8 ms·

Though this isn't as bad as many I've read, stories like this are the reason I have never applied to work at any of these large firms (Google, Apple, etc.). I

Though this isn't as bad as many I've read, stories like this are the reason I have never applied to work at any of these large firms (Google, Apple, etc.). I have been a full-time developer for more than 20 years. I have 4 software patents to my name, one of which formed the basis of a startup that was acquired for $64 million. I know a few people at Facebook and Google (not at Apple), and I am definitely in the same league in terms of coding skills. However, based on available information, I am 100% certain that I couldn't successfully complete the on-command hypothetical coding exercises with someone standing over my shoulder, along with the other mental and social gymnastics associated with applying at any of these companies. I wonder how many other well-qualified people are out there that will simply never apply because of the drawn-out, intimidating hiring process.

roylez 12y ago
Sometimes it was not only intimidating. Several months ago I had interviews with apple for a devops position. While most interviewers were friendly, there was a very aggressive one. He started with "I am going to ask you some of my favorite questions", and the tone of the interview went sour. Most of the questions should be from the skill sets he was mostly proud in but remotely related to the requirements of the position. For questions that were relevant, he asked something like "how could you terminate a forkbomb without a reboot?" which I answered "practically it is impossible", he insisted there was a way which I did not know, and I felt insulted. While I guess he was expecting me to answer process group killing (which is still impossible when all resources are taken the computer is not responsive at all), it is just too damn wrong to make an interview a do-you-know-what-I-know showcase of the interviewer. Unfortunately, in big companies like Apple, ego-filled persons are not rare. If having to go through more than 5 rounds of interview, one have a good chance to encounter one.
- jdmichal 12y ago
  > "How could you terminate a forkbomb without a reboot?" I imagine that's a bit like asking how can you completely clean malware off a computer without reformatting. The answer is roughly the same: In the general case it's impossible, because once arbitrary code has been executed on your machine, nothing can be trusted.
- xxxyy 12y ago
  There is a clever trick for that: a classic bash fork bomb will completely die once it gets impossible to spawn new processes. And an easy way to achieve this is to exhaust all PIDs, usually there are 32768 available. So starting enough `sleep` processes will do the job. That is of course if you still can run at least one shell command on the machine. Other than that the question is stupid, and most companies have a policy that forbids such questions. Same goes for "piano tuners in Manhattan" and "why are manholes round".
  - kayfox 12y ago
    From my experience there are three reasons these questions are asked: 1. To see what your thought process would be in figuring out the answer. 2. To judge your reaction to such a nonsensical question. 3. To show off (either the interviewer is showing off or the company is showing off). That said, they have some value depending on the position your being interviewed for.
- mentat 12y ago
  I've interviewed at Amazon and Google. Amazon was just poorly structured overall. Google really tried hard to make the experience good, but my last interview was one of these where he had a particular very clever and very proprietary method to solve the question he asked and wanted to see if I could guess it. I could not. Though he ended up telling me about it and it was interesting, reflecting back on the experience I thought it was not very useful.
option_greek 12y ago
You can add Microsoft to the list when it comes to on-command hypothetical coding exercises. Along with optimal solution, you are also expected to give it in a short duration.
badc0de 12y ago
I completely agree and would never apply to any of these companies, specially Apple.
- ekianjo 12y ago
  > especially Apple There's a number of folks who are philosophically at the extreme opposite of what Apple stands for, too, and who won't even think about applying there for that particular reason.
base698 12y ago
This is a pretty awful reason to not even try. From the outside seems like working at any of those listed would be awesome if not just compensation but ability to grow. I tend to err on the side of "I suck" when an interview doesn't go my way. Some people err on the side where everyone else is the problem. Different ways to deal with butt hurt. Disclaimer: I have interviewed at Google and other hard places with mixed results.
- mtrimpe 12y ago
  It's also a matter of mindset and effort. I'm fairly certain I could study for a few weeks and ace the tests. I'm unfortunately also very resistant to doing useless work. When the first interaction with a company involves requiring me to do useless work to prove my commitment (and everyone in the company has passed that hurdle) I very much doubt that I would be... how shall I put it... a good 'culture fit.'
