3 ms·

The ones coming up with products are usually executives looking to advance their career. e.g. everyone I know who worked on Google Stadia who cared readily poin

The ones coming up with products are usually executives looking to advance their career. e.g. everyone I know who worked on Google Stadia who cared readily pointed out all the problems from idea to implementation. Management & product design waved off the concerns, said they were in for the long haul, and that the product would be a huge success regardless. And then they got cold feet after realizing how much of a flop it was, and how money they needed to spend to make a real entry into games. I am no fan of leetcode. I think Google's engineering interview process is mostly RNG. But have you seen mock interviews for the product designers? They're even more inscrutable: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qTcXXGJiunA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qTcXXGJiunA

klabb3 4y ago
I agree, in the sense that it's less about leetcode skills and more about company politics. I can tell you for a fact that the programming geniuses don't make product decisions, much less so strategy decisions. These products would look VERY different if that was the case. Instead, the important strategic decisions are left for various opportunistic short termers, like product managers, directors etc. They are incentivized on shorter time scales and are motivated by prestige, visibility and career advancement. What looks good in a slide deck will be rewarded, basically. These people are much more in touch with internal company politics first and the industry at large second. They are shockingly oblivious to their own user base – (YouTube rewind is the best irrefutable proof for this). Big redesigns and product changes are rewarded for way too early, imo. Common tenure for a PM is 1-1.5 years, enough for a promotion, and short enough to weasel out before they have to deal with the backlash.
WalterBright 4y ago
I've had a couple young people complain to me about leetcode interviews at Google. I replied that they could spend a couple weeks going over the leetcode books, and if that was what it took to get a $250,000 job, then that will be the best investment of time they'd ever make. Besides, one cannot help but learn programming things from examining leetcode solutions. Google probably also wants to hire motivated people, and people who will study up on leetcode will be a better hire than a lazy one who doesn't want to put in the work.
- 1980phipsi 4y ago
  Nevertheless, it's an empirical question as to whether this method of recruiting produces the employees that maximize long-term profits for the company. I don't doubt that a major reason for asking these types of questions, as opposed to an IQ test or something, is that it is basically illegal in the US to do so.
  - WalterBright 4y ago
    It's an empirical question about every method of recruiting. Making a bad hire can cost a company dearly. If there was some obviously better way of doing it, wouldn't companies do that? Avoiding expensive lawsuits is likely another reason for leetcode gates.
loudmax 4y ago
I was actually impressed at how well Stadia worked. My impression is that they did an excellent job at the technical implementation. A lot of games don't require millisecond response times or amazing graphics and Stadia would have had one of the best anti-cheat systems for multiplayer games, basically for free. What sank Stadia before it even launched was their asinine pricing strategy. It should have been clear to anyone with a basic understanding of computers that playing a game over the network will be inferior to playing local, but they could have made up the difference with pay as you go pricing and an emphasis on multiplayer games where the graphics don't matter as much. Of course they did the exact opposite, and then decided to double down on bad ideas by ignoring indie developers. I still think the technology has a lot of potential (well in Stadia's case had a lot of potential), but with that kind of management, even the Covid lockdowns and the GPU shortage weren't enough to save a product that was designed to fail.
- emptysongglass 4y ago
  You're writing like Stadia's already dead, which it isn't and far from it. I've tried all the cloud gaming platforms and none touch the ease of use and pick-up-play quality of Stadia. People today are even playing Stadia without knowing it thanks to Google's new white-labeling strategy.

klabb3 4y ago

I agree, in the sense that it's less about leetcode skills and more about company politics. I can tell you for a fact that the programming geniuses don't make product decisions, much less so strategy decisions. These products would look VERY different if that was the case. Instead, the important strategic decisions are left for various opportunistic short termers, like product managers, directors etc. They are incentivized on shorter time scales and are motivated by prestige, visibility and career advancement. What looks good in a slide deck will be rewarded, basically. These people are much more in touch with internal company politics first and the industry at large second. They are shockingly oblivious to their own user base – (YouTube rewind is the best irrefutable proof for this). Big redesigns and product changes are rewarded for way too early, imo. Common tenure for a PM is 1-1.5 years, enough for a promotion, and short enough to weasel out before they have to deal with the backlash.

WalterBright 4y ago

I've had a couple young people complain to me about leetcode interviews at Google. I replied that they could spend a couple weeks going over the leetcode books, and if that was what it took to get a $250,000 job, then that will be the best investment of time they'd ever make. Besides, one cannot help but learn programming things from examining leetcode solutions. Google probably also wants to hire motivated people, and people who will study up on leetcode will be a better hire than a lazy one who doesn't want to put in the work.

1980phipsi 4y ago
Nevertheless, it's an empirical question as to whether this method of recruiting produces the employees that maximize long-term profits for the company. I don't doubt that a major reason for asking these types of questions, as opposed to an IQ test or something, is that it is basically illegal in the US to do so.
- WalterBright 4y ago
  It's an empirical question about every method of recruiting. Making a bad hire can cost a company dearly. If there was some obviously better way of doing it, wouldn't companies do that? Avoiding expensive lawsuits is likely another reason for leetcode gates.

loudmax 4y ago

I was actually impressed at how well Stadia worked. My impression is that they did an excellent job at the technical implementation. A lot of games don't require millisecond response times or amazing graphics and Stadia would have had one of the best anti-cheat systems for multiplayer games, basically for free. What sank Stadia before it even launched was their asinine pricing strategy. It should have been clear to anyone with a basic understanding of computers that playing a game over the network will be inferior to playing local, but they could have made up the difference with pay as you go pricing and an emphasis on multiplayer games where the graphics don't matter as much. Of course they did the exact opposite, and then decided to double down on bad ideas by ignoring indie developers. I still think the technology has a lot of potential (well in Stadia's case had a lot of potential), but with that kind of management, even the Covid lockdowns and the GPU shortage weren't enough to save a product that was designed to fail.

emptysongglass 4y ago
You're writing like Stadia's already dead, which it isn't and far from it. I've tried all the cloud gaming platforms and none touch the ease of use and pick-up-play quality of Stadia. People today are even playing Stadia without knowing it thanks to Google's new white-labeling strategy.