
Google: My interview experience - gil_vegliach
http://gilvegliach.it/?id=17
======
ender7
As always, remember that even technical interviews like this one have an
incredible amount of random chance built into the hiring process. This is
especially true at a big company like Google (where I work and do interviews).
Do they happen to have positions open right now? Did you happen to get asked
questions that clicked with you? Was the hiring committee feeling grouchy that
day? Did you get an especially harsh interviewer for one of your questions?
Did they just hire someone with your skillset and so don't need a duplicate
right now?

There's a decent amount that you can do to prepare for one of these things,
but there's also an incredible amount you don't have control over. If you
don't get the job, it's not a signal regarding your quality as an engineer and
you shouldn't interpret it as such (however tempting it may be to do so).
Remember, there are many great places to work right now, and your skillset is
in demand. If we didn't get lucky enough to hire you, someone else will quite
soon.

~~~
cmahler7
You think a company like Google would be able to implement a non-subjective
and fair interview. Their current process must cost them a lot of talent

~~~
rco8786
> Their current process must cost them a lot of talent reply

They optimize to reduce false positives. They're completely fine with false
negatives. They don't have any shortage of talented engineers willing to
interview there.

That last bit is why I think it's quite silly for smaller/unknown startups to
be copying Google's interview process, as seems to be the trend.

~~~
kamaal
>>They optimize to reduce false positives. They're completely fine with false
negatives.

Getting too many false negatives is a very sure way of getting a lot of false
positives.

>>They don't have any shortage of talented engineers willing to interview
there.

You might be wrong there. Apart from huge money opportunities, there are
little incentives for any body to waste their best years in large company
political middle levels.

~~~
wdroz
>>Getting too many false negatives is a very sure way of getting a lot of
false positives.

Why ? IMO if you reduce the False Acceptance Rate, you will up the False
Reject Rate. Good chart at [https://www.tractica.com/biometrics/in-biometrics-
which-erro...](https://www.tractica.com/biometrics/in-biometrics-which-error-
rate-matters/)

------
drewg123
Xoogler here:

If you want to work for Google, my advice is to try again when you get a
chance. IMHO, getting an offer is about 50% the luck of the draw as to what
questions you get, and what interviewer you get. If you were close this time,
you might get an offer next time.

If it makes you feel any better, people who I knew were smarter and better
coders than me got declined, yet somehow I got hired.

BTW, I thought so little of the HR process that I refused to participate while
I was there. I did not do interview training, and never did any interviews or
committees in my time there.

~~~
shshhdhs
Why didn't you participate if there was room for improvement?

~~~
drewg123
Two reasons:

The idealistic reason is that I didn't want to participate in a corrupt
system. AFAICT, an individual interviewer is powerless to change the system.
I've I'd have rated every candidate a must-hire, they would have thrown my
feedback out.

The more practical reason is that I was a SWE embedded in a hardware group.
Interviewing (and writing up the feedback) takes time. My spending time on
interviewing would not have helped my boss (or his boss), so when I told my
boss I didn't want to do interview training, he didn't care. This kind of paid
off, because I got to spend enough time doing stuff my boss (and his
peers/bosses) cared about that I got promoted while I was there.

------
bit_logic
It seems many acknowledge that the Google process (and other similar ones) is
very flawed with a high false negative rate, but it's considered ok because
there's a flood of talent always applying to Google.

Maybe this used to be true, but I don't think it's true anymore. It's very
likely still true in the fresh graduate to early 20's age range of candidates.
But at this point, senior engineers know what this process is about. And I
think many are deciding to just avoid this process since it's very biased
against senior engineers (who are rusty on DS and algorithms and don't have
time to study it like a second job). So the flood of senior talent is probably
less now than it used to be. But Google doesn't care. The main reason is,
success hides all failures. They're still generating billions in revenue every
quarter. Until those numbers change, no one is going to care about fixing a
broken process like this.

Next time I look for a new job, I'm going to start with this list:
[https://github.com/poteto/hiring-without-
whiteboards](https://github.com/poteto/hiring-without-whiteboards) and give
priority to companies that don't have this type of process. I hope more
companies recognize that they can get a big competitive advantage for senior
engineering talent by not copying the Google process.

~~~
tsukikage
Of course processes are biased in favour of hiring grads. Graduates are
awesome from an employer's POV. They don't know their own worth yet, they
don't have families competing for work/life balance, and they're eager to
prove themselves. So you can pay them a pittance to burn the midnight oil
crunching through the most miserable parts of your workload.

------
kstenerud
Better than my interview experience.

Sailed through the phone interview, went in person for the day long interview.
Most were no problem except for one that took longer than it should have. And
then...

Nothing. Radio silence. No emails. No answered emails. I had ceased to exist.

After that colossal waste of time, I decided to only work remote.