  - codecamper 12y ago
    I doubt it would take just a few weeks b4 you could ace the test. They'll ask hard questions that prove a depth of knowledge. The only trouble is that in most day to day programming, you will very rarely require this depth of knowledge about algorithms. So then, if your aim isn't to get one of these jobs, this sort of knowledge is rather useless. Better to study a new language or statistics / big data. Rather, the most important skill you have day to day is your ability to concentrate & get stuff done. & the ability to take a big problem and turn it into manageable smaller tasks. I think the focus on algorithms can be an underhanded way to prefer young, fresh out of school applicants. Those with good academic track records and with fresh mitochondria that can be utilized for great coding results.
    - jdmichal 12y ago
      > I think the focus on algorithms can be an underhanded way to prefer young, fresh out of school applicants. This is exactly the thought that came to mind when I started reading this chain, and I'm happy you hit on it. This is definitely part of that elusive ageism that we keep hearing about in SV. I was one of them; I participated in my school's ACM ICPC [0] teams. Just knowing the algorithms wasn't enough; we had to know what problems they applied to and how to quickly and effectively code them, often with a translation layer for the required inputs and outputs. This was hours of practice every week, and I suspect the top teams are a combination of natural talent and even more practice than I put in. Even just four years later, I would read through the packet of problems for the year and feel out of practice. I would read problems and recognize that, once I could have coded it within a half hour, but not anymore. I have traded having deep knowledge of problems with the daily practice of "engineering in the real world", and I would not even want to have it another way. [0] http://icpc.baylor.edu/ http://icpc.baylor.edu/
davidw 12y ago
I'm not an Apple fan, and wouldn't apply there myself, but this doesn't actually sound that bad. It moved along relatively quickly and he had a definitive answer in a fairly short time frame after his interview was done.
- downandout 12y ago
  4 months is quick?
  - davidw 12y ago
    Given that they had Thanksgiving and the holidays in the middle, yeah, it's not bad for a big company. Read some of the Google interview stories.
raverbashing 12y ago
Agreed The main issue for me is that I find it ridiculous to go to N teleconference interviews and then get turned down in person. I'm sure it's for some stupid reason like "all of our team like sports and you don't seem quite enthusiastic about it" They push for you to "be honest" but that's only an excuse for turning you down. Give them the answers they want to hear and you'll be fine. Also the pressure of the moment is important. (Also I would like to see their faces when my MBP's Facetime wouldn't connect - talk about a reliable software... not)
- mattlutze 12y ago
  Every interviewer wants you to let the guard down and show them the real you. We know the version of you that comes to our interview will be copacetic, genial, nice, friendly, etc. by default. Our biggest task in most of these interviews isn't necessarily ascertaining whether you can develop software -- hopefully that's borne out of some pretty straightforward questioning. The real task is to figure out what you're really like after the interview facade goes down, and being able to envision you as part of the team. It's a reason there's so much thought and discussion these days on ways to effectively anonymize people during job searches and interviews, I think. An interviewer / hiring manager needs to be very aware of their own feelings and mindset when making a decision to ensure the "seeing you" part of the decision process is done consciously and purposefully.
  - raverbashing 12y ago
    Yeah, however they probably overestimate their evaluation capability, the bias of the moment (candidate might be nervous, etc) and underestimate their capacity of letting the candidate go if it's not a good fit (especially in countries like the US)
EnderMB 12y ago
In a similar vein, I'd also like to know how many people manage to land jobs at the Google's and Facebook's of the world, and ultimately prove to be less-than-spectacular developers. I dropped out of a masters degree to join a startup as a .NET developer, but kept in touch with a few guys finishing there. One of them now works for Google. He was always great in the algorithm classes, and he knew his theory reasonably well, but he'd constantly struggle with writing the code and REALLY grasping OO. I'd help him structure his Java code, and he'd help me grasp data structures. He's been there a good four years now, so he's clearly doing something right, but I was initially shocked that he was able to get in when things like static classes confused him.
- rplnt 12y ago
  Google employs thousands of developers. They can't be that strict about who they hire as a 5-people startup. So they sure have lot of less-than-spectacular developers and they don't care. You need talented people as architects (or whatever), not your code monkeys.
