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Google recruiters call me a lot. I think I'd do a good if not stellar job working there. I've passed multiple FAANG interviews and been very successful as a sen

Google recruiters call me a lot. I think I'd do a good if not stellar job working there. I've passed multiple FAANG interviews and been very successful as a senior developer. In my email I have an "interview prep packet" from them that essentially tells me to brush up on algorithms and read Cracking the Coding Interview to prepare for their interview process. I'm fairly happy in my job. If they offered more money or a really interesting project I'd consider working for them. But I'm pretty lazy about redo-ing college algorithms class during my free time at home to go work there, so I probably won't. There's an opportunity cost with interviews like this where an M.S. and long career of getting shit done counts for very little and memorization of undergrad level topics that you can look up in two minutes in Knuth if you have a problem that requires it can make or break an interview. I've made a career fixing a ton of horribly shitty, inefficient code that's been produced exclusively by people who pass these interviews.

trishume 8y ago
I've interviewed with Google and the interviews I got didn't really require having memorized algorithms. Maybe on the level of breadth first and binary search which are pretty basic. But I don't think most interviews used any algorithms from a book at all. I think their interview prep packet overstates the amount of knowledge expected.
- Ensorceled 8y ago
  We ... had different experiences. It was a day of implementing algorithms on a whiteboard. I was supposed to be interviewing for a management position so I didn’t get the study packet either.
  - koube 8y ago
    I also interviewed at google, in the in-person all of the algos I got were very fair in my opinion, in that it took a little bit of thought to figure out what I needed to do, and then after that, most of the work was just turning that idea into an algorithm. It was all on the whiteboard but I thought it was fair. They were fine with little errors and we talked through them. On the phone interview I was asked how to something I had no idea how to do. I have no idea how I passed the phone interview. Seems like a mixed bag, the question as far as I know is completely up to the interviewer, which makes the interview very subjective when they don't use a normal question.
    - Ensorceled 8y ago
      Interesting. My interview process was one of the most negative interviewing experiences of my life. Two of the people interviewing me were mostly silent except when they were combative. One algorithm I implemented was essentially the internals of a popular vi clone and was dismissively told the algorithm wouldn’t work in practice. I also argued Big O with a another interviewer who said nothing except my value was wrong (it wasn’t).
- ball_of_lint 8y ago
  My interviews with Google last year did have a BFS and a system question, but they also asked me a problem that required dynamic programming and one that required fast exponentiation. I'd say that Google ranks 8 of 10 or so in how algorithm-heavy their interviews are.
warp_factor 8y ago
You wouldn't be a good fit for Google. With their algorithmic interviews that require college-grad level of studying, they filter for people that are ready to follow orders without complaining. That's who they want to hire at the end of the day: some coders that don't get too critical about their job and do what they are asked to do, even if it is repetitive, stupid and doesn't really make sense (such as re-studying algorithms implementation details for two weeks before an interview when it can be looked up super-easily online).
- drblast 8y ago
  I was a naval officer in a prior life, and my current manager loves that I get the job done, whatever it is, without complaint. I'm pretty much the opposite of what you think, so if my desire to study for the algorithm interview is your litmus test for that, kinda proves my point. Not everyone that would be good for Google has a burning desire to work for Google. Google might want to consider that.
  - warp_factor 8y ago
    To make it clear, I absolutely hate coding interviews that makes candidate lose so much time restudying. I think having some critical-thinking is absolutely needed and way too many engineers lack some (especially those swallowed into FANGs) What I described on my previous post is a credible explanation that my group of engineer friends came up with on why all the FANG companies pursue those heavy memorization algorithmic interviews.
    - toasterlovin 8y ago
      To my mind, the more likely explanation is that they would simply get too many false positives if they didn't use the algorithm stuff to filter potential hires. You lose a lot of potentially good hires that way, but the pool you're left with are all of a certain intelligence level. Whereas, if you don't use the algorithm stuff to filter, it's really hard to figure out who is even intelligent enough to do the job.
kradroy 8y ago
I'm in your boat. I get hit up by Google 3-4 times a year. I was interested once and did the pre-screening. When I got their prep packet I looked it over and then promptly canceled my interview. I wasn't going to review stuff I've never used throughout my 10+ year career. I'm a big fan of not wasting time, which I why I get stuff done at work and have been promoted twice at my current company in the past 3 years. As a sibling commenter suggests, if Google wants employees who blindly do what they're told, then I wouldn't be a good culture fit. I was taught critical thinking skills in school. Respectfully questioning my superiors' plans from time to time has been a valuable skill.
- bob33212 8y ago
  I have a technical phone screen with Google this week and I have the same attitude as you. So i'll probably fail the interview, but I'm doing it just in case they ask a real world problem, which I'm pretty good at.
  - driverdan 8y ago
    If they ask you any CS101 or algo questions end the interview and explain why.
- googlerx 8y ago
  Google is certainly not looking for "employees who blindly do what they're told", at least not for engineering roles.
  - eecsninja 8y ago
