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Standard disclaimer: everything below is my own opinion based on my personal experience, and I'm not speaking on behalf of my employer. > I thought I was done,

Standard disclaimer: everything below is my own opinion based on my personal experience, and I'm not speaking on behalf of my employer. > I thought I was done, then the interviewer said she would go go copy my code and compile it after the interview to see if I was right, which blew my mind. I've been interviewing at Google for nine years and have never done this. I generally don't think it's fair to ding a candidate for something I don't notice in an interview, where I'm at a huge advantage. If it looks right to me then that's good enough. But that said, I have often asked questions similar to what you describe. You have to write code in the shared doc because hiring committees want to see it - fair to blame the process for that, but not the interviewer. I actually appreciate this for a couple reasons: * It levels the playing field a bit, in the sense that code is more objective than an interviewer's notes on how a conversation went (especially for people who aren't native English speakers) * I sometimes find that candidates who communicate well struggle to turn their ideas info code. Other times, someone's communication and solution are kind of average, but then they use all the little things I like seeing (defaultdict(set), zip, etc. in Python). Lots of people claim to be very experienced programmers; seeing how comfortable and fluent someone is when actually writing code is a strong signal. If you don't like the focus on data structures and algorithms that you haven't thought about since college, you should probably appreciate the coding part.

mox1 5y ago
How would you feel if you were going to a job as a writer, and the interviewee asked you to put a story, poem, etc. down on a napkin, with a crayon? Like thats how I would feel writing code into freakin google docs during a job interview...with Google. Tie 1 arm behind by back as the synax goes wonky, I'm fighting the spacing, etc. etc. Or put mario Andretti into a ford focus, then test his lap times, with 0 warning. Yuck.
- verticalflight 5y ago
  Just fyi - Mario Andretti and other similar drivers could be placed into any car and would perform at a very high level after a lap or so...
- usefulcat 5y ago
  On one hand, I can appreciate that it's unpleasant to be put on the spot. Or being forced to use crappy tools. Nobody likes that. That said, if a person is being considered for a coding job, wouldn't that person want to demonstrate their coding abilities? I mean, assuming they're actually good at coding? In interviews, I much prefer a concrete problem to an abstract one, and coding problems are typically far more concrete than most other subjects covered in SW dev interviews.
- flavius29663 5y ago
  > mario Andretti If you're a world champion, you would probably enjoy an exercise like this. This lady pilot sure did: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5KiC03_wVjc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5KiC03_wVjc
  - nuclearnice1 5y ago
    What a delightful video! Unfortunately, her first time was 23 seconds over and she will not be getting a job on the Google racing team.
- nemonemo 5y ago
  I consider google doc coding an extension of the white board coding, which often happens in pair programming. I do not think it should aim perfectly working code, but at least I would personally expect reasonably good whiteboard coding hygiene from a colleague, at least for a report to the committee.
- soheil 5y ago
  Google Doc is specifically designed for writing and reading and used probably by more people than any other piece of software ever for that task. And you think it's fair to compare it to crayon and napkins? What a world we live in. Programming is often about thinking through the problem, but if you can't separate yourself form your IDE when writing code and it's about syntax then that says more about your style.
  - bostik 5y ago
    While I don't necessarily disagree with the sentiment, I can provide a real life take. Not specific to GDocs, this applies to all browser based editors. You may usually write code in a terminal based programmer's editor (vim, emacs, ...) and realise the code you've just written is not quite right. You want to delete the last two words. There's even a default and handy keybinding for doing that. So you press ^W twice.
- spookthesunset 5y ago
  I mean tabs don’t work like a normal editor. And it wraps lines. And the default font is not monospaced. If you are gonna require a candidate to write compilable code at least use one of the many tools designed explicitly for coding interviews. I think I’d rather use straight notepad than google docs.
neemeizdabest 5y ago
Google interview process is designed around how badly you want to work there not what are your skills i.e practising solving bunch of leetcode puzzles on whiteboard and speaking out loud is all it takes to get through the interview process. It just takes some time to prepare.
- spookthesunset 5y ago
  I think that is basically it. I think many of these FAANG companies interviews are more of a hazing than an actual assessment. Everybody who works there had to go through that interview… if you want to be part of the pack, you too must endure it. When viewed in that light it actually doesn’t seem quite as bad.
czep 5y ago
> It levels the playing field a bit, in the sense that code is more objective than an interviewer's notes Except that writing code in a Google doc on the phone doesn't in any way resemble the real "playing field". I grant that it's level in that everyone faces the same constraints, but to write code in a gdoc with red squiggly lines underneath every keyword, automatic capitalization after a dot, and variable width font? How does that give you any kind of useful assessment? It's like handing a butter knife and some twine to a doctor and saying "here, show me how you'd stitch up this wound".

