20 ms·

How I (almost) got an internship at Google

171 points by ehc 15y ago

apl 15y ago
> I got an internship with The New York Times > the following week. Did the internship involve 41m$ in compensations and the instruction to build a pay wall secure enough to fend off toddlers? In any case, well done. Technical interviews are hit-and-miss at any stage in your career, although I have to say that a coder worth his salt should be able to code up a binary search in no time at all. Even a college sophomore.
- biobot 15y ago
  I have applied there for a fulltime position. I got a friend at Google refer and an HR called my immediately to set up a phone interview. It went well and they flew me in for onsite. After more than a week, they sent me an offer after the quite rigorous background check. The whole process takes about 3 weeks. Even though, it's not as fast as the company I will join (took them less than 2 weeks total to get me an offer) but I don't think Google process is slow.
elbenshira 15y ago
My story: After my technical phone interviews, I got "accepted" as an intern, meaning I was in the Intern Pool of Rot, where I waded and waited for a team to fish me out. I waded and waded for a couple of months, hoping for a kind suitor. The HR woman always told me that she was "optimistic" about my prospects, so I rejected offers from other companies. Then a really cool opportunity came, and I accepted that offer because you can't just sit in a rotting pool for two months. A friend of mine stayed in the rotting pool and was told at the beginning of summer that no one at Google wanted him. This was 2009-2010. I hope Google changed their ways.
- javert 15y ago
  I had a pretty similar experience just recently (so I guess they haven't changed their ways). Sounds like the process was a bit different but basically the same net result of Google telling me they wanted me, then not actually matching me up with any group in time for me to take an offer from them.
- andrewmunn 15y ago
  Unfortunately, this has happened to many friends of mine. I much prefer the way Microsoft, Amazon, Facebook, and Zynga do their recruiting. However, if Google actually does accept you, it's a steller experience.
- webspiderus 15y ago
  i had an identical experience just a month ago - took 2 months to hear feedback on the technical interviews, followed by a whole bunch of nothing. compared to other offers i had, google moved by far the slowest
- michaelpinto 15y ago
  Somewhere in that pool of rejected interns is the next Bill Gates...
  - pgbovine 15y ago
    i doubt future-bill-gates would have the patience to apply and wait for big company internships. he would probably be spending that time hacking, hustling, and creating his own software business.
  - saturdayplace 15y ago
    I doubt it. The next Bill Gates isn't hoping to get noticed by some company. He's out making something and/or hustling for deals like the actual Bill Gates did. The next Bill Gates is most definitely NOT languishing unnoticed in some intern pool waiting to be discovered like some Hollywood wannabe starlet.
    - michaelpinto 15y ago
      The Woz worked at HP where he was well liked but hardly seen at CTO material...
      - Stormbringer 15y ago
        Even today Woz is not regarded as CTO material for a large company. Mad scientist with lots of cool toys? Definitely. Stick him in a suit and make him give presentations to the board? Definitely not. Woz should be the guy in the basement in the lab coat who occasionally makes the lights in the building flicker with some bitchin' tesla coils... the guy that the CTO goes to in order to find out what is going to be important in tech trends, and who occasionally coughs up a wonderful invention that revolutionises everyone's life. I think it is important to note that Woz is still listed as an Apple employee as an engineer
      - burgerbrain 15y ago
        And the statement "Somewhere in that pool of rejected interns is the next Woz..." would be far more realistic than "Somewhere in that pool of rejected interns is the next Bill Gates..." The Woz type and the Bill Gates type are different by miles.
- clawr 15y ago
  The process isn't too different now. My first interview (on campus) was mid January of this year. About a month later (mid February) I had another technical interview, after which I was put into the pool of possible interns. Then in mid March I had a "host interview" with my eventual manager, which resulted in an offer. A two month intern hiring process, when other companies make decisions within a week of the interview, seems arrogant (i.e., they don't think they need too be quick because people want to work at Google). FWIW my recruiter was very friendly, and she explained that she had a pool of about 30-40 intern candidates she was managing.
  - mdwrigh2 15y ago
    My process was the exact opposite. I did my two technical interviews back-to-back on a friday afternoon (4-6pm EST, so late in the day), and had been accepted to the applicant pool within the hour, with a host matching interview being setup 30 minutes after that. I interviewed Monday with my host and his manager, and was told that they were willing to host me and were going to start the approval process for an offer. I had the official offer by the end of the week. So in under a week, I went from initial interview, to official offer. This is by _no_ means typical (and my recruiter even commented on how unbelievably fast it was), but it _does_ happen.
- brown9-2 15y ago
  I think you'd have to try pretty hard to consciously design a worse intern recruitment process than this.
  - Stormbringer 15y ago
    Getting them to write code is actually pretty good. As for binary search, I wouldn't necessarily be able to bang it out in two hours in C, but I'd easily be able to bang it out in that time for any language I use regularly. And with sufficient testing I'd take a good stab at converting to C. Though I agree sometimes it can be a coin toss. Once I was asked to write some code that would take dates as inputs and do something with them, it was supposed to take two hours and run on a bunch of test cases they gave you. I spent much more than two hours on it, nailed all the edge cases and boundary conditions that I could think of (basically nuked it from orbit) and turned in something which ran on their test cases and also a much longer list of much more challenging test cases. I got that job. I missed one where they wanted something written by TDD. Unfortunately, I only know how to design something that works, I don't know how to fake a bad design that organically grows into a workable design. As above I nuked all the boundary conditions I could think of, but didn't get that job. (Probably wouldn't have been happy there, my experience is that people who do TDD or automated unit testing have way too much faith in those forms of testing, and they neglect other forms of testing, so their actual net amount of testing is well below my standards. Things like: every single programmer I've ever worked with who claims that automated testing is sufficient has always produced code that when they claim they've finished the task it fails the eyeball test. E.g. you run their code and within 10-30 seconds of looking at the result you can spot something wrong with it.)
    - baddox 15y ago
      I enjoyed your quip about TDD. I always thought the same thing about mandatory "rough drafts" in high school.
    - saranagati 15y ago
      "Unfortunately, I only know how to design something that works, I don't know how to fake a bad design" I was once given an interview project where they wanted to see how I did with their current code structure. They gave me this really horrible template of data that could never be used in the real world or for anything other than this project. I decided to restructure the template so I could make a useable application for it. After turning it in they were astonished that I reformatted it to look exactly like their production data and code. The problem was that they didn't like that I didn't use certain basic function like require_once, autoloading or something else which i forget (this was in php). Instead I used c style programming in php which ends up being faster. They chastised me for not using the builtin php functions because they assumed they must be better and didn't hire me. The company (well whoever the recruiter worked for) sayed in the email that I just wasn't the right fit because I wasn't up to the skill level of the guy giving me the test and they needed someone "that good" because they were way behind on their deadline. I sent them an email back basically saying that they're retarded (in a MUCH nicer way of course) and showed them some benchmark results I made comparing the different ways of doing it (which showed my methods as being much more efficient).
- ernestipark 15y ago
  My gf is in that rotting pool now. Killed the interviews, but hasn't found a right team yet.
  - jlees 15y ago
    One way out of the pool might be to reach out to potential teams herself, if you have any friends of friends within the 'plex who can send out tendrils internally. (Or just contact friendly people who post on HN... >.>)
    - ernestipark 15y ago
      Yeah she's been advised to go through Google's projects herself and let the recruiter know what she might be interested in.
  - Luyt 15y ago
    Wouldn't it be an idea to team up with other 'pool rotters' and create a product for Google? i.e. form your own team proactively, and operate like a kind of Skunk Works in Google...
- renaudb 15y ago
  Same here. Twice in a row. First time, I was told a manager would call me to explain me which team I was being matched with. I received the call to tell me I had an offer... two days after the deadline set by the University. And it is not like this deadline is unknown to employers. Second time, again, I received an offer. This time, I had to call, one week before the deadline, after two weeks of hearing nothing from them. Two students in my class were in the same situation, one had to send a hate mail to finally get a reply. The other one got one only after the deadline. To be honest, this really isn't the best way to go about it. Makes you fell like crap as an intern. I interned at fairly large and well known tech companies in the past (Facebook, heading to Bloomberg this Summer) and got offers from many more (Amazon, Microsoft, Zynga, EA, etc.) and my worst experiences were always with Google. As a freshman, Google looked like the dream internship, the company to aim for. Four internships later, it is now pretty low on my list. Definitely not impressed by their recruitment process. And this all happened in the past 12 months.
