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And my point is that there's about a zero percent chance that the person making that decision, or even giving significant feedback about it, is going to be with

And my point is that there's about a zero percent chance that the person making that decision, or even giving significant feedback about it, is going to be within 20 feet of the people in question who will be implementing it. Or more practically that they would do a roll-out release (as they did) and increase capacity as they go. All questions for devops, the product manager or some type of an "Architect" working with analytics to estimate demand and volume. To imply that a single engineer in a room with no information about Gmail's infrastructure is supposed to know that without (any information about: technologies, storage, indexing, user volume, mail volume, etc) seems absolutely fucking stupid. If they want to hear me think aloud about these things and know that I can be cognisant of them... well... there are better ways of doing that than asking me stupid questions that it's stupid for me to even try and answer. As someone else said, simply changing the question from "How many gas stations are there in NY" to "How would you estimate the number of gas stations in NY" makes it entirely different, IMO.

gaylemcd 13y ago
That's really not the case at Google (or, I would hope, at any company). The engineers would be very much involved with this decision, largely driving the ultimate conclusion.
raldi 13y ago
> Or more practically that they would do a roll-out release (as they did) and increase capacity as they go. What if, increasing capacity as they go, they discover that they're going to need 140 billion dollars worth of hard drives? Before the rollout can happen, someone has to decide whether or not to greenlight the project. And that person needs to come up with an estimated cost. Before the rollout begins. > To imply that a single engineer in a room with no information [etc] Who implied that?
- drivebyacct2 13y ago
  I don't know, I guess I have a very pessimistic view of interviews asking these sorts of questions almost vindictively. I'd prefer questions and problems and challenges that I'm likely to face and address as an engineer. If Google hires engineers to answer "brain teasers" that either require a dozen exceptions/qualifications or some vague random nonsensense answer, then more power to them. (But I doubt they do, they wouldn't be where they were if their hiring practices didn't work to some degree.)

gaylemcd 13y ago

That's really not the case at Google (or, I would hope, at any company). The engineers would be very much involved with this decision, largely driving the ultimate conclusion.

raldi 13y ago

> Or more practically that they would do a roll-out release (as they did) and increase capacity as they go. What if, increasing capacity as they go, they discover that they're going to need 140 billion dollars worth of hard drives? Before the rollout can happen, someone has to decide whether or not to greenlight the project. And that person needs to come up with an estimated cost. Before the rollout begins. > To imply that a single engineer in a room with no information [etc] Who implied that?

drivebyacct2 13y ago
I don't know, I guess I have a very pessimistic view of interviews asking these sorts of questions almost vindictively. I'd prefer questions and problems and challenges that I'm likely to face and address as an engineer. If Google hires engineers to answer "brain teasers" that either require a dozen exceptions/qualifications or some vague random nonsensense answer, then more power to them. (But I doubt they do, they wouldn't be where they were if their hiring practices didn't work to some degree.)