mox1 5y ago

How would you feel if you were going to a job as a writer, and the interviewee asked you to put a story, poem, etc. down on a napkin, with a crayon? Like thats how I would feel writing code into freakin google docs during a job interview...with Google. Tie 1 arm behind by back as the synax goes wonky, I'm fighting the spacing, etc. etc. Or put mario Andretti into a ford focus, then test his lap times, with 0 warning. Yuck.

verticalflight 5y ago
Just fyi - Mario Andretti and other similar drivers could be placed into any car and would perform at a very high level after a lap or so...
usefulcat 5y ago
On one hand, I can appreciate that it's unpleasant to be put on the spot. Or being forced to use crappy tools. Nobody likes that. That said, if a person is being considered for a coding job, wouldn't that person want to demonstrate their coding abilities? I mean, assuming they're actually good at coding? In interviews, I much prefer a concrete problem to an abstract one, and coding problems are typically far more concrete than most other subjects covered in SW dev interviews.
flavius29663 5y ago
> mario Andretti If you're a world champion, you would probably enjoy an exercise like this. This lady pilot sure did: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5KiC03_wVjc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5KiC03_wVjc
- nuclearnice1 5y ago
  What a delightful video! Unfortunately, her first time was 23 seconds over and she will not be getting a job on the Google racing team.
nemonemo 5y ago
I consider google doc coding an extension of the white board coding, which often happens in pair programming. I do not think it should aim perfectly working code, but at least I would personally expect reasonably good whiteboard coding hygiene from a colleague, at least for a report to the committee.
soheil 5y ago
Google Doc is specifically designed for writing and reading and used probably by more people than any other piece of software ever for that task. And you think it's fair to compare it to crayon and napkins? What a world we live in. Programming is often about thinking through the problem, but if you can't separate yourself form your IDE when writing code and it's about syntax then that says more about your style.
- bostik 5y ago
  While I don't necessarily disagree with the sentiment, I can provide a real life take. Not specific to GDocs, this applies to all browser based editors. You may usually write code in a terminal based programmer's editor (vim, emacs, ...) and realise the code you've just written is not quite right. You want to delete the last two words. There's even a default and handy keybinding for doing that. So you press ^W twice.
spookthesunset 5y ago
I mean tabs don’t work like a normal editor. And it wraps lines. And the default font is not monospaced. If you are gonna require a candidate to write compilable code at least use one of the many tools designed explicitly for coding interviews. I think I’d rather use straight notepad than google docs.

neemeizdabest 5y ago

Google interview process is designed around how badly you want to work there not what are your skills i.e practising solving bunch of leetcode puzzles on whiteboard and speaking out loud is all it takes to get through the interview process. It just takes some time to prepare.

spookthesunset 5y ago
I think that is basically it. I think many of these FAANG companies interviews are more of a hazing than an actual assessment. Everybody who works there had to go through that interview… if you want to be part of the pack, you too must endure it. When viewed in that light it actually doesn’t seem quite as bad.

czep 5y ago

> It levels the playing field a bit, in the sense that code is more objective than an interviewer's notes Except that writing code in a Google doc on the phone doesn't in any way resemble the real "playing field". I grant that it's level in that everyone faces the same constraints, but to write code in a gdoc with red squiggly lines underneath every keyword, automatic capitalization after a dot, and variable width font? How does that give you any kind of useful assessment? It's like handing a butter knife and some twine to a doctor and saying "here, show me how you'd stitch up this wound".