    No, but they certainly have no use for SWEs thinking outside the box in ways beyond engineering work. Such as recognizing that interviews don't work well to predict ability and success. We engineers are supposed to shut up and conduct interviews and build interview tools, not wonder if the whole thing is a case of the emperor has no clothes.
    - seanmcdirmid 8y ago
mikekchar 8y ago
What I find weird is why does anybody want to work at Google? I use their tools all the time at work. If you go to console.cloud.google.com... I mean... Wow. Just yesterday I was trying to find the logging for our cloud endpoints on Stackdriver. They should use that as their interview question ;-) And this is the big thing I've noticed about many Google apps (especially dev tools): they are all incredibly (for want of a better word) hacky. And the documentation... while I can very much appreciate that they are serious about it and work very hard, it's a huge mishmash of marketing speak ("It washes your socks and makes dinner for you!") with the crucial information you need hidden away in secret corners. I literally have to use Google the search engine to navigate any of the documentation. I don't mean to be so negative. It's not that it's so terrible in reality, it's just that it's not anything particularly great. I literally can't think of a single offering they have that I would aspire towards. There are lots of smaller, hungrier companies making much better products. And by extension, I think if you work at those smaller, hungrier companies you have a better chance of learning more, becoming a better developer and even being happier with your job. So the thing is, unless I'm alone in my assessment, I think the main things people are looking for from a job at Google are status and money. Additionally, I think a lot of young people believe that talented developers mostly work at famous companies. In my experience, this is the opposite. Back when Microsoft was the powerhouse, I knew a lot of MS developers. Some were amazing. Most were average (as you might expect when a company is hiring thousands upon thousands of developers). However, you had a much better chance of actually working with someone amazing if you got a job at a small shop. I still think this is true. Personally, I don't complain about the "You have to be this clever to ride" interviews. Yes, they self select for people who are not like me (bulldogs that work away obsessively at problems until they are solved without using any particular magic insight). Yes, it means that I'm unlikely to get paid at the very, very top of the payscale (heck, if I wanted to get paid more, I would have been a lawyer -- I want to write code). It just means that it's that much easier for me to find companies that are a good fit for me. I don't really see a problems with that.
- thewarrior 8y ago
  Simple answer: Money + Prestige + Job security + Resume
bottled_poe 8y ago
> I've made a career fixing a ton of horribly shitty, inefficient code that's been produced exclusively by people who pass these interviews. I love this comment.
- hackits 8y ago
  Give them benefit of a doubt, you have no prior knowledge of the time/pressure constraint's and organization structure at the time they wrote the code. I would say they probably made the decision like we all do when development work, that solving this n+1 or bubble sort, or api package doesn't have time in the budget. Getting to market sometimes is more important to managers than optimal `correct` code, when the market isn't willing to pay for the services of `correct`.
lucidone 8y ago
I've realized I can still have a great career, make a very respectable wage, and work on interesting, novel problems all without working for a FAANG. Moreover, I don't have to directly contribute to the proliferation of corporate surveillance as a societal norm.
musicale 8y ago
"I've made a career fixing a ton of horribly shitty, inefficient code that's been produced exclusively by people who pass these interviews." Well, the interviews are marginally effective at identifying new CS grads (who also are cheap and have few outside commitments - companies love this!) but not much else. You're exactly right to view it as an algorithms final exam or an algorithm puzzle contest, but Cracking the Coding Interview is an embarrassingly bad book, in spite of (?) its ostensible purpose of helping people study for algorithm puzzle interviews at Google, Facebook, etc..
- oarabbus_ 8y ago
  >but Cracking the Coding Interview is an embarrassingly bad book I like how you made this bold claim with zero justification as to why.
Osiris 8y ago
I don't work in California and it took me a while to figure out what FAANG stands for. Have you guys ever thought that you're just in a bubble that's not representative of the industry as a whole?
chrstphrhrt 8y ago
Similar profile, would not considering working for them. My first and only interview with FB a few years ago I nailed the initial hoop jumping about IPC and other *nix things but overall just got a really bad taste in my mouth. Also went for dinner, which was nice but still, something is creepy about them. They are looking for some kind of desperation that I just don’t have. Sounds like some fun problem solving though. Haven’t had a chance to hire any ex-FAANGers yet, do they compare well to the general market?
HALtheWise 8y ago
Having recently gotten an offer after interviewing at Google, I can testify that those preparation packets are a sufficient but not necessary condition for doing well on an interview, and seem to be primarily targeted at making sure people who want to prepare don't do so badly. I spent about an hour on the plane reading through some example questions online, and did fine. I suspect that a lot of questions I "figured out" a clever solution to could actually have been solved with some obscure algorithm, but by treating them as puzzles rather than memorization tasks I was better able to demonstrate my skills as a candidate. In short, I think the exact same question is interpreted as a cool algorithm challenge or a recall check, and the interviewer will be fine with you rederiving the answer on the spot if you are quick thinking enough to do so.
oarabbus_ 8y ago
What an eloquent way to summarize the silly elitism of Google interviews. They seem to have no lack of talent and it certainly doesn't seem to be negatively affecting them. I wonder if this will change eventually, and Google will become IBM v2.0 (that is, a respected and profitable company which is mostly boring/unexciting).

