4 ms·

I am not a programmer. The OP mentioned that in a number of the scheduled interviews that he had face to face, the interview finished quickly, and the interview

I am not a programmer. The OP mentioned that in a number of the scheduled interviews that he had face to face, the interview finished quickly, and the interviewer talked about working at Google. Does this strike anyone else as 'palliative interview'?

at-fates-hands 13y ago
Nice catch. I was actually going to bring this up. I have a lot of friends who are interview pros. They say if an interviewer decides earlier on you're not going to get hired, they basically fold up their sheets and ask non-related general questions to pass the rest of the time.
- keithpeter 13y ago
  Guilty as charged :-) As an interviewee, I have, more than once, thanked my hosts for their tea and cake and left early when I detected that the interview was turning into a chat. Would a collegiate interviewing model not work better for an intellectually driven organisation like Google? Each team interviewing for their own positions, but with some form of 'tenure track' process for the longer term?
  - at-fates-hands 13y ago
    It would certainly make more sense. Sure, have one or two screening calls, but the main interviews should really be done by the team you're going to be on. Not some expert in algorithms who deems your solution to a question not good enough. I mean, how many times have you heard an engineer say, "It's not pretty, but it gets the job done." ?? The 'tenure track' is a great idea. How would you implement it though? Just curious.
    - keithpeter 13y ago
      "The 'tenure track' is a great idea. How would you implement it though? Just curious." As I said a few levels above, I am not a programmer. I'd imagine it might work like academic departments, a series of short contracts (well paid!) leading if successful to a more permanent place with some ability to direct own work. I get the impression people are dealing with firehoses rather than trickles (talk of 'recruitment pipelines' like in a tyre factory) so perhaps the collegiate model just won't work.
  - tomkarlo 13y ago
    Amazon does things this way (the hiring team does the interviewing) but there are some major drawbacks to it as well. If your team is grossly shorthanded (say, 30% of seats open), you have your team doing a ton of interviews rather than covering for the headcount shortage, which means you're even more underwater or behind schedule. (And you might have to screen dozens of candidates to fill a seat.) Also, there's a strong incentive to just "fill the seat" so they can stop interviewing people, which Amazon does try to avoid by having at least one "bar raiser" on the interview circuit who is from another team. At a broader level, the problem with this is that the delays inherent in doing a lot of hiring and relocating people means that you can't have teams doing their own hiring and then waiting for people to arrive and come on-line - there need to be candidates in the pipeline before the exact seats open up. Otherwise you're talking about a 3-6 month delay from when a seat opens to when there's an engineer sitting in it, which sucks.
    - RogerL 13y ago
      Okay, that just makes a ton of sense. I've never worked for a big company like that, and hadn't considered the latency issue that can be worked around by general interviewing. With that said, it doesn't change my opinion of it being a time waste for me. I have a career, I know, more or less, what I want to work on next, and I have no interest in devoting a month (seriously, Google recommended taking that long to come up to speed on interview questions) of study to interview for who knows what position, especially when the whole system is gamed towards rejecting false negatives.
    - r00fus 13y ago
      > Otherwise you're talking about a 3-6 month delay from when a seat opens to when there's an engineer sitting in it, which sucks. Welcome to reality in most of large corporate america. I've seen insane 6-9 month interview processes at places like Cisco and that's not even a successful hire. Likewise at other large SV companies. If you can get it down to 3 months, it's below par and better than the competition.
  - cdjk 13y ago
    I'm really surprised that's not how it works at Google, both from their perspective, from the perspective of the candidate. I would be extremely hesitant to interview or accept a job at Google if didn't know what I'd be working on, and it seems like you only find that out when you show up the first day.
    - throwaway86 13y ago
      You are correct. Your mentor from your new team comes to collect you after orientation, and you find out then. You are also going nowhere for a long, long time.
      - jpatokal 13y ago
        This is true only if you are hired for a generic role. Most people are, but for sufficient specific jobs (like mine), you will know exactly what team you are joining. Also, with decent performance you can transfer after a year, occasionally even earlier if another team really wants you.
        throwaway86 13y ago
        "Software Engineer" and "Site Reliability Engineer" are generic roles.
- jtbigwoo 13y ago
  My experience has been the opposite. I've received offers based on interviews where we talked about: the local radio landscape, the best local lunch spots, the most ridiculous internet-bubble perks we'd seen, or color choice in 1950's suburban housing. I get the feeling that it's the idle chatting at the beginnning and end of the interview that matters most when the interviewer is asking him/herself, "Will this person fit?"