  - andrewmunn 15y ago
    Yeah I agree about Google making you feel like crap. Another thing, they don't pay for the relocation flight or provide corporate housing, so before my first internship with Google I was pretty bummed out by the whole process, but after actually working there I can't wait to get back. Renaud, I think you should give them another shot if you're still up for it.
    - mdwrigh2 15y ago
      At least this summer, that's not true. They pay a relocation bonus that's more than enough to fly you out and back for the summer, as well as ship whatever you need out with you. The lack of corporate housing is kind of unfortunate, but the internship pay is enough that it isn't something I'm terribly concerned about.
  - shriphani 15y ago
    Weird story here. MS, Qualcomm, Intel etc. everyone shows up really early @ our school. Google comes 2 months later after the offer deadlines have passed. What gives ? I couldn't even interview because I had to accept another offer. Compared to MS, Qualcomm, AMZN (I'm headed to MS) Google's process is pretty weird.
- thefool 15y ago
  I finally got contacted today after 2 months in said pool :).
javert 15y ago
I found this interesting because I went through part of Google's internship process not too long ago. If you're just a sophomore, you shouldn't feel bad about not getting an internship at Google. Another reason not to "feel bad" about it is that AFAIK the people interviewing you just take notes, and then other people review those notes to decide whether or not to take you. So the people you interviewed with weren't even the ones that made the decision. Perhaps for the C program, you should have done something simpler than a binary search, at least to begin with. The way you described it, they didn't require you to do a binary search.
iam 15y ago
Google's loss is some other company's gain. Apply to places like Facebook or Microsoft or Amazon instead. Or in your case The New York Times. Personally I was in between jobs recently, so I sent Google my resume using their online application site. After about a month, Google still didn't get back to me -- meanwhile I managed to interview at 6 different places (all the way) and found a new job. "I heard nothing for a month and a half" is the key problem I think. It's going to be very hard for any full time employees that are any good to stay off the market that long, they'd have to apply to Google before quitting their last job. As for interns, I am not overly surprised since you applied in December. At my school we had the hiring booms in October/November and then again in March/April (that's when we had the 2 engineering job fairs), so anytime between that people weren't really finding a new internship (unless it was on their own). One last thing, what exactly is a Google spreadsheet beta candidate form? Is that the same one as the optional Google "survey" where you had to rank your skills (1-5 or 1-10 was it)?
- mdwrigh2 15y ago
  Having done the internship application process this year, I believe that's the one he's talking about, yes. It basically asks you to rate skills on things relevant to Google, and give location preferences and such. I don't think it was optional, though perhaps I'm mistaken and filled it out assuming it was required.
- ehc 15y ago
  Yes, I just looked at the form again (the link still works) and it asks: University, Major, GPA, strongest programming language, second programming language, and preferences for location, and then a five-option part where you rate yourself out of: Not my thing (none) Can make do (fair) Comfortable (good) Comes easily (better) World Class (best) On the following: 1) Applications and Services: this is Google's term for the software that is directly visible to end users. People who focus on applications and services typically work on improving our capabilities in a variety of areas that span the range from new features to increasing performance and efficiency at Google scale. They will be tasked with devising and building new approaches to Google's problems, and exploring their effectiveness. 2) Systems: People who have a systems focus are oriented towards behind-the-scenes software and systems, often building them from underlying components and services. Systems work spans from platforms (hardware, OS, networking) to infrastructure (shared services such as storage, cluster management) and everything in between. 3) Sys-admin: Our system administrators keep all of Google's systems running, and help deploy new ones. They deal with issues involving single machines to those involving huge numbers. They work with native Linux environments, and Google extensions and services. 4) Verification and Test: Our test teams helps make our systems resilient and reliable - we put a lot of effort into this. Building world class applications at world class scales doesn’t happen by accident. It takes insight, innovation, and precision to verify our systems perform as expected.
symkat 15y ago
I've often hated writing implementations of searching and sorting algorithms with someone looking over my shoulder. I think it tests specific knowledge of an algorithm more-so than anything else.
- iam 15y ago
  To be fair, binary search is pretty simple. It's not like he was asked to code max-flow (e.g. Ford-Fulkerson) off the top of his head. The problem I'm sure, was being rusty at C, not the algorithm implementation. I make all kinds of silly mistakes on the whiteboard if it's with a language I haven't used for a while.
larsberg 15y ago
Many candidates wrongly assume they failed to get a position because they got a question wrong. Unless the question was trivial (i.e. what is the height of a tree?), most of the time these questions are intended to see how well you can carefully think through, create, clarify, and debug your code. For example, when I was reading your writeup as a former interviewer (lots and lots of college candidates for MSFT -- I was a dev manager and did both my own hiring and was flown to colleges for those "interview days" for several years), I was far more worried that you had trouble finding the bug in binary search than that you got it wrong. Everyone gets problems wrong the first time unless they have just implemented them recently. Superior candidates are good at rapidly trying good normal and edge cases, hammering out a good solution, and writing inspired code when given hints at how to improve their solutions.
- enjalot 15y ago
  I'm almost certain this is why I failed my phone interview. It wasn't that I implemented an inefficient sort right away, its that I didn't talk about how/why it was and what I could do about it with more time. I really don't like the idea of solving contrived puzzles, but I'll never make the mistake of keeping my thought process hidden again.
  - larsberg 15y ago
    If you can, track down somebody who has done a lot of these interviews before to give you a test one and some feedback. I do that for the undergraduates at our school (I went back for my Ph.D. after retiring from MSFT), and they claim it has helped them prepare. I don't claim any responsibility for their success, though! The University of Chicago undergrads are a hard-working bunch. Much more so than when I was an undergrad :-)
bengl3rt 15y ago
Mirrors my internship experience almost exactly. Three rapid-fire technical interviews that I thought went quite well, then a "sorry, no dice" email. Someone else I know just went through the same thing, also for an internship. Google sure makes a lot of noise about how they are hiring and competing for talent, but continue to turn away good people for unknown reasons.
- Daniel14 15y ago
  I think Google receives around 20000 resumes per day. If you've got that kind of interest (and what I've heard, justified interest) you'll have to turn most people down (ie. >99%). I don't have inside knowledge about the Google hiring process, but with that many people applying, you're bound to have some false negatives.
  - sh4na 15y ago
    The problem is that they do the exact same thing for people that they reach out to. Their recruiters go out to mailing lists and linkedin and harvest emails, then contact those people and offer them positions. If you say yes, they start you on the exact same anonymous interview process, the interviewers having no clue that you didn't apply yourself and treating you just like any other generic wannabe. That's why a lot of the best programmers won't take offers from Google, they know they're going to be treated like cattle throughout the whole process by people who have no clue who they are or what they've done and don't really care to know. It's important to know that googlers are encouraged internally to do interviews (for extra cookie points? I don't know :P), they're assigned randomly to candidates for most of the process, so they're not a part of the whole process, just a piece of the machinery. No one oversees the interviews to make sure questions are not repeated and that there's a logical thread from one to the other (especially the onsite interviews), and you might not even be asked the questions that are actually relevant for the position they're considering you for, when you're in the latter stages of the process. The stories I've heard from the hiring trenches are all pretty much the same. It's a great company, but their hiring processes are very weird.
    - 15y ago
bogdan2412 15y ago
I'm surprised by the rapid succesion of the interviews. When I applied for an internship at Google, I think the entire process lasted about three months until I got a final acceptance email. Only had 2 technical phone interviews spread over a month period and they were both decisive (aka if you failed the first one, you didn't get in the second one). This was quite a contrast to my Facebook experience, where I had a contract signed after I think 3 weeks. :) I'm really quite surprised that binary search is considered difficult, have you ever tried to implement quick sort? I can write AVLs with less bugs than quick sort.
