Re:How Google Hires
by MagicWishMonkey on Tuesday April 07, 2015 @06:12PM
(#9337533)
I've heard from one senior engineer at Google that he likes to ask candidates to sketch out the implementation for a red/black tree on the spot.
I guess I could go dig up my old data structures and algorithms book that I haven't touched in 15 years to refresh my memory, but I don't want to work at Google badly enough to bother with that.
I can totally relate. When a Google recruiter approached me and told me that they were looking for Python and also Java developers I was potentially interested in the python position (being a Ruby dev). But then I learned that my interview would be conducted in Java and they would generously give me 1 week to brush up my Java skills, I laughed and declined. Definitely got other things to do with my evenings than brushing up my Java skills so I can work a Python job...
Really? The general policy, as I've been told, is to let the interviewee use whatever language they're comfortable with as long as the interviewer is comfortable with it too. I even give the option of using sufficiently detailed pseudo-code.
Well I guess nobody in the team I was contacted to work for was comfortable with Ruby. Screenshot of the actual email:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/4g01mqxycyf08u4/Screenshot%202015-...
I let you draw your own conclusions.
They want to see your thought process as you tackle an unfamiliar problem. Do you think about the input and the end-goals explicitly? Do you consider multiple different ways of solving it, and cover pros/cons? Do you consider where issues may occur, and attempt to mitigate them? That's what they want to see.