trishume 8y ago

I've interviewed with Google and the interviews I got didn't really require having memorized algorithms. Maybe on the level of breadth first and binary search which are pretty basic. But I don't think most interviews used any algorithms from a book at all. I think their interview prep packet overstates the amount of knowledge expected.

Ensorceled 8y ago
We ... had different experiences. It was a day of implementing algorithms on a whiteboard. I was supposed to be interviewing for a management position so I didn’t get the study packet either.
- koube 8y ago
  I also interviewed at google, in the in-person all of the algos I got were very fair in my opinion, in that it took a little bit of thought to figure out what I needed to do, and then after that, most of the work was just turning that idea into an algorithm. It was all on the whiteboard but I thought it was fair. They were fine with little errors and we talked through them. On the phone interview I was asked how to something I had no idea how to do. I have no idea how I passed the phone interview. Seems like a mixed bag, the question as far as I know is completely up to the interviewer, which makes the interview very subjective when they don't use a normal question.
  - Ensorceled 8y ago
    Interesting. My interview process was one of the most negative interviewing experiences of my life. Two of the people interviewing me were mostly silent except when they were combative. One algorithm I implemented was essentially the internals of a popular vi clone and was dismissively told the algorithm wouldn’t work in practice. I also argued Big O with a another interviewer who said nothing except my value was wrong (it wasn’t).
ball_of_lint 8y ago
My interviews with Google last year did have a BFS and a system question, but they also asked me a problem that required dynamic programming and one that required fast exponentiation. I'd say that Google ranks 8 of 10 or so in how algorithm-heavy their interviews are.