marvin 15y ago
I wouldn't bother applying. Why the hell would you want to work a company that runs you through the gauntlet like this, only to give you the chance that maybe you'll get hired? I mean, this is obviously a really skilled guy who has lots of prospects. Why are Google so popular anyway? I genuinely don't get it and would love to know from someone who has specific knowledge. Do they pay better than everyone else? Work on more interesting problems? Better perks, work environment, more status? I can understand it from the perspective of someone who joined years ago, when you got stock options and didn't have to do a full circus performance in order to get in, but not any longer. The experience would have to be twice as good as the alternatives before I willingly submitted to this kind of process. A long process of interviews like the ones I have heard about hints at more pain and no autonomy once you actually join. For an _internship_? If you're turning down other offers for the _chance_ to work at Google, you're selling yourself short and not getting full market value.
- kin 15y ago
  I'm not a Googler, but I know many and yes, Google pays well, they work on very very interesting problems. Ex-Googler does have a ring to it when you apply for jobs. There are awesome benefits like amazing facilities and lunch everyday, on-site massages, fitness centers, etc. The environment is that everyone around you is incredibly intelligent so just being there is intellectually stimulating and feels like you're a student. Though working at Google is definitely not what it used to be, it certainly has its perks.
  - galactus 15y ago
    I keep hearing programmers at google work on very interesting problems, but I honestly wonder if all of them do. I mean, how many programmers does google employ by now? can they all really be working in creative, challenging problems?
- munificent 15y ago
  > Why are Google so popular anyway? I've been a Googler for a little less than a year and so far I absolutely love it. Compensation is good, the perks are fantastic, the caliber of people I work with is stellar, the work is challenging and interesting, and the culture and processes are the best I've seen. > A long process of interviews like the ones I have heard about hints at more pain and no autonomy once you actually join. I believe it's the opposite. You have to run the gauntlet to get in because once you do, you won't be closely monitored and you'll be given a lot of autonomy. The hiring process is stringent to try to reduce the number of internal gates you need once you get in.
bad_user 15y ago
given two full hours and any high-level language (including pseudocode) only 10 percent of professional programmers implemented binary search correctly, according to Jon Bently. Wow! I'm not particularly intelligent and I'm not in the top 10% -- but I could implement an in-place quick-sort in C in 10 minutes that my interviewer could run with only a minor fix (forgot a semi-colon), and I even described the parallel version with OpenMP (although there I got the syntax slightly wrong). This was for my interview at Adobe, when I got hired by them a couple of years ago; went on to other things since then. By that logic that should place me in the top 1 percent ... but so are my ~ 100 friends that are also software developers from my city, and statistically speaking, something smells like shit in those statistics thrown around. Maybe binary search, when discovered, used to be a hard to understand problem, but now it is taught from high-school. And sure there are lots of idiots out there, but many of those idiots also believe they are in the top 10%, because some statistic told them so. So cut the crap and build stuff. Only by that metric you can prove yourself. -- EDIT -- I'm not referring or addressing the article's author directly. I'm also not saying that you SHOULD be able to implement binary search, or quick-sort or whatever metric du-jour -- in interview conditions. I get it that you may be stressed by eyes watching you, or that you may be bitten by edge-cases other people haven't noticed for years. I'm referring more to these metrics flowing around -- like, if you read HN you're in the top 5%, if you read this stupid blog you're in the top X%, if you can implement binary search ... etc, etc... We are software developers, mathematicians, computer scientists -- surely we understand selection bias and should be able to recognize bullshit, even if it doesn't appeal to our ego.
- ernestipark 15y ago
  Don't be so pompous. Most people know how to implement it, it's not a difficult concept. It's just that there are edge cases and intricacies of implementation that yield bugs.
  - bad_user 15y ago
    The quote I'm referring to mentions pseudocode, which makes integers overflowing and stuff like that irrelevant, since that's dependent on the integer representation you're using.
cmansley 15y ago
This was exactly my experience. Everything from the two technical interviews with the addition of a third to the technical questions with queries about bugs in the code. I think 2->3 conversion is exactly what you said. The first two interviewers split on their opinion of you, so you get scheduled a tie-breaker interview. Unfortunately for me, the tie-breaker interview was my worst, partly due to me and partly due to non-existant feedback for 45 minutes on the part of the interviewer. But, I believe there is a method to the madness. They have so many qualified applicants that they would rather err on the side of caution. They would rather reduce the false-positives even if the number of false-negatives grows. They can afford this luxury. They want the best and they can afford rejecting good candidates. My favorite way of thinking about this was from Steve Yegge's blog post about the interview process : "Because of the inherently flawed nature of the interviewing process, it's highly likely that someone on the loop will be unimpressed with you, even if you are Alan Turing. Especially if you're Alan Turing, in fact, since it means you obviously don't know C++"
rdtsc 15y ago
I hate little programming puzzles that you have code by hand or little word problems, or trick questions that you have to think "out of the box". In many years of programming I don't remember having to write a binary search in C, by hand, in a text document, without being able to compile and test. Or having to dictate a Python program over the phone to someone. I certainly do not remember ever having to solve stuff like:"One train leaves Los Angeles at 15mph heading for New York. Another train leaves from New York at 20mph heading for Los Angeles on the same track. If a bird, flying at 25mph, leaves from Los Angeles at the same time as the train and flies back and forth between the two trains until they collide, how far will the bird have traveled?" NEVER. I had to implement & modify algorithms from scientific papers, I had to work with complicated lockless versions of data structures, but I probably couldn't write the binary tree search in C over the phone. If that's that Google uses to hire then I will never work at Google. EDIT: Alright, got a angry and used the 'fuck' a little too much.
- mdwrigh2 15y ago
  So, to be fair to Google, I was not once asked anything like the train question nor was I asked to write a binary search in C then to read it out over the phone. I did implement a few things in Google docs, which is kind of ugly, but it wasn't anything ridiculous, and most of the functions were fairly short (20-30 lines). They did, however, ask a whole bunch of conceptual questions, but I don't think this is all that surprising.
  - Lewisham 15y ago
    I'm an intern right now. Just today I saw Neil Fraser [1], who wrote MobWrite [2]. I shook his hand and thanked him, he's probably one of the reasons I actually managed to pass! My third phone interview had code in MobWrite, not Google Docs, and it was so much better. I'm going to try to find a way to feed it back to HR, because it really is much easier to think about code when what you're doing looks like code. [1] http://neil.fraser.name http://neil.fraser.name [2] http://www.mobwrite.net http://www.mobwrite.net
    - 15y ago
jbk 15y ago
I went through the Google process too and it didn't come out nicely. First, I have had almost no actual CS lessons in my university, because it was more focused on general engineering and IT management than on code writing. However, I've done quite a bit of code in various open source projects and I've touched quite many technologies... I went through the sets of interviews, and I really seemed to work quite well, even if many design-patterns where unknown to me (I didn't know their names). But the last one wasn't the best one. Therefore, I got the mail telling me that they got no positions for me, which I understood and accepted easily (I had another engagement at the time). However, I dared to ask "why?". Was it my technical skills, my personal skills, my logic skills or the way I answered the process, the cause of my rejection? They refused to even discuss about it, which is not even reaching the minimum of politeness I expect from a company. When they asked if they could keep my Resume, I told them to go away... This recruitment process does not seem enough respectful for me and gave me a very bad opinion of the company.
- wahnfrieden 15y ago
  Some companies refuse to discuss that on principle as a way to protect themselves from lawsuits. So you shouldn't take that too personally.
  - waqf 15y ago
    Since they doubtless treat everyone that way, I guess you're technically correct that it shouldn't be taken personally. But the fact that it's only "[s]ome companies" that do that still suggests that it's rude and unprofessional behavior.
    - tedunangst 15y ago
      In my experience, it's not some. It's all.
      - jbk 15y ago
        In my experience, Google was the only one.
l0nwlf 15y ago
Lucky him, atleast he got to face tech interviews. As for me I never got the chance to prove myself. I got my call, was inquired about my projects and current offers by HR and then got a rejection letter next week. After I inquired, it turned out that my low GPA [ 7.03/10.0 ] was the cause. They want academically bright freshers with shining GPAs and with strong CS101 skills.
