No, they passed, but invited me to apply again in a year and a half. That was a couple years ago, and their recruiters have started emailing again, so I guess I didn't do too terrible.
When they told me they passed they also told me that "some people get passed the first time and then study for the next 18 months and do amazing the next time!" and I just don't have the time for that. I already worked myself half to death in my twenties for two startups, I'm not going to study for a test as a second job for a year just to get a job at Google, although I still think it'd be fun and clearly challenging.
I recommend studying your ass off for algorithms (specifically figuring out what algorithm would be best for different real world problems, especially in regards to various Google products, including those you've never really used before) and practicing writing code on a whiteboard before you go. I studied for a solid week and a half beforehand, and it wasn't enough. I was prepared, just not prepared for what they asked me.
That's a common issue I have with these interviews, is that computer science is such a vast field that it's impossible to have everything in your head ready to shoot off in any interview, but interviewers somehow think that if you missed a question or two you're somehow not qualified to work for them, despite having years of direct experience at companies beforehand and being able to Google and refresh literally any topic you might encounter at your job in less than a minute.
Google seemed better than most at that, though. I still found the experience to be valuable and interesting.
(specifically figuring out what algorithm would be best for different real world problems, especially in regards to various Google products, including those you've never really used before) and practicing writing code on a whiteboard before you go.
"... I already worked myself half to death in my twenties for two startups, I'm not going to study for a test as a second job for a year just to get a job at Google, although I still think it'd be fun and clearly challenging. ..."
What's "good for google" right?
@cableshaft how would you rate @tptacek s observations on hiring with what you observed at google?
Google still does interviews. They try to do them better --- eg separating the hire / no hire decision maker from the face to face interviewer. But I'd like to see them try out more work samples.
I'm going through interviewer training at Google at the moment. (There's a few courses they like you to take before letting you loose on candidates.)
This is second time I'm interviewing Google and I felt the difference. They asked me questions more related to my work and less from "Cracking the coding interview" book. Hopefully it would be the same on-site. I'm confident that I'm good at what I'm doing and if Google really wants me to work on things that I'm interested, I would be a good employee. I have zero days of no-commits in my Github strike. I have more open source projects than many 500+ employees companies.
With all of that "Cracking the coding interview" book in my hand anyway! :D
thx for replying @eru, I don't envy the task evaluating candidates. By work samples do you mean real code you've created to solve problems?
“bring the same level of rigor to people-decisions
that we do to engineering decisions.” [0]
The weakness at google is understanding people. So I can understand the allure of HRA (HR Analytics) but feel google is missing something not intuitively understanding people and behaviour. [1]
"the 'rigor' that people bring to engineering decisions is oversold."
Possibly, I don't see google going down, so the engineering is sound. That's missing the real issue though.
Google, the people who lead and work there fundamentally do not grok people or psychology. This will is problematic as they attempt to diversify their workforce. I'm sure this is a known-known at google, hence the training that @eru is receiving. This is why the @tptacek article is such a good read. A tech-company attempting to understand more about hiring humans who understand machines.
When they told me they passed they also told me that "some people get passed the first time and then study for the next 18 months and do amazing the next time!" and I just don't have the time for that. I already worked myself half to death in my twenties for two startups, I'm not going to study for a test as a second job for a year just to get a job at Google, although I still think it'd be fun and clearly challenging.
I recommend studying your ass off for algorithms (specifically figuring out what algorithm would be best for different real world problems, especially in regards to various Google products, including those you've never really used before) and practicing writing code on a whiteboard before you go. I studied for a solid week and a half beforehand, and it wasn't enough. I was prepared, just not prepared for what they asked me.
That's a common issue I have with these interviews, is that computer science is such a vast field that it's impossible to have everything in your head ready to shoot off in any interview, but interviewers somehow think that if you missed a question or two you're somehow not qualified to work for them, despite having years of direct experience at companies beforehand and being able to Google and refresh literally any topic you might encounter at your job in less than a minute.
Google seemed better than most at that, though. I still found the experience to be valuable and interesting.