  - EnderMB 12y ago
    This is definitely true of large firms, but it still surprises me that the likes of Google could have developers that could get through the Google interview process, but would probably struggle with a take-home test from a company looking for someone to demonstrate an ability to be able to build something.
- hmottestad 12y ago
  Maybe he gets to work on difficult problems that can only be solved by a great algorithm. Or maybe he works on making a set of algorithms 5% faster. Making a sorting algorithm just 1% faster for the most used cases will probably save a company like Google vast amounts of electricity. I guess there are plenty people who understand both algorithms and programming language features well. But if you want someone who is awesome in algorithms you might not care if they couldn't grasp the simplest programming language feature like a for-each loop, or a static variable.
drinchev 12y ago
I totally agree with your opinion. On the contrary, I've been in a position that I have to decide for applicants ( by doing technical interview ) if they could do the work or can not do it. It was a pleasant job when I can see some sparks of commitment and joy of doing the work. But talking more with the candidates it looked like they had a really hard time, being screened by the HR team, since they didn't have proper profile indicators, like "keywords in the CV", "past experience", "good university degree", "recommendations" and so on.
xxxyy 12y ago
I think you are rationalizing. These interviews are really not that difficult. Try going through "Cracking the coding interview", a month of practice should be enough.
- mazesc 12y ago
  "Not that hard" is studying a month to pass a test in some artificial setting?
  - xxxyy 12y ago
    Every test is in an artificial setting. That is the difference between a test and real life. And if you are not willing to spend a month on learning, then don't expect to be hireable.
jonahx 12y ago
Whatever your judgments are about the ethics or efficacy of this process, I'm confident that your reaction, and the pool of people excluded because of similar reactions, is not something they are overlooking, but is a consciously designed effect of the process. Testing stress-tolerance is probably one of their specific goals. Does it lead to overall better hires than a less grueling process? I have no idea. But they must think it does.
odonnellryan 12y ago
Not for Apple or Google, but I've literally been asked impossible questions during some interviews at other big-names. Maybe I should have recognized they were impossible and addressed the interviewer. They were usually very number-theory heavy problems. After a bit of research, I determined that it wasn't really answerable, and people have done PHD work at MIT, CMU, etc.. to investigate the question I was given 30 minutes to work on. I don't lie about my qualifications. I'm not a PHD student, there is nothing on my resume or CV that would imply I'd be aware of some obscure (not something I'd consider important to comp sci like crypto) area of research... but still, asked these really oddball questions.
- madez 12y ago
  Maybe they intentionally asked you an impossible question that is not obviously unsolveable to see how you react when given and how you approach hard problems.
  - nsxwolf 12y ago
    Here are your options: 1. You either know immediately that it is impossible and you say so, which means you've encountered the problem and its related research before. 2. You are a savant, like Kim Peek, and work out the solution to a PHd level research problem in your head in a few minutes, giving the answer that it is impossible. 3. Pretend to be (2) by already knowing (1), but having a good poker face and then faking an "Ah ha!" moment 4. Sit there, unsure, feeling stupid, wondering if you're supposed to know the answer to this already or if you're supposed to be smart enough to figure it out. I'm having a lot of trouble figuring out how any of these outcomes are in any way beneficial to the interview process.
    - odonnellryan 12y ago
      I got decently far, I would say, all things considered. I was able to lay out the problem domain well - determine what the requirements were, all that - then start by breaking the problem down into bits. I did hit walls, understandably, which ultimately ended the interview with a lot of "hmmm, not really sure. Maybe this? No? Oh... Hm... [..]"
nvarsj 12y ago
I feel the same way. Every time I think about applying to, e.g. Google, and start looking at how I need to prepare, I realize it's going to take around 40hrs of algorithm prep followed by a gruelling interview process. And at the end, I may fail due to interview nerves or whatever. It's hard to justify so much time. Then again, maybe working at these big companies is really worth it (many people seem to think so!). Nowadays, I won't put up with more than a couple hours of interview. 1 hour I think is a good amount. Granted I work on contract and this is how things tend to be done in London. For a permanent role, my limit would probably be 4 hours on site + 3-4 hours off site (like a coding test).
- Morgawr 12y ago