Udo 15y ago
I expected better from a company like Google. Asking candidates for pre-canned code snippets to cutesy little CS problems on the whiteboard is miserable and the outcome depends too much on what the candidate studied in the last few weeks before the interview. It actually tells you very little about the kind of programmer a person is and the interview itself can get quite horrible on a personal level very fast. A while ago, I used to conduct job interviews like this. Sort this, insert that, search for the other. I still feel sorry for some of the candidates I did this to. That process was the largest single mistake I made when hiring people. I should instead have asked for the code of some projects they had been working on recently and maybe discussed a few more creative things with them. In fact, if I could ask a candidate just one question, it would be "what projects are you working on in your spare time?"
- PatrickTulskie 15y ago
  If someone isn't working on something in their spare time, it's a big red flag to me. You need to have the hunger. I'm more turned on by what you have in your github account than whether or not you can do a binary search in your choice of languages.
  - Retric 15y ago
    That's the sort of thing that works just fine in a small company that only needs a few people but, it does not scale. PS: All of the great developers I have worked with are both old (50+) and have a life outside of code. Spend some time around people with Genius IQ's and 30+ years of experience and you rethink just how important passion really is.
  - inaequitas 15y ago
    I agree that this is the most valuable way to judge a candidate, but unfortunately I don't think it would work for most students and most companies (been through it all) because: a) students have a fair bit of school work to do, and: b) most companies can't afford the kind of talent that finds the time to work on other projects outside their normal coursework. Now, for Google that might not be the case — they certainly should be trying to find the top talent they can get their hands on. All the more reason to ask about the extra projects, GitHub account, code samples etc. But just as many people, when they're students, don't appreciate or value the extra work you talk about, they won't do it when they work for Google and are tasked with hiring others. If all you spent time studying were algorithms and C, you won't appreciate the value of open-source contributions and feverishly learning new languages as much as someone else. And you won't hire based on that. And yes, that's disappointing.
singular 15y ago
I feel for you - my advice is not to let it get you down. I think an important factor in these interviews is the emphasis on talent in software development. Don't get me wrong - I don't deny its importance, it's more that I question the nature of the beast. To me talent is instinct, a feel for what you're doing, and the 'right' type of thinking for the thing. It's pretty obvious when somebody has it (or doesn't), and I think obvious whether you have it too if you're honest with yourself about it. Tech interviews emphatically do not test for this. Nor do they, I believe, test for smartness; I think once you hit a certain level of intelligence the rest is far more preparation and experience (and yes I'm getting Malcolm Gladwell on your ass) - so all a failed interview indicates is (assuming you are an at least moderately talented, moderately intelligent candidate) one or more of the following:- * Lack of preparation (knowing the stuff, and practicing the stuff) * Poor/incorrectly focused preparation * Lack of confidence * Bad luck - e.g. haven't looked at binary search for x years they ask about it, or what Steve Yegge termed the 'interview anti-loop'[1] - basically the guy interviewing you just doesn't like you and that's that. The biggest problem with these things is that people (and I'm kind of talking to myself here more than anyone) take these things personally and put it down to some idea of talent that you might just lack. Fuck that. The problem is that - and I'm risking repeating a well-known cliche here - hiring good people is extremely hard, and a false positive is way more damaging than a false negative. It is right, IMHO, that (good) companies probe algos, os fundamentals, etc. as this stuff matters; however failing an interview emphatically does not mean you suck. [1]:http://steve-yegge.blogspot.com/2008/03/get-that-job-at-google.html http://steve-yegge.blogspot.com/2008/03/get-that-job-at-goog...
baddox 15y ago
With a process like this (based on this story as well as others), does Google actually consistently employee competent talent? Obviously Google has landed some serious rock-star talent, but of the scores of college graduates they hire for internships or entry-level positions, does anyone know if their hiring process is working for them?
- sh4na 15y ago
  No. They employ a lot of people that can write code on boards, and can certainly churn it out at high velocity. But when you start looking at the actual code... it's bad. When I first looked at the chrome code, the layer they dumped on top of webkit to make it out-of-process, the only thing I could think of was "this looks like something a kid fresh out of college would cobble up together". Same thing with most of their projects - lack of clear design, hacks, hard to maintain, lack of standards, no portability. The projects that get visibility end up getting better (more competent programmers assigned to them), the rest lingers in crappiness mode. They're not all like that, obviously. They have very smart and very competent people there. But the general low quality of their code, the lack of polish in their products, it clearly shows the consequences of hiring people based on how fast they can dump code on a whiteboard.
  - adpowers 15y ago
    Hmm. I had a very different experience. Most of the Google code I've seen them release is very, very high quality, like the Guava libraries: http://code.google.com/p/guava-libraries/ http://code.google.com/p/guava-libraries/
eel 15y ago
I was disappointed by my interview process earlier this month for a potential summer internship at Google. I'm sure part of it is driven by the result (I didn't get past the phone screens.) My main complaints are - Every step of the process involved a new person. Overall, I had to be handed off through 4 different people, each one wanting a bit more information or a filled out form, until I was scheduled for the phone interviews. This was especially confusing when I had a recruiter assigned to me, and I was being emailed by both her and someone with whom she worked with at the same point in the process. - The first interviewer was apparently a fill-in for the intended one, which is unfortunate, because he and I were a complete mismatch. He seemed to be a C/C++ guy and I have more high-level language experience, and we ended up doing what I would consider advanced bit manipulation / number theory. (The second interview was much more reasonable, and it is my own fault if I did not pass it.) - The amount of time time that it took from the "Hi, we would like you to apply online" email to the you are not "a close enough match" email was over a month, which is much too long for simple back-to-back phone interviews. Waiting for their responses was the most frustrating and nerve-racking part of the process. I am glad at least the OP had quick responses. Should I go through the process again, I would strongly consider asking them to expedite it in one way or another. On a more optimistic note, I do feel like the interviews do help highlight weaknesses in your programming skills and resume presentation skills.
mrchess 15y ago
In regards to your comment about their recruiting speed, I wanted to chip in. While not Google, I interviewed with meebo and went through three phone screens as well within 1 week, and they flew me to Mountain View within 2 weeks -- by far THE most efficient interview I have been through. Great people. I cannot emphasize enough how much more awesome it makes your company look when you have a streamlined recruiting process!
deleted 15y ago
[deleted]
aphexairlines 15y ago
I would not appreciate a candidate spilling the beans on what we ask in our interviews, even if he didn't sign an NDA. Sometimes you do ask similar questions, and it's a waste of everyone's time when the candidate in front of you went through some programming interview books and a bunch of blogs like those. Similarly, I wouldn't even bother to bring in a candidate who transcribed his interviews elsewhere.
- mailarchis 15y ago
  There are quite a few people out there who would enjoy working out on interesting questions. If you already know the question or have solved it previously you just give the solution and admit it that you had seen it earlier. But more importantly its about the thought process and how you got to the answer. "Similarly, I wouldn't even bother to bring in a candidate who transcribed his interviews elsewhere." - Well there are gazillion blogs and books written on technical interview questions including by ex google, msoft and apple employees. So is it really that bad that a sophomore student decided to blog about it for the benefit of fellow students.
  - aphexairlines 15y ago
    It's bad for the same reason that leaking a midterm you just took for the benefit of fellow students is not helpful for those trying to conduct a test.
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swah 15y ago
Given the input and output, why isn't a linear search a proper solution?
- deleted 15y ago
  [deleted]
- ppod 15y ago
  Because linear is O(n) and binary is O(log(n))?
  - swah 15y ago
    Oh, sorry - didn't notice that was a requirement.
    - ppod 15y ago
      I don't think it was an explicit requirement, it just would be very wasteful to do a linear search on a sorted list.
bconway 15y ago
Having read a plethora of stories about the Google interview process over the years, from interns on up, it seems like it would be easier to build a company and sell it to Google than to get through the application process. Surely someone has done this at least once, given the number of companies Google has purchased.

