8 ms·

I make development software for companies like Google. Currently their biggest demand is to be able to use their white board instead of the keyboard+IDE for in

by illumen 15y ago

I make development software for companies like Google. Currently their biggest demand is to be able to use their white board instead of the keyboard+IDE for input. We call it an IDW, Integrated Development Whiteboard. Also, they need tools to help them develop different sorting algorithms and link lists. Plus they are having trouble with binary trees, but link lists and bubble sorts are their number 1 priority! Instead of more advanced performance modeling, they want to use this non-sciency thing called Big O notation. Once they write a Big O notation on the IDW(Integrated Development Whiteboard) they expect it to go that fast. If it doesn't go that fast... they just chuck more servers at it (we supply their servers too, so Big O makes us happy). They also want us to provide them with flannel shirts and dr martins for uniforms. They say that 90s clothes help them with their interviewing techniques, because it helps them remember how interviews were done in the day; when they were edgy.

ender7 15y ago
Part of the point of the whiteboard is that it's not a real development environment. Google interviews are usually designed to test how you think, not how well you can place a semicolon. The point is, it's okay if you miss a brace or forget the name of a method. It also allows you to mix diagrams and psuedo-code in with 'real' code in an easy way. (also, I can't think of a better environment to give them. You can't provide everyone with their favorite IDE with all the code hints, so in the end it's just going to be a dumb text editor anyway) Working on a whiteboard is definitely a skill, but one that's worth developing if you plan to work with others on a complex project. That said, they really shouldn't have been giving this guy standard CS questions. Sure, you want to make sure that he understands why writing his string concatenation loop the wrong way will result in O(n^2) behavior, but he was interviewing for a front-end position.
- nostrademons 15y ago
  The front-end interviews are a mix of front-end focused interviewers and gen-eng interviewers (usually 3 & 2, respectively). That's because the frontend-SWE position involves writing JS/HTML/CSS to run in a browser, but it also involves writing the server code that generates that JS/HTML/CSS (same reason that Java or C++ is part of the job req). We care very much about efficiency when your code runs on tens of thousands of servers. There are also a bunch of algorithmic questions that come up in the browser as well, because unlike a lot of sites, Google actually cares about latency. You often can't use a library function if it involves pulling in a 300K library, nor can you write an O(n^2) algorithm if it involves locking up the browser.
  - jumby 15y ago
    Then ask about browser caching, expires headers, js/css minimization, yslow (or page speed :/), CDNs, and generic front end stuff
    - deleted 15y ago
      [deleted]
    - nostrademons 15y ago
      A non-trivial percentage of visitors hit Google Search with an empty cache and no cookies. I know the numbers but aren't sure I can share them, but it's enough that relying on caching to solve latency woes doesn't work.
      - nl 15y ago
        In 2007 Yahoo shows that ~40-60% of users hit their pages with an empty cache[1]. Newer numbers would be good :) [1] http://www.yuiblog.com/blog/2007/01/04/performance-research-part-2/ http://www.yuiblog.com/blog/2007/01/04/performance-research-...
      - jumby 15y ago
        That's fine, but are you asking your frontend devs to solve Google's latency woes as a normal part of their interview?
    - jojopotato 15y ago
      From my experience, they do ask those questions.
minikomi 15y ago
I heard they almost have their spam filter down ... They have discovered every third mail sent is some form of cola advertising, and every fifth mail sent is empty words used to drum up hype.. Can no-one think of a way to mark those mails?
alexgartrell 15y ago
The forty yard dash provides one of the most important signals for football recruiting. Essentially, it's a measurement of the time from when the athlete takes his hands off of the start line to when he crosses the finish line. Most commonly, it is run in cleats on grass with no pads, and certainly no players trying to prevent you from reaching the goal line. In addition to that, the best technique for running a forty, literally falling forward to build momentum before lifting your hand off the ground, is actually illegal for offensive players (and pretty pointless for defensive ones). So why is this completely unrelated activity so important for measuring football players? Because it takes ten seconds to measure, and a guy who can run a 4.2 forty can almost always play pretty damn well. Tech interviews today are a low cost way of getting a rough idea of ability to code. Judging from Google's output, it's pretty damn effective for them.
- rjsen 15y ago
  Except that the 40 really isn't a very good measure - if it were, the Oakland Raiders would be winning the Superbowl every year instead of missing the playoffs. Of the 15 fastest players in the last 12 years (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/40-yard_dash http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/40-yard_dash), only 2 are stars, and most are bench guys or out of the league. The 40 has its uses, but it needs to be taken as one fairly small factor in evaluating a player, and even then it's only really relevant for certain positions. Similarly, coding algorithms on whiteboards doesn't tell you much other than how good the candidate is at coding algorithms on whiteboards. Given that the vast majority of their revenue comes from either search (which was built over a decade ago) or companies they've acquired, and the numerous well-hyped failures (Buzz, Wave, +, etc.), I don't think it's actually working all that well for Google either.
  - alexgartrell 15y ago
    I'm not saying it's a perfect indicator, I'm saying it's a cheap and easy indicator. Certainly there are outliers in every direction, but a running back who runs a 5.0 forty just isn't going to be very good (unless he's like 400 pounds). So is it more likely that Google is filled with idiots that can't see the err of their ways, or that, across tens of thousands of individual hires, this is the most cost effective and produces the best results (minimizing false positives) on average. College-admissions style interviewing just doesn't make sense for a company like Google. FWIW, there are a couple edge cases (like javascript/frontend engineers) which my company (Facebook) has completely separate hiring tracks for. It works for us, but I'm sure Google has its own reasons for not doing that.
kamaal 15y ago
Strange, These days very little to zero development happens without IDEs. I don't really know why anybody should expect to test somebody's skills without an IDE. That's because today a term called 'Productivity' has become massively more important than any thing else. Its something like this, Lets say there is an archer. He can shoot the red dot 9/10 of times with his bow and arrow. You take away the bow and arrow and give him stones and ask him to match the same 9/10 hits on the red dot. Guess what, he won't be able to, May be with time he can. But for the time being he can't. What does this say? Does this mean he is a bad archer? No. Tools and their usage is part of the trade. No skill can be tested in Isolation.