  The way it happened to me, it was just totally unexpected and I decided to go with it, no strings attached. Don't think too much about it, take it as an experience, you have nothing to lose after all (subjective, depends on how much you invest in prep time and if you lose work hours from your current job, so YMMV). I took it as a learning experience, I read books before interviews but did not go too 'serious' into anything, just the desire to learn and compare myself with my peers. I found the interviews to be really challenging (in the good way), questions were interesting and taught me a lot of things, both personally and in regards with peer interaction. I would definitely recommend applying to these companies just so you can say "Hey, I tried and did it" (did it = applied, not necessarily got hired). The getting hired part is just a secondary thing, it's a personal accomplishment that may come or not, but it shouldn't necessarily be your end goal. At least this is how I feel and how I felt after interviewing at Google. Full disclosure: I am currently an intern at Google after having failed the full-time interview process and decided to get a Master's degree, which found me back at Google as an intern.
- geebee 12y ago
  This deters me from interviewing as well. I keep my data structures and algorithms book on the shelf - it was printed 15 years ago and uses Java, but it's easy enough to implement in something else. I used to restudy it every few years, for interviews. You need to be ready to do tree traversal, detect cycles in lists, sort and search, create a hash, find shortest paths in graphs. I go back and forth on whether I'd do this again. I can't say never, because a good enough job might be worth the effort and risk, but I'm hesitant. How many times in life do you want to retake your undergraduate data structures and algorithms exam? I would outright refuse to do a lengthy "homework assignment". I've done that once (7-8 hours recommended time), sent it in, crickets chirping, and a one line brush off from a recruiter a full month later. I'm actually embarrassed to admit I even did this once. As an aside, while I generally take a dim view of professional licensing, I wouldn't mind taking a "bar exam" for software development if (big if) it were well designed and administered, and perhaps voluntary to avoid regulatory capture. The reason is, I wouldn't mind studying a hundred hours or more for this test if it was widely respected and meant I wouldn't have to keep re-taking it every time I interview.
bsaunder 12y ago
I have similar work experience (though no patents or start-up success credentials). I did run the Google interview gauntlet (unsuccessfully - so far) over the last year. From my experience, it's less the on-command hypothetical coding exercises (which you will get, and they will be challenging), but more so if you pick up an unfortunate draw of one of your anti-loopers (see famous Steve Yegge post). I ultimately interviewed in early January with a team that really wanted me, but was rejected at a late stage executive committee review (surprising even my potential hiring manager and the recruiter). While I can't say for certain the precise factors that impacted my candidacy, I'm reasonably sure a significant component was one particular on-site interview that was almost a year ago. That particular interview was awkward right from the opening non-technical questions. Not sure if my interviewer was having a bad day. I'm not sure how I was scored, but I feel it was a "B" performance for me, the others felt like "As". I will say that its sometimes hard to gauge one's on performance as the interviewers were all nice and innately would not display much signs of frustration or dissatisfaction for a candidate to get the feedback signals that might be noticeable at other job interviews. In the end, they seem to require near unanimous consent to complete the hiring process. For those reluctant to try, I'd strongly recommend making an initial attempt at a Google job. You'll meet some remarkably nice, smart people and have some great discussions. While I can't be certain (as I didn't succeed), you don't need to be 100% perfect on your interviews. Quick, insightful and on the right track are important though. You do need to be smart, know what you are doing, and practice a bit on programming brain teasers (which should be fun for the right person). IMHO, its worth the initial attempt, but if things don't work out the in first round of on-site interviews, it may be impossible to overcome that in later rounds, much to my dismay. The only downside is that you might convince yourself that you really want to work there and you'll have to face reality again if things don't work out. Don't be afraid to try.
MagicWishMonkey 12y ago
It would be one thing if the salary was substantially higher than what you can get elsewhere, but it's not. The other perks sound really nice, but not nice enough to deal with the headache of interviewing there.
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]
gaius 12y ago
Interviews weighted towards undergrad topics, are just a way to slip ageism past HR, who don't know that dicking around with linked lists and hand-coding sorts aren't what real actual working programmers do all day.