171 points by ehc 15y ago

apl 15y ago

> I got an internship with The New York Times > the following week. Did the internship involve 41m$ in compensations and the instruction to build a pay wall secure enough to fend off toddlers? In any case, well done. Technical interviews are hit-and-miss at any stage in your career, although I have to say that a coder worth his salt should be able to code up a binary search in no time at all. Even a college sophomore.

biobot 15y ago
I have applied there for a fulltime position. I got a friend at Google refer and an HR called my immediately to set up a phone interview. It went well and they flew me in for onsite. After more than a week, they sent me an offer after the quite rigorous background check. The whole process takes about 3 weeks. Even though, it's not as fast as the company I will join (took them less than 2 weeks total to get me an offer) but I don't think Google process is slow.

elbenshira 15y ago

My story: After my technical phone interviews, I got "accepted" as an intern, meaning I was in the Intern Pool of Rot, where I waded and waited for a team to fish me out. I waded and waded for a couple of months, hoping for a kind suitor. The HR woman always told me that she was "optimistic" about my prospects, so I rejected offers from other companies. Then a really cool opportunity came, and I accepted that offer because you can't just sit in a rotting pool for two months. A friend of mine stayed in the rotting pool and was told at the beginning of summer that no one at Google wanted him. This was 2009-2010. I hope Google changed their ways.

javert 15y ago
I had a pretty similar experience just recently (so I guess they haven't changed their ways). Sounds like the process was a bit different but basically the same net result of Google telling me they wanted me, then not actually matching me up with any group in time for me to take an offer from them.
andrewmunn 15y ago
Unfortunately, this has happened to many friends of mine. I much prefer the way Microsoft, Amazon, Facebook, and Zynga do their recruiting. However, if Google actually does accept you, it's a steller experience.
webspiderus 15y ago
i had an identical experience just a month ago - took 2 months to hear feedback on the technical interviews, followed by a whole bunch of nothing. compared to other offers i had, google moved by far the slowest
michaelpinto 15y ago
Somewhere in that pool of rejected interns is the next Bill Gates...
- pgbovine 15y ago
  i doubt future-bill-gates would have the patience to apply and wait for big company internships. he would probably be spending that time hacking, hustling, and creating his own software business.
- saturdayplace 15y ago
  I doubt it. The next Bill Gates isn't hoping to get noticed by some company. He's out making something and/or hustling for deals like the actual Bill Gates did. The next Bill Gates is most definitely NOT languishing unnoticed in some intern pool waiting to be discovered like some Hollywood wannabe starlet.
  - michaelpinto 15y ago
    The Woz worked at HP where he was well liked but hardly seen at CTO material...
    - Stormbringer 15y ago
      Even today Woz is not regarded as CTO material for a large company. Mad scientist with lots of cool toys? Definitely. Stick him in a suit and make him give presentations to the board? Definitely not. Woz should be the guy in the basement in the lab coat who occasionally makes the lights in the building flicker with some bitchin' tesla coils... the guy that the CTO goes to in order to find out what is going to be important in tech trends, and who occasionally coughs up a wonderful invention that revolutionises everyone's life. I think it is important to note that Woz is still listed as an Apple employee as an engineer
    - burgerbrain 15y ago
      And the statement "Somewhere in that pool of rejected interns is the next Woz..." would be far more realistic than "Somewhere in that pool of rejected interns is the next Bill Gates..." The Woz type and the Bill Gates type are different by miles.
clawr 15y ago
The process isn't too different now. My first interview (on campus) was mid January of this year. About a month later (mid February) I had another technical interview, after which I was put into the pool of possible interns. Then in mid March I had a "host interview" with my eventual manager, which resulted in an offer. A two month intern hiring process, when other companies make decisions within a week of the interview, seems arrogant (i.e., they don't think they need too be quick because people want to work at Google). FWIW my recruiter was very friendly, and she explained that she had a pool of about 30-40 intern candidates she was managing.
- mdwrigh2 15y ago
  My process was the exact opposite. I did my two technical interviews back-to-back on a friday afternoon (4-6pm EST, so late in the day), and had been accepted to the applicant pool within the hour, with a host matching interview being setup 30 minutes after that. I interviewed Monday with my host and his manager, and was told that they were willing to host me and were going to start the approval process for an offer. I had the official offer by the end of the week. So in under a week, I went from initial interview, to official offer. This is by _no_ means typical (and my recruiter even commented on how unbelievably fast it was), but it _does_ happen.
brown9-2 15y ago
I think you'd have to try pretty hard to consciously design a worse intern recruitment process than this.
- Stormbringer 15y ago
  Getting them to write code is actually pretty good. As for binary search, I wouldn't necessarily be able to bang it out in two hours in C, but I'd easily be able to bang it out in that time for any language I use regularly. And with sufficient testing I'd take a good stab at converting to C. Though I agree sometimes it can be a coin toss. Once I was asked to write some code that would take dates as inputs and do something with them, it was supposed to take two hours and run on a bunch of test cases they gave you. I spent much more than two hours on it, nailed all the edge cases and boundary conditions that I could think of (basically nuked it from orbit) and turned in something which ran on their test cases and also a much longer list of much more challenging test cases. I got that job. I missed one where they wanted something written by TDD. Unfortunately, I only know how to design something that works, I don't know how to fake a bad design that organically grows into a workable design. As above I nuked all the boundary conditions I could think of, but didn't get that job. (Probably wouldn't have been happy there, my experience is that people who do TDD or automated unit testing have way too much faith in those forms of testing, and they neglect other forms of testing, so their actual net amount of testing is well below my standards. Things like: every single programmer I've ever worked with who claims that automated testing is sufficient has always produced code that when they claim they've finished the task it fails the eyeball test. E.g. you run their code and within 10-30 seconds of looking at the result you can spot something wrong with it.)
  - baddox 15y ago
    I enjoyed your quip about TDD. I always thought the same thing about mandatory "rough drafts" in high school.
  - saranagati 15y ago
    "Unfortunately, I only know how to design something that works, I don't know how to fake a bad design" I was once given an interview project where they wanted to see how I did with their current code structure. They gave me this really horrible template of data that could never be used in the real world or for anything other than this project. I decided to restructure the template so I could make a useable application for it. After turning it in they were astonished that I reformatted it to look exactly like their production data and code. The problem was that they didn't like that I didn't use certain basic function like require_once, autoloading or something else which i forget (this was in php). Instead I used c style programming in php which ends up being faster. They chastised me for not using the builtin php functions because they assumed they must be better and didn't hire me. The company (well whoever the recruiter worked for) sayed in the email that I just wasn't the right fit because I wasn't up to the skill level of the guy giving me the test and they needed someone "that good" because they were way behind on their deadline. I sent them an email back basically saying that they're retarded (in a MUCH nicer way of course) and showed them some benchmark results I made comparing the different ways of doing it (which showed my methods as being much more efficient).
ernestipark 15y ago
My gf is in that rotting pool now. Killed the interviews, but hasn't found a right team yet.
- jlees 15y ago
  One way out of the pool might be to reach out to potential teams herself, if you have any friends of friends within the 'plex who can send out tendrils internally. (Or just contact friendly people who post on HN... >.>)
  - ernestipark 15y ago
    Yeah she's been advised to go through Google's projects herself and let the recruiter know what she might be interested in.
- Luyt 15y ago
  Wouldn't it be an idea to team up with other 'pool rotters' and create a product for Google? i.e. form your own team proactively, and operate like a kind of Skunk Works in Google...
renaudb 15y ago
Same here. Twice in a row. First time, I was told a manager would call me to explain me which team I was being matched with. I received the call to tell me I had an offer... two days after the deadline set by the University. And it is not like this deadline is unknown to employers. Second time, again, I received an offer. This time, I had to call, one week before the deadline, after two weeks of hearing nothing from them. Two students in my class were in the same situation, one had to send a hate mail to finally get a reply. The other one got one only after the deadline. To be honest, this really isn't the best way to go about it. Makes you fell like crap as an intern. I interned at fairly large and well known tech companies in the past (Facebook, heading to Bloomberg this Summer) and got offers from many more (Amazon, Microsoft, Zynga, EA, etc.) and my worst experiences were always with Google. As a freshman, Google looked like the dream internship, the company to aim for. Four internships later, it is now pretty low on my list. Definitely not impressed by their recruitment process. And this all happened in the past 12 months.
- andrewmunn 15y ago
  Yeah I agree about Google making you feel like crap. Another thing, they don't pay for the relocation flight or provide corporate housing, so before my first internship with Google I was pretty bummed out by the whole process, but after actually working there I can't wait to get back. Renaud, I think you should give them another shot if you're still up for it.
  - mdwrigh2 15y ago
    At least this summer, that's not true. They pay a relocation bonus that's more than enough to fly you out and back for the summer, as well as ship whatever you need out with you. The lack of corporate housing is kind of unfortunate, but the internship pay is enough that it isn't something I'm terribly concerned about.
- shriphani 15y ago
  Weird story here. MS, Qualcomm, Intel etc. everyone shows up really early @ our school. Google comes 2 months later after the offer deadlines have passed. What gives ? I couldn't even interview because I had to accept another offer. Compared to MS, Qualcomm, AMZN (I'm headed to MS) Google's process is pretty weird.
thefool 15y ago
I finally got contacted today after 2 months in said pool :).