by illumen 15y ago

ender7 15y ago

Part of the point of the whiteboard is that it's not a real development environment. Google interviews are usually designed to test how you think, not how well you can place a semicolon. The point is, it's okay if you miss a brace or forget the name of a method. It also allows you to mix diagrams and psuedo-code in with 'real' code in an easy way. (also, I can't think of a better environment to give them. You can't provide everyone with their favorite IDE with all the code hints, so in the end it's just going to be a dumb text editor anyway) Working on a whiteboard is definitely a skill, but one that's worth developing if you plan to work with others on a complex project. That said, they really shouldn't have been giving this guy standard CS questions. Sure, you want to make sure that he understands why writing his string concatenation loop the wrong way will result in O(n^2) behavior, but he was interviewing for a front-end position.

nostrademons 15y ago
The front-end interviews are a mix of front-end focused interviewers and gen-eng interviewers (usually 3 & 2, respectively). That's because the frontend-SWE position involves writing JS/HTML/CSS to run in a browser, but it also involves writing the server code that generates that JS/HTML/CSS (same reason that Java or C++ is part of the job req). We care very much about efficiency when your code runs on tens of thousands of servers. There are also a bunch of algorithmic questions that come up in the browser as well, because unlike a lot of sites, Google actually cares about latency. You often can't use a library function if it involves pulling in a 300K library, nor can you write an O(n^2) algorithm if it involves locking up the browser.
- jumby 15y ago
  Then ask about browser caching, expires headers, js/css minimization, yslow (or page speed :/), CDNs, and generic front end stuff
  - deleted 15y ago
    [deleted]
  - nostrademons 15y ago
    A non-trivial percentage of visitors hit Google Search with an empty cache and no cookies. I know the numbers but aren't sure I can share them, but it's enough that relying on caching to solve latency woes doesn't work.
    - nl 15y ago
      In 2007 Yahoo shows that ~40-60% of users hit their pages with an empty cache[1]. Newer numbers would be good :) [1] http://www.yuiblog.com/blog/2007/01/04/performance-research-part-2/ http://www.yuiblog.com/blog/2007/01/04/performance-research-...
    - jumby 15y ago
      That's fine, but are you asking your frontend devs to solve Google's latency woes as a normal part of their interview?
  - jojopotato 15y ago
    From my experience, they do ask those questions.

minikomi 15y ago

I heard they almost have their spam filter down ... They have discovered every third mail sent is some form of cola advertising, and every fifth mail sent is empty words used to drum up hype.. Can no-one think of a way to mark those mails?

alexgartrell 15y ago

The forty yard dash provides one of the most important signals for football recruiting. Essentially, it's a measurement of the time from when the athlete takes his hands off of the start line to when he crosses the finish line. Most commonly, it is run in cleats on grass with no pads, and certainly no players trying to prevent you from reaching the goal line. In addition to that, the best technique for running a forty, literally falling forward to build momentum before lifting your hand off the ground, is actually illegal for offensive players (and pretty pointless for defensive ones). So why is this completely unrelated activity so important for measuring football players? Because it takes ten seconds to measure, and a guy who can run a 4.2 forty can almost always play pretty damn well. Tech interviews today are a low cost way of getting a rough idea of ability to code. Judging from Google's output, it's pretty damn effective for them.

rjsen 15y ago
Except that the 40 really isn't a very good measure - if it were, the Oakland Raiders would be winning the Superbowl every year instead of missing the playoffs. Of the 15 fastest players in the last 12 years (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/40-yard_dash http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/40-yard_dash), only 2 are stars, and most are bench guys or out of the league. The 40 has its uses, but it needs to be taken as one fairly small factor in evaluating a player, and even then it's only really relevant for certain positions. Similarly, coding algorithms on whiteboards doesn't tell you much other than how good the candidate is at coding algorithms on whiteboards. Given that the vast majority of their revenue comes from either search (which was built over a decade ago) or companies they've acquired, and the numerous well-hyped failures (Buzz, Wave, +, etc.), I don't think it's actually working all that well for Google either.
- alexgartrell 15y ago
  I'm not saying it's a perfect indicator, I'm saying it's a cheap and easy indicator. Certainly there are outliers in every direction, but a running back who runs a 5.0 forty just isn't going to be very good (unless he's like 400 pounds). So is it more likely that Google is filled with idiots that can't see the err of their ways, or that, across tens of thousands of individual hires, this is the most cost effective and produces the best results (minimizing false positives) on average. College-admissions style interviewing just doesn't make sense for a company like Google. FWIW, there are a couple edge cases (like javascript/frontend engineers) which my company (Facebook) has completely separate hiring tracks for. It works for us, but I'm sure Google has its own reasons for not doing that.

kamaal 15y ago

Strange, These days very little to zero development happens without IDEs. I don't really know why anybody should expect to test somebody's skills without an IDE. That's because today a term called 'Productivity' has become massively more important than any thing else. Its something like this, Lets say there is an archer. He can shoot the red dot 9/10 of times with his bow and arrow. You take away the bow and arrow and give him stones and ask him to match the same 9/10 hits on the red dot. Guess what, he won't be able to, May be with time he can. But for the time being he can't. What does this say? Does this mean he is a bad archer? No. Tools and their usage is part of the trade. No skill can be tested in Isolation.