roylez 12y ago

Sometimes it was not only intimidating. Several months ago I had interviews with apple for a devops position. While most interviewers were friendly, there was a very aggressive one. He started with "I am going to ask you some of my favorite questions", and the tone of the interview went sour. Most of the questions should be from the skill sets he was mostly proud in but remotely related to the requirements of the position. For questions that were relevant, he asked something like "how could you terminate a forkbomb without a reboot?" which I answered "practically it is impossible", he insisted there was a way which I did not know, and I felt insulted. While I guess he was expecting me to answer process group killing (which is still impossible when all resources are taken the computer is not responsive at all), it is just too damn wrong to make an interview a do-you-know-what-I-know showcase of the interviewer. Unfortunately, in big companies like Apple, ego-filled persons are not rare. If having to go through more than 5 rounds of interview, one have a good chance to encounter one.

jdmichal 12y ago
> "How could you terminate a forkbomb without a reboot?" I imagine that's a bit like asking how can you completely clean malware off a computer without reformatting. The answer is roughly the same: In the general case it's impossible, because once arbitrary code has been executed on your machine, nothing can be trusted.
xxxyy 12y ago
There is a clever trick for that: a classic bash fork bomb will completely die once it gets impossible to spawn new processes. And an easy way to achieve this is to exhaust all PIDs, usually there are 32768 available. So starting enough `sleep` processes will do the job. That is of course if you still can run at least one shell command on the machine. Other than that the question is stupid, and most companies have a policy that forbids such questions. Same goes for "piano tuners in Manhattan" and "why are manholes round".
- kayfox 12y ago
  From my experience there are three reasons these questions are asked: 1. To see what your thought process would be in figuring out the answer. 2. To judge your reaction to such a nonsensical question. 3. To show off (either the interviewer is showing off or the company is showing off). That said, they have some value depending on the position your being interviewed for.
mentat 12y ago
I've interviewed at Amazon and Google. Amazon was just poorly structured overall. Google really tried hard to make the experience good, but my last interview was one of these where he had a particular very clever and very proprietary method to solve the question he asked and wanted to see if I could guess it. I could not. Though he ended up telling me about it and it was interesting, reflecting back on the experience I thought it was not very useful.

option_greek 12y ago

You can add Microsoft to the list when it comes to on-command hypothetical coding exercises. Along with optimal solution, you are also expected to give it in a short duration.

badc0de 12y ago

I completely agree and would never apply to any of these companies, specially Apple.

ekianjo 12y ago
> especially Apple There's a number of folks who are philosophically at the extreme opposite of what Apple stands for, too, and who won't even think about applying there for that particular reason.

base698 12y ago

This is a pretty awful reason to not even try. From the outside seems like working at any of those listed would be awesome if not just compensation but ability to grow. I tend to err on the side of "I suck" when an interview doesn't go my way. Some people err on the side where everyone else is the problem. Different ways to deal with butt hurt. Disclaimer: I have interviewed at Google and other hard places with mixed results.