javert 15y ago

I found this interesting because I went through part of Google's internship process not too long ago. If you're just a sophomore, you shouldn't feel bad about not getting an internship at Google. Another reason not to "feel bad" about it is that AFAIK the people interviewing you just take notes, and then other people review those notes to decide whether or not to take you. So the people you interviewed with weren't even the ones that made the decision. Perhaps for the C program, you should have done something simpler than a binary search, at least to begin with. The way you described it, they didn't require you to do a binary search.

iam 15y ago

Google's loss is some other company's gain. Apply to places like Facebook or Microsoft or Amazon instead. Or in your case The New York Times. Personally I was in between jobs recently, so I sent Google my resume using their online application site. After about a month, Google still didn't get back to me -- meanwhile I managed to interview at 6 different places (all the way) and found a new job. "I heard nothing for a month and a half" is the key problem I think. It's going to be very hard for any full time employees that are any good to stay off the market that long, they'd have to apply to Google before quitting their last job. As for interns, I am not overly surprised since you applied in December. At my school we had the hiring booms in October/November and then again in March/April (that's when we had the 2 engineering job fairs), so anytime between that people weren't really finding a new internship (unless it was on their own). One last thing, what exactly is a Google spreadsheet beta candidate form? Is that the same one as the optional Google "survey" where you had to rank your skills (1-5 or 1-10 was it)?

mdwrigh2 15y ago
Having done the internship application process this year, I believe that's the one he's talking about, yes. It basically asks you to rate skills on things relevant to Google, and give location preferences and such. I don't think it was optional, though perhaps I'm mistaken and filled it out assuming it was required.
ehc 15y ago
Yes, I just looked at the form again (the link still works) and it asks: University, Major, GPA, strongest programming language, second programming language, and preferences for location, and then a five-option part where you rate yourself out of: Not my thing (none) Can make do (fair) Comfortable (good) Comes easily (better) World Class (best) On the following: 1) Applications and Services: this is Google's term for the software that is directly visible to end users. People who focus on applications and services typically work on improving our capabilities in a variety of areas that span the range from new features to increasing performance and efficiency at Google scale. They will be tasked with devising and building new approaches to Google's problems, and exploring their effectiveness. 2) Systems: People who have a systems focus are oriented towards behind-the-scenes software and systems, often building them from underlying components and services. Systems work spans from platforms (hardware, OS, networking) to infrastructure (shared services such as storage, cluster management) and everything in between. 3) Sys-admin: Our system administrators keep all of Google's systems running, and help deploy new ones. They deal with issues involving single machines to those involving huge numbers. They work with native Linux environments, and Google extensions and services. 4) Verification and Test: Our test teams helps make our systems resilient and reliable - we put a lot of effort into this. Building world class applications at world class scales doesn’t happen by accident. It takes insight, innovation, and precision to verify our systems perform as expected.

symkat 15y ago

I've often hated writing implementations of searching and sorting algorithms with someone looking over my shoulder. I think it tests specific knowledge of an algorithm more-so than anything else.

iam 15y ago
To be fair, binary search is pretty simple. It's not like he was asked to code max-flow (e.g. Ford-Fulkerson) off the top of his head. The problem I'm sure, was being rusty at C, not the algorithm implementation. I make all kinds of silly mistakes on the whiteboard if it's with a language I haven't used for a while.

larsberg 15y ago

Many candidates wrongly assume they failed to get a position because they got a question wrong. Unless the question was trivial (i.e. what is the height of a tree?), most of the time these questions are intended to see how well you can carefully think through, create, clarify, and debug your code. For example, when I was reading your writeup as a former interviewer (lots and lots of college candidates for MSFT -- I was a dev manager and did both my own hiring and was flown to colleges for those "interview days" for several years), I was far more worried that you had trouble finding the bug in binary search than that you got it wrong. Everyone gets problems wrong the first time unless they have just implemented them recently. Superior candidates are good at rapidly trying good normal and edge cases, hammering out a good solution, and writing inspired code when given hints at how to improve their solutions.

enjalot 15y ago
I'm almost certain this is why I failed my phone interview. It wasn't that I implemented an inefficient sort right away, its that I didn't talk about how/why it was and what I could do about it with more time. I really don't like the idea of solving contrived puzzles, but I'll never make the mistake of keeping my thought process hidden again.
- larsberg 15y ago
  If you can, track down somebody who has done a lot of these interviews before to give you a test one and some feedback. I do that for the undergraduates at our school (I went back for my Ph.D. after retiring from MSFT), and they claim it has helped them prepare. I don't claim any responsibility for their success, though! The University of Chicago undergrads are a hard-working bunch. Much more so than when I was an undergrad :-)

bengl3rt 15y ago

Mirrors my internship experience almost exactly. Three rapid-fire technical interviews that I thought went quite well, then a "sorry, no dice" email. Someone else I know just went through the same thing, also for an internship. Google sure makes a lot of noise about how they are hiring and competing for talent, but continue to turn away good people for unknown reasons.

Daniel14 15y ago
I think Google receives around 20000 resumes per day. If you've got that kind of interest (and what I've heard, justified interest) you'll have to turn most people down (ie. >99%). I don't have inside knowledge about the Google hiring process, but with that many people applying, you're bound to have some false negatives.
- sh4na 15y ago
  The problem is that they do the exact same thing for people that they reach out to. Their recruiters go out to mailing lists and linkedin and harvest emails, then contact those people and offer them positions. If you say yes, they start you on the exact same anonymous interview process, the interviewers having no clue that you didn't apply yourself and treating you just like any other generic wannabe. That's why a lot of the best programmers won't take offers from Google, they know they're going to be treated like cattle throughout the whole process by people who have no clue who they are or what they've done and don't really care to know. It's important to know that googlers are encouraged internally to do interviews (for extra cookie points? I don't know :P), they're assigned randomly to candidates for most of the process, so they're not a part of the whole process, just a piece of the machinery. No one oversees the interviews to make sure questions are not repeated and that there's a logical thread from one to the other (especially the onsite interviews), and you might not even be asked the questions that are actually relevant for the position they're considering you for, when you're in the latter stages of the process. The stories I've heard from the hiring trenches are all pretty much the same. It's a great company, but their hiring processes are very weird.
  - 15y ago

bogdan2412 15y ago

I'm surprised by the rapid succesion of the interviews. When I applied for an internship at Google, I think the entire process lasted about three months until I got a final acceptance email. Only had 2 technical phone interviews spread over a month period and they were both decisive (aka if you failed the first one, you didn't get in the second one). This was quite a contrast to my Facebook experience, where I had a contract signed after I think 3 weeks. :) I'm really quite surprised that binary search is considered difficult, have you ever tried to implement quick sort? I can write AVLs with less bugs than quick sort.

