7 ms·

"In each one, I was given a technical problem and asked to whiteboard my solution." Can't believe Google is still doing this crap. 5 whiteboarding exercises,

• griffinmichl 10y ago
  A company like google has the resources to basically just make their interview an IQ test with the assumption that they can throw smart people into any role they need them in.
  • jcadam 10y ago
    I'd rather they just sit me down in a quiet room and have me take a formal IQ test (Wonderlic, etc.). Seems like it would be a more efficient use of time for all concerned. Seriously, we could get this done in three steps: 1. Phone screen including Fizzbuzz-level programming challenge. 2. IQ Test 3. Personality/Culture-fit interview.
    • erubin 10y ago
      I believe it is not legal to use actual IQ tests in the U.S.
      • gergles 10y ago
        It's legal, just difficult to defend, because there are racial differences in IQ. So, there is a presumption by the EEOC that you are discriminating based on race if you give an IQ test. You can get around this by conducting a study that finds IQ is better correlated to performance on a particular role than any other nondiscriminatory measure, but good luck with that, and good luck proving that when you get sued by someone. It's just too risky, despite not being illegal.
        • theseatoms 10y ago
          I've heard the Wonderlic test is often used instead, possibly for this reason.
      • CobrastanJorji 10y ago
        Pretty sure that's not the case. When I worked for IBM back in the day, their interview did in fact involve an actual IQ test administered online as a first screening step.
      • dragonwriter 10y ago
        It's absolutely legal. Like any other screening tool that has significantly differential impact by race, it's only legal when it is sufficiently demonstrably related to performance in the specific jobs for which it is used as a screening tool. There is a popular myth that it is illegal because of a case where it was found to be illegal in the specific manner in which it was used. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Griggs_v._Duke_Power_Co.# https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Griggs_v._Duke_Power_Co.#
      • arebop 10y ago
        I've been given an actual IQ test during an interview process in the U.S.
      • Godel_unicode 10y ago
        As with all things employment law, it's more complicated than that. Briefly, the test must be "professionally developed" and relevant. Thus the whiteboard programming exam is an admissable proxy for an IQ test. https://www.hiresuccess.com/blog/is-employment-testing-legal https://www.hiresuccess.com/blog/is-employment-testing-legal
• drdaeman 10y ago
  Depends on how the whiteboard is meant to be used. It must be perfectly fine if it's meant to draw figures and overall ideas about the solution. That's what whiteboards are for. Sometimes a picture's worth a thousand words, and drawing diagrams or illustrations is frequently indispensable for actually solving a complex problem (as opposed to having a picture in the head, or described in writing). But I'd say it's borderline offensive to ask a person to write any realistic code (i.e. not very-high-level pseudocode that's more of a human-readable notes than something for a machine) on a whiteboard. Never been to Google, so no idea what they ask for.
  • mashlol 10y ago
    They ask you for code. Real, runnable code. The interviewer types it verbatim from what you wrote on the board... I don't think they necessarily care if it compiles, or if you forgot whether it was Set.has() or Set.contains(), but for some reason they do not allow pseudocode.
• riyadparvez 10y ago
  I concur with you. I do not have any allergy towards whiteboard questions. Couple of whiteboards is reasonable, but five of them seems totally unnecessary.
• overcast 10y ago
  Google, and the other big players, will continue doing this, as long as people keep lining up to their doors in droves. When you literally have the pick of the litter, you can do whatever you want.
  • 27182818284 10y ago
    For what it is worth--at this point I don't think Google has the pick of the litter. I know brilliant people that aren't even considering Google compared to SpaceX, Uber, etc.
    • overcast 10y ago
      As far as we're all concerned, Google still has the pick of the litter. They are certainly an end goal for a lot of talented people.
• crimsonalucard 10y ago
  I've talked to a research scientist at facebook who commented on this exact issue. They've debated this, the issue is that architecture, past experience, workflow are all things that can be taught to anyone. Google and similar companies aren't in the business of hiring anyone who can just learn anything. Given enough time anyone can develop skills to be a programmer. However, google is in the business of hiring people who are intellectually superior. People who can do things that can't necessarily be taught. You complain about 5 whiteboard problems because most likely you won't be able to solve 5 whiteboard problems. This does not mean you're a bad programmer. However, the guy who can solve those problems without an issue has a higher probability of having higher intelligence and better programming skills than you.