mtrimpe 12y ago
It's also a matter of mindset and effort. I'm fairly certain I could study for a few weeks and ace the tests. I'm unfortunately also very resistant to doing useless work. When the first interaction with a company involves requiring me to do useless work to prove my commitment (and everyone in the company has passed that hurdle) I very much doubt that I would be... how shall I put it... a good 'culture fit.'
- codecamper 12y ago
  I doubt it would take just a few weeks b4 you could ace the test. They'll ask hard questions that prove a depth of knowledge. The only trouble is that in most day to day programming, you will very rarely require this depth of knowledge about algorithms. So then, if your aim isn't to get one of these jobs, this sort of knowledge is rather useless. Better to study a new language or statistics / big data. Rather, the most important skill you have day to day is your ability to concentrate & get stuff done. & the ability to take a big problem and turn it into manageable smaller tasks. I think the focus on algorithms can be an underhanded way to prefer young, fresh out of school applicants. Those with good academic track records and with fresh mitochondria that can be utilized for great coding results.
  - jdmichal 12y ago
    > I think the focus on algorithms can be an underhanded way to prefer young, fresh out of school applicants. This is exactly the thought that came to mind when I started reading this chain, and I'm happy you hit on it. This is definitely part of that elusive ageism that we keep hearing about in SV. I was one of them; I participated in my school's ACM ICPC [0] teams. Just knowing the algorithms wasn't enough; we had to know what problems they applied to and how to quickly and effectively code them, often with a translation layer for the required inputs and outputs. This was hours of practice every week, and I suspect the top teams are a combination of natural talent and even more practice than I put in. Even just four years later, I would read through the packet of problems for the year and feel out of practice. I would read problems and recognize that, once I could have coded it within a half hour, but not anymore. I have traded having deep knowledge of problems with the daily practice of "engineering in the real world", and I would not even want to have it another way. [0] http://icpc.baylor.edu/ http://icpc.baylor.edu/

davidw 12y ago

I'm not an Apple fan, and wouldn't apply there myself, but this doesn't actually sound that bad. It moved along relatively quickly and he had a definitive answer in a fairly short time frame after his interview was done.

downandout 12y ago
4 months is quick?
- davidw 12y ago
  Given that they had Thanksgiving and the holidays in the middle, yeah, it's not bad for a big company. Read some of the Google interview stories.

raverbashing 12y ago

Agreed The main issue for me is that I find it ridiculous to go to N teleconference interviews and then get turned down in person. I'm sure it's for some stupid reason like "all of our team like sports and you don't seem quite enthusiastic about it" They push for you to "be honest" but that's only an excuse for turning you down. Give them the answers they want to hear and you'll be fine. Also the pressure of the moment is important. (Also I would like to see their faces when my MBP's Facetime wouldn't connect - talk about a reliable software... not)

mattlutze 12y ago
Every interviewer wants you to let the guard down and show them the real you. We know the version of you that comes to our interview will be copacetic, genial, nice, friendly, etc. by default. Our biggest task in most of these interviews isn't necessarily ascertaining whether you can develop software -- hopefully that's borne out of some pretty straightforward questioning. The real task is to figure out what you're really like after the interview facade goes down, and being able to envision you as part of the team. It's a reason there's so much thought and discussion these days on ways to effectively anonymize people during job searches and interviews, I think. An interviewer / hiring manager needs to be very aware of their own feelings and mindset when making a decision to ensure the "seeing you" part of the decision process is done consciously and purposefully.
- raverbashing 12y ago
  Yeah, however they probably overestimate their evaluation capability, the bias of the moment (candidate might be nervous, etc) and underestimate their capacity of letting the candidate go if it's not a good fit (especially in countries like the US)

EnderMB 12y ago

In a similar vein, I'd also like to know how many people manage to land jobs at the Google's and Facebook's of the world, and ultimately prove to be less-than-spectacular developers. I dropped out of a masters degree to join a startup as a .NET developer, but kept in touch with a few guys finishing there. One of them now works for Google. He was always great in the algorithm classes, and he knew his theory reasonably well, but he'd constantly struggle with writing the code and REALLY grasping OO. I'd help him structure his Java code, and he'd help me grasp data structures. He's been there a good four years now, so he's clearly doing something right, but I was initially shocked that he was able to get in when things like static classes confused him.