marvin 15y ago

I wouldn't bother applying. Why the hell would you want to work a company that runs you through the gauntlet like this, only to give you the chance that maybe you'll get hired? I mean, this is obviously a really skilled guy who has lots of prospects. Why are Google so popular anyway? I genuinely don't get it and would love to know from someone who has specific knowledge. Do they pay better than everyone else? Work on more interesting problems? Better perks, work environment, more status? I can understand it from the perspective of someone who joined years ago, when you got stock options and didn't have to do a full circus performance in order to get in, but not any longer. The experience would have to be twice as good as the alternatives before I willingly submitted to this kind of process. A long process of interviews like the ones I have heard about hints at more pain and no autonomy once you actually join. For an _internship_? If you're turning down other offers for the _chance_ to work at Google, you're selling yourself short and not getting full market value.

kin 15y ago
I'm not a Googler, but I know many and yes, Google pays well, they work on very very interesting problems. Ex-Googler does have a ring to it when you apply for jobs. There are awesome benefits like amazing facilities and lunch everyday, on-site massages, fitness centers, etc. The environment is that everyone around you is incredibly intelligent so just being there is intellectually stimulating and feels like you're a student. Though working at Google is definitely not what it used to be, it certainly has its perks.
- galactus 15y ago
  I keep hearing programmers at google work on very interesting problems, but I honestly wonder if all of them do. I mean, how many programmers does google employ by now? can they all really be working in creative, challenging problems?
munificent 15y ago
> Why are Google so popular anyway? I've been a Googler for a little less than a year and so far I absolutely love it. Compensation is good, the perks are fantastic, the caliber of people I work with is stellar, the work is challenging and interesting, and the culture and processes are the best I've seen. > A long process of interviews like the ones I have heard about hints at more pain and no autonomy once you actually join. I believe it's the opposite. You have to run the gauntlet to get in because once you do, you won't be closely monitored and you'll be given a lot of autonomy. The hiring process is stringent to try to reduce the number of internal gates you need once you get in.

bad_user 15y ago

given two full hours and any high-level language (including pseudocode) only 10 percent of professional programmers implemented binary search correctly, according to Jon Bently. Wow! I'm not particularly intelligent and I'm not in the top 10% -- but I could implement an in-place quick-sort in C in 10 minutes that my interviewer could run with only a minor fix (forgot a semi-colon), and I even described the parallel version with OpenMP (although there I got the syntax slightly wrong). This was for my interview at Adobe, when I got hired by them a couple of years ago; went on to other things since then. By that logic that should place me in the top 1 percent ... but so are my ~ 100 friends that are also software developers from my city, and statistically speaking, something smells like shit in those statistics thrown around. Maybe binary search, when discovered, used to be a hard to understand problem, but now it is taught from high-school. And sure there are lots of idiots out there, but many of those idiots also believe they are in the top 10%, because some statistic told them so. So cut the crap and build stuff. Only by that metric you can prove yourself. -- EDIT -- I'm not referring or addressing the article's author directly. I'm also not saying that you SHOULD be able to implement binary search, or quick-sort or whatever metric du-jour -- in interview conditions. I get it that you may be stressed by eyes watching you, or that you may be bitten by edge-cases other people haven't noticed for years. I'm referring more to these metrics flowing around -- like, if you read HN you're in the top 5%, if you read this stupid blog you're in the top X%, if you can implement binary search ... etc, etc... We are software developers, mathematicians, computer scientists -- surely we understand selection bias and should be able to recognize bullshit, even if it doesn't appeal to our ego.

ernestipark 15y ago
Don't be so pompous. Most people know how to implement it, it's not a difficult concept. It's just that there are edge cases and intricacies of implementation that yield bugs.
- bad_user 15y ago
  The quote I'm referring to mentions pseudocode, which makes integers overflowing and stuff like that irrelevant, since that's dependent on the integer representation you're using.

cmansley 15y ago

This was exactly my experience. Everything from the two technical interviews with the addition of a third to the technical questions with queries about bugs in the code. I think 2->3 conversion is exactly what you said. The first two interviewers split on their opinion of you, so you get scheduled a tie-breaker interview. Unfortunately for me, the tie-breaker interview was my worst, partly due to me and partly due to non-existant feedback for 45 minutes on the part of the interviewer. But, I believe there is a method to the madness. They have so many qualified applicants that they would rather err on the side of caution. They would rather reduce the false-positives even if the number of false-negatives grows. They can afford this luxury. They want the best and they can afford rejecting good candidates. My favorite way of thinking about this was from Steve Yegge's blog post about the interview process : "Because of the inherently flawed nature of the interviewing process, it's highly likely that someone on the loop will be unimpressed with you, even if you are Alan Turing. Especially if you're Alan Turing, in fact, since it means you obviously don't know C++"

rdtsc 15y ago

I hate little programming puzzles that you have code by hand or little word problems, or trick questions that you have to think "out of the box". In many years of programming I don't remember having to write a binary search in C, by hand, in a text document, without being able to compile and test. Or having to dictate a Python program over the phone to someone. I certainly do not remember ever having to solve stuff like:"One train leaves Los Angeles at 15mph heading for New York. Another train leaves from New York at 20mph heading for Los Angeles on the same track. If a bird, flying at 25mph, leaves from Los Angeles at the same time as the train and flies back and forth between the two trains until they collide, how far will the bird have traveled?" NEVER. I had to implement & modify algorithms from scientific papers, I had to work with complicated lockless versions of data structures, but I probably couldn't write the binary tree search in C over the phone. If that's that Google uses to hire then I will never work at Google. EDIT: Alright, got a angry and used the 'fuck' a little too much.

mdwrigh2 15y ago
So, to be fair to Google, I was not once asked anything like the train question nor was I asked to write a binary search in C then to read it out over the phone. I did implement a few things in Google docs, which is kind of ugly, but it wasn't anything ridiculous, and most of the functions were fairly short (20-30 lines). They did, however, ask a whole bunch of conceptual questions, but I don't think this is all that surprising.
- Lewisham 15y ago
  I'm an intern right now. Just today I saw Neil Fraser [1], who wrote MobWrite [2]. I shook his hand and thanked him, he's probably one of the reasons I actually managed to pass! My third phone interview had code in MobWrite, not Google Docs, and it was so much better. I'm going to try to find a way to feed it back to HR, because it really is much easier to think about code when what you're doing looks like code. [1] http://neil.fraser.name http://neil.fraser.name [2] http://www.mobwrite.net http://www.mobwrite.net
  - 15y ago

jbk 15y ago

I went through the Google process too and it didn't come out nicely. First, I have had almost no actual CS lessons in my university, because it was more focused on general engineering and IT management than on code writing. However, I've done quite a bit of code in various open source projects and I've touched quite many technologies... I went through the sets of interviews, and I really seemed to work quite well, even if many design-patterns where unknown to me (I didn't know their names). But the last one wasn't the best one. Therefore, I got the mail telling me that they got no positions for me, which I understood and accepted easily (I had another engagement at the time). However, I dared to ask "why?". Was it my technical skills, my personal skills, my logic skills or the way I answered the process, the cause of my rejection? They refused to even discuss about it, which is not even reaching the minimum of politeness I expect from a company. When they asked if they could keep my Resume, I told them to go away... This recruitment process does not seem enough respectful for me and gave me a very bad opinion of the company.

wahnfrieden 15y ago
Some companies refuse to discuss that on principle as a way to protect themselves from lawsuits. So you shouldn't take that too personally.
- waqf 15y ago
  Since they doubtless treat everyone that way, I guess you're technically correct that it shouldn't be taken personally. But the fact that it's only "[s]ome companies" that do that still suggests that it's rude and unprofessional behavior.
  - tedunangst 15y ago
    In my experience, it's not some. It's all.
    - jbk 15y ago
      In my experience, Google was the only one.

l0nwlf 15y ago

Lucky him, atleast he got to face tech interviews. As for me I never got the chance to prove myself. I got my call, was inquired about my projects and current offers by HR and then got a rejection letter next week. After I inquired, it turned out that my low GPA [ 7.03/10.0 ] was the cause. They want academically bright freshers with shining GPAs and with strong CS101 skills.

