11 ms·
Several years ago, right here on HN, a Google employee expressed shock that candidates wouldn't bother to open the "red book" and review before showing up for a
by hfdgiutdryg 8y ago
Several years ago, right here on HN, a Google employee expressed shock that candidates wouldn't bother to open the "red book" and review before showing up for an interview at Google. I had no idea what the "red book" was. Turns out that it's a particular algorithms textbook used by several top universities. That poster was so wrapped up in a particular culture that he was using colloquial slang to refer to expectations.
That's about the same time I realized tech hiring is almost entirely about cultural bias. Watching coworkers talk about rejected candidates as if they were morons for simply having a slightly different approach to, say, OOP architecture, further convinced me of this.
In my experience, "culture fit", as cited in post-interview discussion, was almost purely code for ageism. Meanwhile, most of the supposedly technical stuff was really culture.
- jplayer01 8y agoWhile I agree with your sentiment about cultural bias, I don't necessarily feel that the red book thing is all that relevant. I live in Europe and I've heard of (and consequently read) the 'red book', though I wouldn't have necessarily called it that.
- slavik81 8y agoIndeed. The OpenGL Programming Guide[1] has been the "Red Book" since it was published in 1997. Everybody knows about the Red Book. More seriously, I have no idea what book you're talking about. Whatever it is you're referring to, it was not the textbook used when I took Data Structures and Algorithms in undergrad (EE), nor when I TA'd the course while doing my master's (CS, Graphics) at another university. It feels a little arbitrary. As an EE, I took many classes on the fundamental design and construction of computers and communication networks. That knowledge has been very useful in understanding how my software interacts with the world. I will be the first to admit that my knowledge of trees, graphs and other data structures are weaker than those who spent many courses on them. But the company needs a broad assortment of skills to succeed, so it seems like a bad idea to base hiring heavily on finding people that all have the same talents as the interviewer. Of course, if I need to conform to that mold to pass the interview, that's what I'll do. [1]: http://www.opengl-redbook.com/ http://www.opengl-redbook.com/
- TechieKid 8y agoPlease be more sensitive about declaring something you know 'everyone knows.' Especially when in the same breath you admit to not knowing what red book parent and grandparent are talking about. While I don't match the example, folks born in 1997 when the book came out are just about graduating college in a couple of years, and expecting everyone to know all the nooks and crannies of computer science is not at all feasible. Relevant XKCD: https://www.xkcd.com/1053/ https://www.xkcd.com/1053/
- syrrim 8y agoIt's possible GP was trying to make a joke. One signifier of this is that he follows with "more seriously", suggesting what came before was less serious. You should be more sensitive before suggesting that someone isn't making a joke.
- slavik81 8y agoThat's exactly the point I was trying to make. I agree entirely.
- jplayer01 8y agoIt's hard to glean from the information given whether the Googler was so intent in the red book (Skiena, Algorithm Design Manual) that he required interviewees to be able to quote verbatim or just expected a certain knowledge of algorithms (for which a number of books would suffice, but Skiena really is a great resource for).
- qaq 8y agoWell I know fairly small company where people pretty much expected every candidate to be deeply familiar with The Art of Computer Programming Book by Donald Knuth. The even funnier part it was 100% PHP shop.
- jarsin 8y agoI find that impossible to believe :)
- qaq 8y agoeven more funny it was internal payment processor @ large porn conglomerate in Eastern Europe.
- golergka 8y agoWhy is it funny? That seems like exactly the high load, high availability requirements that would require software quality way higher than in a typical SV app that never gets above 1k DAU.
- qaq 8y agoThe payment processing side is not really high load
- darylfritz 8y agoI feel like there's a pun in here somewhere... ಠ_ಠ
- qaq 8y agoThey did write a functional framework and used "only" immutable vars though.
- colanderman 8y agoWhich is ironic, given the largely imperative approach taken by TAoCP.
- sdegutis 8y agoAs a self taught software developer, I struggle with the intellectual aspect of culture fit. On one hand, I have been told that all the stuff I have showcased on sdegutis.com is amazing. But on the other hand, I don't know many algorithms, can't comprehend math more advanced than high school algebra, and what I do know about software took me twice as long to learn it than it normally takes others. I have found that freelancing avoids even coming to the question of culture fit. Clients don't care what you know or what kind of books you read or where you went to school, they care what you can do. I have been turned down for jobs for not figuring out their algorithms, whereas the one client I have (I'm open to new clients btw) has told me that he's glad that he found me, because I get the job done fast and well and for cheap. The downside of this is that you're expected to do a perfect job 100% of the time and have to bite every minute that you lose to yak shaving or other problems, whereas if you work for an employer, they are more understanding if it takes a day to solve some stupid Java XML configuration issue.