rplnt 12y ago
Google employs thousands of developers. They can't be that strict about who they hire as a 5-people startup. So they sure have lot of less-than-spectacular developers and they don't care. You need talented people as architects (or whatever), not your code monkeys.
- EnderMB 12y ago
  This is definitely true of large firms, but it still surprises me that the likes of Google could have developers that could get through the Google interview process, but would probably struggle with a take-home test from a company looking for someone to demonstrate an ability to be able to build something.
hmottestad 12y ago
Maybe he gets to work on difficult problems that can only be solved by a great algorithm. Or maybe he works on making a set of algorithms 5% faster. Making a sorting algorithm just 1% faster for the most used cases will probably save a company like Google vast amounts of electricity. I guess there are plenty people who understand both algorithms and programming language features well. But if you want someone who is awesome in algorithms you might not care if they couldn't grasp the simplest programming language feature like a for-each loop, or a static variable.

drinchev 12y ago

I totally agree with your opinion. On the contrary, I've been in a position that I have to decide for applicants ( by doing technical interview ) if they could do the work or can not do it. It was a pleasant job when I can see some sparks of commitment and joy of doing the work. But talking more with the candidates it looked like they had a really hard time, being screened by the HR team, since they didn't have proper profile indicators, like "keywords in the CV", "past experience", "good university degree", "recommendations" and so on.

xxxyy 12y ago

I think you are rationalizing. These interviews are really not that difficult. Try going through "Cracking the coding interview", a month of practice should be enough.

mazesc 12y ago
"Not that hard" is studying a month to pass a test in some artificial setting?
- xxxyy 12y ago
  Every test is in an artificial setting. That is the difference between a test and real life. And if you are not willing to spend a month on learning, then don't expect to be hireable.

jonahx 12y ago

Whatever your judgments are about the ethics or efficacy of this process, I'm confident that your reaction, and the pool of people excluded because of similar reactions, is not something they are overlooking, but is a consciously designed effect of the process. Testing stress-tolerance is probably one of their specific goals. Does it lead to overall better hires than a less grueling process? I have no idea. But they must think it does.

odonnellryan 12y ago

Not for Apple or Google, but I've literally been asked impossible questions during some interviews at other big-names. Maybe I should have recognized they were impossible and addressed the interviewer. They were usually very number-theory heavy problems. After a bit of research, I determined that it wasn't really answerable, and people have done PHD work at MIT, CMU, etc.. to investigate the question I was given 30 minutes to work on. I don't lie about my qualifications. I'm not a PHD student, there is nothing on my resume or CV that would imply I'd be aware of some obscure (not something I'd consider important to comp sci like crypto) area of research... but still, asked these really oddball questions.

madez 12y ago
Maybe they intentionally asked you an impossible question that is not obviously unsolveable to see how you react when given and how you approach hard problems.
- nsxwolf 12y ago
  Here are your options: 1. You either know immediately that it is impossible and you say so, which means you've encountered the problem and its related research before. 2. You are a savant, like Kim Peek, and work out the solution to a PHd level research problem in your head in a few minutes, giving the answer that it is impossible. 3. Pretend to be (2) by already knowing (1), but having a good poker face and then faking an "Ah ha!" moment 4. Sit there, unsure, feeling stupid, wondering if you're supposed to know the answer to this already or if you're supposed to be smart enough to figure it out. I'm having a lot of trouble figuring out how any of these outcomes are in any way beneficial to the interview process.
  - odonnellryan 12y ago
    I got decently far, I would say, all things considered. I was able to lay out the problem domain well - determine what the requirements were, all that - then start by breaking the problem down into bits. I did hit walls, understandably, which ultimately ended the interview with a lot of "hmmm, not really sure. Maybe this? No? Oh... Hm... [..]"

nvarsj 12y ago

I feel the same way. Every time I think about applying to, e.g. Google, and start looking at how I need to prepare, I realize it's going to take around 40hrs of algorithm prep followed by a gruelling interview process. And at the end, I may fail due to interview nerves or whatever. It's hard to justify so much time. Then again, maybe working at these big companies is really worth it (many people seem to think so!). Nowadays, I won't put up with more than a couple hours of interview. 1 hour I think is a good amount. Granted I work on contract and this is how things tend to be done in London. For a permanent role, my limit would probably be 4 hours on site + 3-4 hours off site (like a coding test).