  • palakchokshi 10y ago
    But the whiteboarding questions and their successful completion by the author clearly shows Google is hiring for skills that the author was able to learn in 1 month. Architecture, workflow, use of proper design patterns, etc. are things you learn from past experience.
    • crimsonalucard 10y ago
      He failed those indicating he needs more time to learn if he can learn it at all.
    • khedoros 10y ago
      There's "successful completion", and then there's what Google is looking for. They want optimal code, and they want you to explain your thought process as you're writing. They want you to hit all the subtle corner cases without being prompted (and for you to verbally note why you coded it that way). You solved the problem if you give them the O(n^2) answer, but they're looking for the more complicated O(n) answer, because then they'll get to present you with the 2nd and 3rd variations on the question, rather than spending time refining the first.
  • sbov 10y ago
    I disagree, the type of whiteboard questions you get can completely get taught, and practicing helps. Intellect certainly helps, but it helps in every activity. If I wanted to put a negative spin on it: Google is filtering for people with lots of free time on their hands and spend that free time on intellectual pursuits. This makes them more likely to spend their free time staying at work rather than going home and doing something else.
• ikeyany 10y ago
  I don't see the issue. Coding on a whiteboard is more about demonstrating your problem solving ability, not your raw knowledge of programming. If they ask you to implement something like a maze solver, having the exact answer seems less important than communicating the steps needed to create such a solver (e.g. making sure you truly understand the question, taking note of possible bottlenecks or corner cases, having an 'obvious' solution and proving why it's slow/wasteful, etc.). That being said, everyone knows you need to have a solid understanding of data structures and algorithms to be seriously considered, but I don't think Google is necessarily looking for software prodigies.
  • kafkaesq 10y ago
    Coding on a whiteboard is more about demonstrating your problem solving ability, Whilst explaining verbally to others your every single step of your thought processes while you are doing fine-grained analysis the problem (something which one almost never has to do in real engineering environments), and under incredibly unrealistic time pressure ("these people will either love me or hate me, depending on what I say in the next 5 seconds.") And typically to solve "problems" that bear little or no resemblance to the kind of problems that you'd actually be tasked with solving on a day-to-day basis at most of these roles. But which instead seem to solve other, ulterior purposes -- in particular, to shore up the interviewer's own insecurities: "Gosh, I wish I knew how to find good people for this job. And heaven forbid if the candidate should ask me to explain our business model... But if we ask a bunch of Google-style questions at the whiteboard... I guess that means we must be in same league as Google."
    • pm90 10y ago
      Seeing as how it has worked so far for them, I would put in a little more effort to justify why their current process needs to change.
      • kafkaesq 10y ago
        I'm not saying that the Google process doesn't work. My point is that it "works", but for ulterior purposes. In Google's case, for example -- to establish their "brand."
• munificent 10y ago
  > But maybe part of the interview could be spend talking about, you know, architecture, past experience, workflow, etc. Google does to do that for many candidates, but if you're a recent school grad, you probably don't have as much past experience to talk about, so the interviewer will instead tend to focus on coding questions. Basically, the longer your work history is, the more questions you'll get about what you have done versus demonstrating what you can do.
  • linkregister 10y ago
    I've interviewed at Google 3 times. I have never been asked about my experience. In fact, citing relevant experience during the question has resulted in a negative reaction from interviewers. I think the Google interviewing ethos is to hire generalist engineers, and necessary specialization will follow. There are exceptions, of course: Google Zero, Google X, but I maintain for SWE and SRE, it's all about the whiteboarding.
• honkhonkpants 10y ago
  Nobody cares about your experience or preconceptions about architecture because your experience will be pretty much irrelevant at Google which uses almost no third-party code and has a homegrown solution to everything, and because Google's software architecture is radically different from any other company's and you have to adapt to it, not the other way around.