at-fates-hands 13y ago

Nice catch. I was actually going to bring this up. I have a lot of friends who are interview pros. They say if an interviewer decides earlier on you're not going to get hired, they basically fold up their sheets and ask non-related general questions to pass the rest of the time.

keithpeter 13y ago
Guilty as charged :-) As an interviewee, I have, more than once, thanked my hosts for their tea and cake and left early when I detected that the interview was turning into a chat. Would a collegiate interviewing model not work better for an intellectually driven organisation like Google? Each team interviewing for their own positions, but with some form of 'tenure track' process for the longer term?
- at-fates-hands 13y ago
  It would certainly make more sense. Sure, have one or two screening calls, but the main interviews should really be done by the team you're going to be on. Not some expert in algorithms who deems your solution to a question not good enough. I mean, how many times have you heard an engineer say, "It's not pretty, but it gets the job done." ?? The 'tenure track' is a great idea. How would you implement it though? Just curious.
  - keithpeter 13y ago
    "The 'tenure track' is a great idea. How would you implement it though? Just curious." As I said a few levels above, I am not a programmer. I'd imagine it might work like academic departments, a series of short contracts (well paid!) leading if successful to a more permanent place with some ability to direct own work. I get the impression people are dealing with firehoses rather than trickles (talk of 'recruitment pipelines' like in a tyre factory) so perhaps the collegiate model just won't work.
- tomkarlo 13y ago
  Amazon does things this way (the hiring team does the interviewing) but there are some major drawbacks to it as well. If your team is grossly shorthanded (say, 30% of seats open), you have your team doing a ton of interviews rather than covering for the headcount shortage, which means you're even more underwater or behind schedule. (And you might have to screen dozens of candidates to fill a seat.) Also, there's a strong incentive to just "fill the seat" so they can stop interviewing people, which Amazon does try to avoid by having at least one "bar raiser" on the interview circuit who is from another team. At a broader level, the problem with this is that the delays inherent in doing a lot of hiring and relocating people means that you can't have teams doing their own hiring and then waiting for people to arrive and come on-line - there need to be candidates in the pipeline before the exact seats open up. Otherwise you're talking about a 3-6 month delay from when a seat opens to when there's an engineer sitting in it, which sucks.
  - RogerL 13y ago
    Okay, that just makes a ton of sense. I've never worked for a big company like that, and hadn't considered the latency issue that can be worked around by general interviewing. With that said, it doesn't change my opinion of it being a time waste for me. I have a career, I know, more or less, what I want to work on next, and I have no interest in devoting a month (seriously, Google recommended taking that long to come up to speed on interview questions) of study to interview for who knows what position, especially when the whole system is gamed towards rejecting false negatives.
  - r00fus 13y ago
    > Otherwise you're talking about a 3-6 month delay from when a seat opens to when there's an engineer sitting in it, which sucks. Welcome to reality in most of large corporate america. I've seen insane 6-9 month interview processes at places like Cisco and that's not even a successful hire. Likewise at other large SV companies. If you can get it down to 3 months, it's below par and better than the competition.
- cdjk 13y ago
  I'm really surprised that's not how it works at Google, both from their perspective, from the perspective of the candidate. I would be extremely hesitant to interview or accept a job at Google if didn't know what I'd be working on, and it seems like you only find that out when you show up the first day.
  - throwaway86 13y ago
    You are correct. Your mentor from your new team comes to collect you after orientation, and you find out then. You are also going nowhere for a long, long time.
    - jpatokal 13y ago
      This is true only if you are hired for a generic role. Most people are, but for sufficient specific jobs (like mine), you will know exactly what team you are joining. Also, with decent performance you can transfer after a year, occasionally even earlier if another team really wants you.
      - throwaway86 13y ago
        "Software Engineer" and "Site Reliability Engineer" are generic roles.
jtbigwoo 13y ago
My experience has been the opposite. I've received offers based on interviews where we talked about: the local radio landscape, the best local lunch spots, the most ridiculous internet-bubble perks we'd seen, or color choice in 1950's suburban housing. I get the feeling that it's the idle chatting at the beginnning and end of the interview that matters most when the interviewer is asking him/herself, "Will this person fit?"