligence and motivation.
A better interview question: what's your Github username?
- emily37 17y agoI've had several interviews for internships with Google, and I've never had a single question like these. Lots of data structures and algorithms, never a single riddle. Like I said, these interviews were for internships, but I would be surprised if they ask those kinds of questions for full-time jobs but not for internships.
- ssp 17y agoData structure and algorithm questions can be more or less like riddles though. For example, the question about finding a loop in a singly linked list is a bit like a riddle. There is also one about writing out a binary tree layer by layer, which really amounts to: "do you know what breadth-first traversal is, and do you get the insight that you can do that on trees too?"
- magic5227 17y agoYea, olympic short!
- babycakes 17y agoGoogle doesn't ask questions like these. In fact, they train interviewers to _not_ ask questions like these.
- apower 17y agoI got answered this kind of puzzle questions when I interviewed with Google.
- derwiki 17y agoI was skeptical reading these questions, because when I did phone screen at Google, I got very practical questions about map reduce and skip lists. I do know that many companies still use riddles like these, however.
- emily37 17y agoWhat companies? In internship interviews at MS, Google, Fog Creek, others, I've never been asked a question anything like these. (thank god)
- derwiki 17y agoI was asked a "crossing a river with a box and two locks" question when I interviewed for a full time database development position (database engine, that is). The question was related to public key encryption... which was something the position never even came close to requiring.
- barrkel 17y agoAnd creating your own encryption protocols from encryption primitives is easy to get wrong, even after you figure out something that seems to follow the rules, because of all sorts of gotchas.
- abossy 17y agoI first heard several of these questions specifically from multiple friends that were doing interviews at Google and were asked about them during their interviews. This was 2-3 years ago. Has their policy changed since then? I'm sure the questions vary a lot by manager. Perhaps some of them simply reference what's familiar.
- apower 17y agoYou must work for Google to know this. Given that, your answers are bias toward Google.
- nostrademons 17y agoI'm guessing that: 1. These were for APM interviews, not engineers. 2. These questions are no longer asked. Usually once an interview question ends up publicized on a blog, interviewers don't ask it anymore.