warp_factor 8y ago

You wouldn't be a good fit for Google. With their algorithmic interviews that require college-grad level of studying, they filter for people that are ready to follow orders without complaining. That's who they want to hire at the end of the day: some coders that don't get too critical about their job and do what they are asked to do, even if it is repetitive, stupid and doesn't really make sense (such as re-studying algorithms implementation details for two weeks before an interview when it can be looked up super-easily online).

drblast 8y ago
I was a naval officer in a prior life, and my current manager loves that I get the job done, whatever it is, without complaint. I'm pretty much the opposite of what you think, so if my desire to study for the algorithm interview is your litmus test for that, kinda proves my point. Not everyone that would be good for Google has a burning desire to work for Google. Google might want to consider that.
- warp_factor 8y ago
  To make it clear, I absolutely hate coding interviews that makes candidate lose so much time restudying. I think having some critical-thinking is absolutely needed and way too many engineers lack some (especially those swallowed into FANGs) What I described on my previous post is a credible explanation that my group of engineer friends came up with on why all the FANG companies pursue those heavy memorization algorithmic interviews.
  - toasterlovin 8y ago
    To my mind, the more likely explanation is that they would simply get too many false positives if they didn't use the algorithm stuff to filter potential hires. You lose a lot of potentially good hires that way, but the pool you're left with are all of a certain intelligence level. Whereas, if you don't use the algorithm stuff to filter, it's really hard to figure out who is even intelligent enough to do the job.

kradroy 8y ago

I'm in your boat. I get hit up by Google 3-4 times a year. I was interested once and did the pre-screening. When I got their prep packet I looked it over and then promptly canceled my interview. I wasn't going to review stuff I've never used throughout my 10+ year career. I'm a big fan of not wasting time, which I why I get stuff done at work and have been promoted twice at my current company in the past 3 years. As a sibling commenter suggests, if Google wants employees who blindly do what they're told, then I wouldn't be a good culture fit. I was taught critical thinking skills in school. Respectfully questioning my superiors' plans from time to time has been a valuable skill.

bob33212 8y ago
I have a technical phone screen with Google this week and I have the same attitude as you. So i'll probably fail the interview, but I'm doing it just in case they ask a real world problem, which I'm pretty good at.
- driverdan 8y ago
  If they ask you any CS101 or algo questions end the interview and explain why.
googlerx 8y ago
Google is certainly not looking for "employees who blindly do what they're told", at least not for engineering roles.
- eecsninja 8y ago
  No, but they certainly have no use for SWEs thinking outside the box in ways beyond engineering work. Such as recognizing that interviews don't work well to predict ability and success. We engineers are supposed to shut up and conduct interviews and build interview tools, not wonder if the whole thing is a case of the emperor has no clothes.
  - seanmcdirmid 8y ago

mikekchar 8y ago

What I find weird is why does anybody want to work at Google? I use their tools all the time at work. If you go to console.cloud.google.com... I mean... Wow. Just yesterday I was trying to find the logging for our cloud endpoints on Stackdriver. They should use that as their interview question ;-) And this is the big thing I've noticed about many Google apps (especially dev tools): they are all incredibly (for want of a better word) hacky. And the documentation... while I can very much appreciate that they are serious about it and work very hard, it's a huge mishmash of marketing speak ("It washes your socks and makes dinner for you!") with the crucial information you need hidden away in secret corners. I literally have to use Google the search engine to navigate any of the documentation. I don't mean to be so negative. It's not that it's so terrible in reality, it's just that it's not anything particularly great. I literally can't think of a single offering they have that I would aspire towards. There are lots of smaller, hungrier companies making much better products. And by extension, I think if you work at those smaller, hungrier companies you have a better chance of learning more, becoming a better developer and even being happier with your job. So the thing is, unless I'm alone in my assessment, I think the main things people are looking for from a job at Google are status and money. Additionally, I think a lot of young people believe that talented developers mostly work at famous companies. In my experience, this is the opposite. Back when Microsoft was the powerhouse, I knew a lot of MS developers. Some were amazing. Most were average (as you might expect when a company is hiring thousands upon thousands of developers). However, you had a much better chance of actually working with someone amazing if you got a job at a small shop. I still think this is true. Personally, I don't complain about the "You have to be this clever to ride" interviews. Yes, they self select for people who are not like me (bulldogs that work away obsessively at problems until they are solved without using any particular magic insight). Yes, it means that I'm unlikely to get paid at the very, very top of the payscale (heck, if I wanted to get paid more, I would have been a lawyer -- I want to write code). It just means that it's that much easier for me to find companies that are a good fit for me. I don't really see a problems with that.