Udo 15y ago

I expected better from a company like Google. Asking candidates for pre-canned code snippets to cutesy little CS problems on the whiteboard is miserable and the outcome depends too much on what the candidate studied in the last few weeks before the interview. It actually tells you very little about the kind of programmer a person is and the interview itself can get quite horrible on a personal level very fast. A while ago, I used to conduct job interviews like this. Sort this, insert that, search for the other. I still feel sorry for some of the candidates I did this to. That process was the largest single mistake I made when hiring people. I should instead have asked for the code of some projects they had been working on recently and maybe discussed a few more creative things with them. In fact, if I could ask a candidate just one question, it would be "what projects are you working on in your spare time?"

PatrickTulskie 15y ago
If someone isn't working on something in their spare time, it's a big red flag to me. You need to have the hunger. I'm more turned on by what you have in your github account than whether or not you can do a binary search in your choice of languages.
- Retric 15y ago
  That's the sort of thing that works just fine in a small company that only needs a few people but, it does not scale. PS: All of the great developers I have worked with are both old (50+) and have a life outside of code. Spend some time around people with Genius IQ's and 30+ years of experience and you rethink just how important passion really is.
- inaequitas 15y ago
  I agree that this is the most valuable way to judge a candidate, but unfortunately I don't think it would work for most students and most companies (been through it all) because: a) students have a fair bit of school work to do, and: b) most companies can't afford the kind of talent that finds the time to work on other projects outside their normal coursework. Now, for Google that might not be the case — they certainly should be trying to find the top talent they can get their hands on. All the more reason to ask about the extra projects, GitHub account, code samples etc. But just as many people, when they're students, don't appreciate or value the extra work you talk about, they won't do it when they work for Google and are tasked with hiring others. If all you spent time studying were algorithms and C, you won't appreciate the value of open-source contributions and feverishly learning new languages as much as someone else. And you won't hire based on that. And yes, that's disappointing.

singular 15y ago

I feel for you - my advice is not to let it get you down. I think an important factor in these interviews is the emphasis on talent in software development. Don't get me wrong - I don't deny its importance, it's more that I question the nature of the beast. To me talent is instinct, a feel for what you're doing, and the 'right' type of thinking for the thing. It's pretty obvious when somebody has it (or doesn't), and I think obvious whether you have it too if you're honest with yourself about it. Tech interviews emphatically do not test for this. Nor do they, I believe, test for smartness; I think once you hit a certain level of intelligence the rest is far more preparation and experience (and yes I'm getting Malcolm Gladwell on your ass) - so all a failed interview indicates is (assuming you are an at least moderately talented, moderately intelligent candidate) one or more of the following:- * Lack of preparation (knowing the stuff, and practicing the stuff) * Poor/incorrectly focused preparation * Lack of confidence * Bad luck - e.g. haven't looked at binary search for x years they ask about it, or what Steve Yegge termed the 'interview anti-loop'[1] - basically the guy interviewing you just doesn't like you and that's that. The biggest problem with these things is that people (and I'm kind of talking to myself here more than anyone) take these things personally and put it down to some idea of talent that you might just lack. Fuck that. The problem is that - and I'm risking repeating a well-known cliche here - hiring good people is extremely hard, and a false positive is way more damaging than a false negative. It is right, IMHO, that (good) companies probe algos, os fundamentals, etc. as this stuff matters; however failing an interview emphatically does not mean you suck. [1]:http://steve-yegge.blogspot.com/2008/03/get-that-job-at-google.html http://steve-yegge.blogspot.com/2008/03/get-that-job-at-goog...

baddox 15y ago

With a process like this (based on this story as well as others), does Google actually consistently employee competent talent? Obviously Google has landed some serious rock-star talent, but of the scores of college graduates they hire for internships or entry-level positions, does anyone know if their hiring process is working for them?

sh4na 15y ago
No. They employ a lot of people that can write code on boards, and can certainly churn it out at high velocity. But when you start looking at the actual code... it's bad. When I first looked at the chrome code, the layer they dumped on top of webkit to make it out-of-process, the only thing I could think of was "this looks like something a kid fresh out of college would cobble up together". Same thing with most of their projects - lack of clear design, hacks, hard to maintain, lack of standards, no portability. The projects that get visibility end up getting better (more competent programmers assigned to them), the rest lingers in crappiness mode. They're not all like that, obviously. They have very smart and very competent people there. But the general low quality of their code, the lack of polish in their products, it clearly shows the consequences of hiring people based on how fast they can dump code on a whiteboard.
- adpowers 15y ago
  Hmm. I had a very different experience. Most of the Google code I've seen them release is very, very high quality, like the Guava libraries: http://code.google.com/p/guava-libraries/ http://code.google.com/p/guava-libraries/

eel 15y ago

I was disappointed by my interview process earlier this month for a potential summer internship at Google. I'm sure part of it is driven by the result (I didn't get past the phone screens.) My main complaints are - Every step of the process involved a new person. Overall, I had to be handed off through 4 different people, each one wanting a bit more information or a filled out form, until I was scheduled for the phone interviews. This was especially confusing when I had a recruiter assigned to me, and I was being emailed by both her and someone with whom she worked with at the same point in the process. - The first interviewer was apparently a fill-in for the intended one, which is unfortunate, because he and I were a complete mismatch. He seemed to be a C/C++ guy and I have more high-level language experience, and we ended up doing what I would consider advanced bit manipulation / number theory. (The second interview was much more reasonable, and it is my own fault if I did not pass it.) - The amount of time time that it took from the "Hi, we would like you to apply online" email to the you are not "a close enough match" email was over a month, which is much too long for simple back-to-back phone interviews. Waiting for their responses was the most frustrating and nerve-racking part of the process. I am glad at least the OP had quick responses. Should I go through the process again, I would strongly consider asking them to expedite it in one way or another. On a more optimistic note, I do feel like the interviews do help highlight weaknesses in your programming skills and resume presentation skills.

mrchess 15y ago

In regards to your comment about their recruiting speed, I wanted to chip in. While not Google, I interviewed with meebo and went through three phone screens as well within 1 week, and they flew me to Mountain View within 2 weeks -- by far THE most efficient interview I have been through. Great people. I cannot emphasize enough how much more awesome it makes your company look when you have a streamlined recruiting process!

deleted 15y ago

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aphexairlines 15y ago

I would not appreciate a candidate spilling the beans on what we ask in our interviews, even if he didn't sign an NDA. Sometimes you do ask similar questions, and it's a waste of everyone's time when the candidate in front of you went through some programming interview books and a bunch of blogs like those. Similarly, I wouldn't even bother to bring in a candidate who transcribed his interviews elsewhere.

mailarchis 15y ago
There are quite a few people out there who would enjoy working out on interesting questions. If you already know the question or have solved it previously you just give the solution and admit it that you had seen it earlier. But more importantly its about the thought process and how you got to the answer. "Similarly, I wouldn't even bother to bring in a candidate who transcribed his interviews elsewhere." - Well there are gazillion blogs and books written on technical interview questions including by ex google, msoft and apple employees. So is it really that bad that a sophomore student decided to blog about it for the benefit of fellow students.
- aphexairlines 15y ago
  It's bad for the same reason that leaking a midterm you just took for the benefit of fellow students is not helpful for those trying to conduct a test.

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swah 15y ago

Given the input and output, why isn't a linear search a proper solution?

deleted 15y ago
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ppod 15y ago
Because linear is O(n) and binary is O(log(n))?
- swah 15y ago
  Oh, sorry - didn't notice that was a requirement.
  - ppod 15y ago
    I don't think it was an explicit requirement, it just would be very wasteful to do a linear search on a sorted list.

bconway 15y ago

Having read a plethora of stories about the Google interview process over the years, from interns on up, it seems like it would be easier to build a company and sell it to Google than to get through the application process. Surely someone has done this at least once, given the number of companies Google has purchased.