- zamfi 8y ago> The downside of this is that you're expected to do a perfect job 100% of the time and have to bite every minute that you lose to yak shaving or other problems, whereas if you work for an employer, they are more understanding if it takes a day to solve some stupid Java XML configuration issue. The usual solution to this is to charge more. :)
- lylecubed 8y agoI thought the usual solution is to make it very clear to the client that yak shaving is billable time. I even have a section in my invoice that goes into detail about how much they're paying me for that yak shaving time. The yak shaving stops pretty damned fast after they get that first invoice.
- hnzix 8y agoyak shaving is time the dev spends futzing around with tooling configuration, it has nothing to do with the client. Sometimes yak shaving is necessary for a project (Java build config funtimes), in other cases not so much (fiddling with autocompletion plugins in your .vimrc)
- dblohm7 8y agoWhen I hear "Red book," I think of the OpenGL programming guide.
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- inapis 8y agoJust to confirm, the “red book” is the one by sedgewick and Wayne?
- derekja 8y agoHmm, I'd assumed Skiena https://www.springer.com/gp/book/9781848000698 https://www.springer.com/gp/book/9781848000698
- TechieKid 8y agoSince great-grandparent isn't responding, if anyone in the know could help out the rest of us on the outside, that would be awesome.
- joejerryronnie 8y agoReadings in Database Systems by Joseph Hellerstein and Michael Stonebraker https://www.amazon.com/Readings-Database-Systems-Joseph-Hellerstein/dp/0262693143/ https://www.amazon.com/Readings-Database-Systems-Joseph-Hell...
- bigtunacan 8y agoProblem is both are popular algorithms books and both are red...
- gopalv 8y agoYes, in the context of algorithms - https://algs4.cs.princeton.edu/home/ https://algs4.cs.princeton.edu/home/ However, at this point, I end up looking up that particular website instead of trying to remember anything about this book at all.
- avip 8y agoIt’s one of these Borges moves: The book doesn’t really exist, outside of the remarks of elusive Google interviewers who, so legend has it, expect you to master it.
- ken 8y agoI googled "red book" and found one by Jung, and one by Mao. I tried adding "computer science" and got one on relational databases, and one on OpenGL. If knowing "the red book" were so important to Google, you'd think they would make sure their own search engine knew how to find it. I have no idea which book they're referring to. For red computer science books, the only ones that come to mind are Numerical Recipes (probably not a Google favorite), one version of Appel's compiler book (not really an algorithms book), and perhaps the old edition of AIMA (though on further inspection, it's more brown).
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- threatofrain 8y agoI think the red book is the Robert Sedgewick book, but there are any number of well-known textbooks for intro to algorithms.
- stone-monkey 8y agoHuh - I would've guessed Algorithm Design Manual by Skienna. I have no idea which book the red book is supposed to be either, but I did read the Steve Yegge blog post about getting a job at Google in which he recommended reading it. Since that Yegge article is also used by Google recruiters as a resource for interview prep (according to Yegge), seemed natural to assume Skienna.
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- mianos 8y agoThe Robert Sedgewick book. It is an excellent book. All the cool kids have a red one. Mine was blueish purple and in pascal. LOL, I'll never get a job at Google.
- 8y ago
- griffinheart 8y agoI would read that as the "red book in algorithms" this is probably because of the famous OpenGL red book, so now we refer to the "fundamental" book in an area as the red book. In a sense yes its "wrapped up in a particular culture" I guess the culture that exposed me to this "red book" was a CS bachelors that included graphical programming as a course. Edit: If someone from google said to read the red book as a helper for interviewing I would probably return with "wait you mean the OpenGL book?"
- encoderer 8y agoCurrent management training is that “Culture fit” is a minefield of unconscious bias. It will take time to roll out but you’ll hear this phrase less and less over time. Possibly not much better, a more vogue term is “culture add.”
- duxup 8y agoI hear "culture fit" a lot from recruiters. They are just talking about it generally...but it is so vauge I have no idea what to say.
- pawelwentpawel 8y agoI'm curious what that "red book" is now. Wouldn't it be "Algorithm Design Manual" by Skiena?
- justin66 8y agoIn the context of a Google interview, I imagine it's whatever Stanford kids use.