thewarrior 8y ago
Simple answer: Money + Prestige + Job security + Resume

bottled_poe 8y ago

> I've made a career fixing a ton of horribly shitty, inefficient code that's been produced exclusively by people who pass these interviews. I love this comment.

hackits 8y ago
Give them benefit of a doubt, you have no prior knowledge of the time/pressure constraint's and organization structure at the time they wrote the code. I would say they probably made the decision like we all do when development work, that solving this n+1 or bubble sort, or api package doesn't have time in the budget. Getting to market sometimes is more important to managers than optimal `correct` code, when the market isn't willing to pay for the services of `correct`.

lucidone 8y ago

I've realized I can still have a great career, make a very respectable wage, and work on interesting, novel problems all without working for a FAANG. Moreover, I don't have to directly contribute to the proliferation of corporate surveillance as a societal norm.

musicale 8y ago

"I've made a career fixing a ton of horribly shitty, inefficient code that's been produced exclusively by people who pass these interviews." Well, the interviews are marginally effective at identifying new CS grads (who also are cheap and have few outside commitments - companies love this!) but not much else. You're exactly right to view it as an algorithms final exam or an algorithm puzzle contest, but Cracking the Coding Interview is an embarrassingly bad book, in spite of (?) its ostensible purpose of helping people study for algorithm puzzle interviews at Google, Facebook, etc..

oarabbus_ 8y ago
>but Cracking the Coding Interview is an embarrassingly bad book I like how you made this bold claim with zero justification as to why.

Osiris 8y ago

I don't work in California and it took me a while to figure out what FAANG stands for. Have you guys ever thought that you're just in a bubble that's not representative of the industry as a whole?

chrstphrhrt 8y ago

Similar profile, would not considering working for them. My first and only interview with FB a few years ago I nailed the initial hoop jumping about IPC and other *nix things but overall just got a really bad taste in my mouth. Also went for dinner, which was nice but still, something is creepy about them. They are looking for some kind of desperation that I just don’t have. Sounds like some fun problem solving though. Haven’t had a chance to hire any ex-FAANGers yet, do they compare well to the general market?

HALtheWise 8y ago

Having recently gotten an offer after interviewing at Google, I can testify that those preparation packets are a sufficient but not necessary condition for doing well on an interview, and seem to be primarily targeted at making sure people who want to prepare don't do so badly. I spent about an hour on the plane reading through some example questions online, and did fine. I suspect that a lot of questions I "figured out" a clever solution to could actually have been solved with some obscure algorithm, but by treating them as puzzles rather than memorization tasks I was better able to demonstrate my skills as a candidate. In short, I think the exact same question is interpreted as a cool algorithm challenge or a recall check, and the interviewer will be fine with you rederiving the answer on the spot if you are quick thinking enough to do so.

oarabbus_ 8y ago

What an eloquent way to summarize the silly elitism of Google interviews. They seem to have no lack of talent and it certainly doesn't seem to be negatively affecting them. I wonder if this will change eventually, and Google will become IBM v2.0 (that is, a respected and profitable company which is mostly boring/unexciting).