Morgawr 12y ago
The way it happened to me, it was just totally unexpected and I decided to go with it, no strings attached. Don't think too much about it, take it as an experience, you have nothing to lose after all (subjective, depends on how much you invest in prep time and if you lose work hours from your current job, so YMMV). I took it as a learning experience, I read books before interviews but did not go too 'serious' into anything, just the desire to learn and compare myself with my peers. I found the interviews to be really challenging (in the good way), questions were interesting and taught me a lot of things, both personally and in regards with peer interaction. I would definitely recommend applying to these companies just so you can say "Hey, I tried and did it" (did it = applied, not necessarily got hired). The getting hired part is just a secondary thing, it's a personal accomplishment that may come or not, but it shouldn't necessarily be your end goal. At least this is how I feel and how I felt after interviewing at Google. Full disclosure: I am currently an intern at Google after having failed the full-time interview process and decided to get a Master's degree, which found me back at Google as an intern.
geebee 12y ago
This deters me from interviewing as well. I keep my data structures and algorithms book on the shelf - it was printed 15 years ago and uses Java, but it's easy enough to implement in something else. I used to restudy it every few years, for interviews. You need to be ready to do tree traversal, detect cycles in lists, sort and search, create a hash, find shortest paths in graphs. I go back and forth on whether I'd do this again. I can't say never, because a good enough job might be worth the effort and risk, but I'm hesitant. How many times in life do you want to retake your undergraduate data structures and algorithms exam? I would outright refuse to do a lengthy "homework assignment". I've done that once (7-8 hours recommended time), sent it in, crickets chirping, and a one line brush off from a recruiter a full month later. I'm actually embarrassed to admit I even did this once. As an aside, while I generally take a dim view of professional licensing, I wouldn't mind taking a "bar exam" for software development if (big if) it were well designed and administered, and perhaps voluntary to avoid regulatory capture. The reason is, I wouldn't mind studying a hundred hours or more for this test if it was widely respected and meant I wouldn't have to keep re-taking it every time I interview.

bsaunder 12y ago

I have similar work experience (though no patents or start-up success credentials). I did run the Google interview gauntlet (unsuccessfully - so far) over the last year. From my experience, it's less the on-command hypothetical coding exercises (which you will get, and they will be challenging), but more so if you pick up an unfortunate draw of one of your anti-loopers (see famous Steve Yegge post). I ultimately interviewed in early January with a team that really wanted me, but was rejected at a late stage executive committee review (surprising even my potential hiring manager and the recruiter). While I can't say for certain the precise factors that impacted my candidacy, I'm reasonably sure a significant component was one particular on-site interview that was almost a year ago. That particular interview was awkward right from the opening non-technical questions. Not sure if my interviewer was having a bad day. I'm not sure how I was scored, but I feel it was a "B" performance for me, the others felt like "As". I will say that its sometimes hard to gauge one's on performance as the interviewers were all nice and innately would not display much signs of frustration or dissatisfaction for a candidate to get the feedback signals that might be noticeable at other job interviews. In the end, they seem to require near unanimous consent to complete the hiring process. For those reluctant to try, I'd strongly recommend making an initial attempt at a Google job. You'll meet some remarkably nice, smart people and have some great discussions. While I can't be certain (as I didn't succeed), you don't need to be 100% perfect on your interviews. Quick, insightful and on the right track are important though. You do need to be smart, know what you are doing, and practice a bit on programming brain teasers (which should be fun for the right person). IMHO, its worth the initial attempt, but if things don't work out the in first round of on-site interviews, it may be impossible to overcome that in later rounds, much to my dismay. The only downside is that you might convince yourself that you really want to work there and you'll have to face reality again if things don't work out. Don't be afraid to try.

MagicWishMonkey 12y ago

It would be one thing if the salary was substantially higher than what you can get elsewhere, but it's not. The other perks sound really nice, but not nice enough to deal with the headache of interviewing there.

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gaius 12y ago

Interviews weighted towards undergrad topics, are just a way to slip ageism past HR, who don't know that dicking around with linked lists and hand-coding sorts aren't what real actual working programmers do all day.