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The amount of time required to 'learn' the Google interview would be time that could be spent learning more universally applicable skills. Is it true that an e

The amount of time required to 'learn' the Google interview would be time that could be spent learning more universally applicable skills. Is it true that an experienced developer would not be able to pass the interview without studying using a similar guide? If so, then the interview process is... fubar.

CobrastanJorji 7y ago
A perfect job interview could be defined as an interview for which the best study technique is to become a better choice for the role. Studying skills that would not directly contribute to job performance would not change the result of a perfect job interview in any way. In that sense, it's probably a good indicator for Google that the interview advice includes "practice writing code", "make it a habit to validate input", and "learn about data structures", and it's probably a bad indicator for Google that the advice includes "practice writing syntactically correct code on a whiteboard" and "practice solving problems with a 30 minute timer."
- shaftway 7y ago
  I'm in the interviewer pool @ Google. > practice writing syntactically correct code on a whiteboard This probably differs from interviewer to interviewer as to how strictly it's adhered to, but it's not really a hard and fast rule. I'm sure there are some interviewers that will ding you on a forgotten semicolon, but I suspect that most would not. Personally I look for code that isn't so far from syntactically correct that it's clear you are trying to BS me. I'll even accept pseudocode for the most part. But I've had candidates that try to make up language features, and that doesn't fly with me. > practice solving problems with a 30 minute timer I only give my candidates 30 minutes. The whole interview is 45, I spend 5 minutes introducing myself and setting up expectations, 30 on the question, and 10 on answering their questions (after all, they're also interviewing us). You can tell pretty early whether they're on a solid trajectory, and I'll offer the occasional hint to keep someone on track, or ask tangential questions if they're doing well on time. Not finishing isn't a deal killer, provided you had a solid approach and weren't just running in circles. But a good candidate will finish in about 25 minutes and we can spend some time talking about alternate approaches. Sometimes I'll show them the optional approach and see how that conversation goes. Nine times out of ten a candidate scores low because they overlooked an infinite loop or code would crash on boundary conditions and candidate wasn't able to realize that even with hints.
  - CodeMage 7y ago
    > But I've had candidates that try to make up language features, and that doesn't fly with me. This piqued my curiosity. Can you give an example?
    - fjp 7y ago
      I once passed a whiteboard interview just calling random made-up operations on generic java arrays, like Array.flatten(). I was relatively new to programming and had been practicing in Java but didn't know how to execute a lot of map/filter/reduce operations off the top of my head like that. I did, however, know that my interviewer was a Python programmer that probably didn't know much about Java language features.
      - seanmcdirmid 7y ago
        I thought you were allowed to assume functions you needed in the interest of a modular solution. Array.flatten is an obvious “assume I have this, I would write it anyways.” I think most decent interviews will give you a pass on an enhanced standard library.
        Zelizz 7y ago
        When doing an interview at Google in C, I asked if I could assume I had a hashtable implementation with so-and-so interface, and the interviewer said no ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
        seanmcdirmid 7y ago
        Ouch. Well, most hashtables in C are custom, I guess.
        yoz-y 7y ago
        This depends on the question but I assume that in this case the interviewer wanted a different solution than one using a hash table.
      - 7y ago
Zenbit_UX 7y ago
Hard to even get the interview. I've applied a few times as a senior Dev and was rejected based solely on my cv with the feedback of "work on your algorithms"... Based on their perception of my algorithmic experience from my CV? Google's a weird one.

CobrastanJorji 7y ago

A perfect job interview could be defined as an interview for which the best study technique is to become a better choice for the role. Studying skills that would not directly contribute to job performance would not change the result of a perfect job interview in any way. In that sense, it's probably a good indicator for Google that the interview advice includes "practice writing code", "make it a habit to validate input", and "learn about data structures", and it's probably a bad indicator for Google that the advice includes "practice writing syntactically correct code on a whiteboard" and "practice solving problems with a 30 minute timer."

shaftway 7y ago
I'm in the interviewer pool @ Google. > practice writing syntactically correct code on a whiteboard This probably differs from interviewer to interviewer as to how strictly it's adhered to, but it's not really a hard and fast rule. I'm sure there are some interviewers that will ding you on a forgotten semicolon, but I suspect that most would not. Personally I look for code that isn't so far from syntactically correct that it's clear you are trying to BS me. I'll even accept pseudocode for the most part. But I've had candidates that try to make up language features, and that doesn't fly with me. > practice solving problems with a 30 minute timer I only give my candidates 30 minutes. The whole interview is 45, I spend 5 minutes introducing myself and setting up expectations, 30 on the question, and 10 on answering their questions (after all, they're also interviewing us). You can tell pretty early whether they're on a solid trajectory, and I'll offer the occasional hint to keep someone on track, or ask tangential questions if they're doing well on time. Not finishing isn't a deal killer, provided you had a solid approach and weren't just running in circles. But a good candidate will finish in about 25 minutes and we can spend some time talking about alternate approaches. Sometimes I'll show them the optional approach and see how that conversation goes. Nine times out of ten a candidate scores low because they overlooked an infinite loop or code would crash on boundary conditions and candidate wasn't able to realize that even with hints.
- CodeMage 7y ago
  > But I've had candidates that try to make up language features, and that doesn't fly with me. This piqued my curiosity. Can you give an example?
  - fjp 7y ago
    I once passed a whiteboard interview just calling random made-up operations on generic java arrays, like Array.flatten(). I was relatively new to programming and had been practicing in Java but didn't know how to execute a lot of map/filter/reduce operations off the top of my head like that. I did, however, know that my interviewer was a Python programmer that probably didn't know much about Java language features.
    - seanmcdirmid 7y ago
      I thought you were allowed to assume functions you needed in the interest of a modular solution. Array.flatten is an obvious “assume I have this, I would write it anyways.” I think most decent interviews will give you a pass on an enhanced standard library.
      - Zelizz 7y ago
        When doing an interview at Google in C, I asked if I could assume I had a hashtable implementation with so-and-so interface, and the interviewer said no ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
        seanmcdirmid 7y ago
        Ouch. Well, most hashtables in C are custom, I guess.
        yoz-y 7y ago
        This depends on the question but I assume that in this case the interviewer wanted a different solution than one using a hash table.
    - 7y ago

Zenbit_UX 7y ago

Hard to even get the interview. I've applied a few times as a senior Dev and was rejected based solely on my cv with the feedback of "work on your algorithms"... Based on their perception of my algorithmic experience from my CV? Google's a weird one.