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> Is this kind of code problem too complicated in your opinion? For all I join in when complaining about irrelevant algorithmic No. Just programming is actuall

by dmoy 7y ago

> Is this kind of code problem too complicated in your opinion? For all I join in when complaining about irrelevant algorithmic No. Just programming is actually not easy and a lot of people apply for jobs they can't do. Plus, a nonzero number of people freeze up in any interview situation. I once failed an interview loop because I forgot how bucket sort works.

agentultra 7y ago
Also 95% of job descriptions list skills candidates will never use and screen candidates with problems they will never encounter. At the final interview to join the SRE team at Google I was asked to implement the kNN algorithm. I barfed at implementing a kD-tree after regurgitating the brute force solution. Has any SRE ever had to implement a kD-tree in < 20 minutes or Google would go down? I asked the interviewer at the end. They had never implemented one on the job. As long as companies insist on these inane rituals I think it’s fair game to optimize for it as an interviewee. It’s stupid but what else can you do?
- raincom 7y ago
  They could be looking for those who participate in competitive programming contests.
- CoolGuySteve 7y ago
  The thing that really bugs me is that while Google has a reputation for asking these optimization questions, when it comes to programming artifacts one can inspect client side: - Gmail loads slower than Eudora did on dial-up - Chrome takes so much memory it’s basically a meme now - The Google homepage (a text bar on a white background) is several hundred KB. So what I want to know is, if they hire so many algorithmic whiz kids, where the fuck are they hiding?
  - username90 7y ago
    Very few at Google work at client side stuff, most sought after positions are many layers down the stack like machine learning, distributed infrastructure, programming languages or operative systems.
  - masonic 7y ago
    The (free) Google desktop suite has so many visible fails, it constantly surprises me. Gmail search gives a superset of results. Contacts editing is so slow, it must be doing something artificial behind the scenes. Contacts and Calendar entries rescroll back to the beginning whenever you change context. Even Gmail Labels are sorted differently between desktop and mobile, and navigating within a Label contents can lead you to a dead end that makes you reload Gmail.com from scratch.
  - joshuamorton 7y ago
    Right when you phrase things like that it does sound silly, but that's not what the google homepage is, nor is a literal webapp comparable to a desktop app in terms of load time (?!?). Chromium at least is open source. Make it use less memory.
- badpun 7y ago
  IMO, Google and similar require you to spend a lot of time preparing and training stuff you won't need to select for: a. hard workers, who will just do what is required without fussing b. people who really want to work there, either because of the fantastic comp or because they drank the cool aid or they genuinely want to work on specific stuff that nobody else except the tech giants does. I agree that it basically hazing, and has similar purposes - it discourages from applying people who are not hard workers or just don't care about working at a FAANG that much. As long as they still get tons of candidates, it's a great initial filter.

by dmoy 7y ago

agentultra 7y ago

Also 95% of job descriptions list skills candidates will never use and screen candidates with problems they will never encounter. At the final interview to join the SRE team at Google I was asked to implement the kNN algorithm. I barfed at implementing a kD-tree after regurgitating the brute force solution. Has any SRE ever had to implement a kD-tree in < 20 minutes or Google would go down? I asked the interviewer at the end. They had never implemented one on the job. As long as companies insist on these inane rituals I think it’s fair game to optimize for it as an interviewee. It’s stupid but what else can you do?

raincom 7y ago
They could be looking for those who participate in competitive programming contests.
CoolGuySteve 7y ago
The thing that really bugs me is that while Google has a reputation for asking these optimization questions, when it comes to programming artifacts one can inspect client side: - Gmail loads slower than Eudora did on dial-up - Chrome takes so much memory it’s basically a meme now - The Google homepage (a text bar on a white background) is several hundred KB. So what I want to know is, if they hire so many algorithmic whiz kids, where the fuck are they hiding?
- username90 7y ago
  Very few at Google work at client side stuff, most sought after positions are many layers down the stack like machine learning, distributed infrastructure, programming languages or operative systems.
- masonic 7y ago
  The (free) Google desktop suite has so many visible fails, it constantly surprises me. Gmail search gives a superset of results. Contacts editing is so slow, it must be doing something artificial behind the scenes. Contacts and Calendar entries rescroll back to the beginning whenever you change context. Even Gmail Labels are sorted differently between desktop and mobile, and navigating within a Label contents can lead you to a dead end that makes you reload Gmail.com from scratch.
- joshuamorton 7y ago
  Right when you phrase things like that it does sound silly, but that's not what the google homepage is, nor is a literal webapp comparable to a desktop app in terms of load time (?!?). Chromium at least is open source. Make it use less memory.
badpun 7y ago
IMO, Google and similar require you to spend a lot of time preparing and training stuff you won't need to select for: a. hard workers, who will just do what is required without fussing b. people who really want to work there, either because of the fantastic comp or because they drank the cool aid or they genuinely want to work on specific stuff that nobody else except the tech giants does. I agree that it basically hazing, and has similar purposes - it discourages from applying people who are not hard workers or just don't care about working at a FAANG that much. As long as they still get tons of candidates, it's a great initial filter.