~~~
ThrowawayR2
> _Nothing. Radio silence. No emails. No answered emails. I had ceased to
> exist._

Actually, that seems to be the standard behavior for rejected candidates these
days, at least in my personal experience. (I've seen some references calling
it the "California no", suggesting that the practice is widespread.)

It's really kind of annoying.

~~~
dsacco
> the "California no"

Never heard that before. That's going to be my new go-to phrase for this
though.

------
powera
For those of you not familiar with what a "2.7" means on the Google hiring
scale, the rough scale is:

    
    
      1 - I will resign if Google hires this person.
      2 - I don't think this person should be hired, but I could be convinced otherwise.
      3 - I think this person should be hired, but I could be convinced otherwise.
      4 - This person should definitely be hired.
    

(interviewers can use decimal scores)

~~~
gil_vegliach
Right, with 4 being basically impossible to get, and scores being normalized
wrt the history of the interviewer.

~~~
sulam
I haven't worked at Google, but I have interviewed with and reviewed feedback
from Xooglers, and 4's are not impossible -- but they are rare and you have to
essentially be smarter than your interviewer about the particular problem to
get one. This can be pretty hard, since many interviewers pick problems that
they are extremely familiar with.

~~~
thwd
On my Google onsite (in Zürich as well), one of the interviewers told me that
if he gave me a 4.0, he'd have to argue on my behalf if the hiring committee
wasn't sure of hiring me.

~~~
EmployedRussian
Arguing to HC on behalf of someone I gave 4.0 (which _is_ rare, and which I
_did_ give a few times) is something I would do _gladly_ (and I expect most
others will do as well).

It's not like going in front of HC is an inquisition or anything -- they are
just your peers.

------
c0achmcguirk
I didn't see you mention this, but the point of the coding interview is not to
see how optimal your solution is (although it helps). It's also to see if
you're a good person to work with.

If you nail the problem right away but you don't talk it through with the
interviewer you'll be scored lower. They want to see if you'd be a person
they'd like to work with on the team, not the quiet person that never
collaborates.

~~~
duiker101
The point of the coding interview is whatever the interviewer thinks it is.
Sure, it SHOULD be to see if you are a good person to work with, but that's
not always the case, if the interviewer thinks that you should produce a
working and optimal solution(for whatever reason), that's what you will be
judge on. Unfortunately not everyone uses the tools at their disposal in the
best way. And it might not even be a case of intentionally doing it wrong, it
might be that the interviewer doesn't know any better. If you take an
experienced dev and you put him to make interviews he will not always know the
best practices to interview someone.

~~~
bitexploder
For Google that simply isn't true. Check out Work Rules some time. Google has
put a ton of effort in having a repeatable hiring process that specifically
avoids this problem of interviewer bias. Most people, even Googlers do not
really understand their hiring process and how it works. It isn't to hire the
best coders.

------
yoandy
At least they give you some feedback in the end. I had the experience to be
rejected after an onsite interview at Amazon, and they did not take the time
to give a word of feedback, after I even asked for it. I see the past
interviews were of great help to you to finally get the position at Amazon. I
am looking forward to read your third post. Complimenti collega!

~~~
bmpafa
I had the same experience with Amazon--dinged with no feedback.

Normally I'm a sucker for irony, but when they sent me an auto email a few
weeks later asking _me_ for feedback (ie, a survey on the hiring process), I
didn't find it immediately funny.

~~~
Terr_
Bonus annoyance: After rejection, get 15 contacts from Amazon recruiters in
the next 5 months.

Those made me wonder if it wasn't for the best.

~~~
hocuspocus
All from uncoordinated business divisions! And I've heard it also happens when
you got an offer (while waiting for your visa/relocation).

I'm not hating on Amazon but their recruiting process is by far the sloppiest
of all big tech companies.

------
br1n0
My experience: I applied for an open position at google on their website,
during the university, an interview was arranged after some mails, I was
positively surprised by their care of detail: about setting the inteview at
right time during the day for me, wow!. When I recieved the call i was
suprised, but because call me at wrong day, at wrong time, It was on dinner on
my time, and I drinked a couple of beer, it was stressful, the interview was
difficult and unsuccessful, after a couple of days by mail told that inteview
was not successful. I'm from italy, here the company adopt the Hollywood
Principle: “don’t call us, we’ll call you”, because there are too much
applicants and few good jobs. I digested: maybe I'm not good for the position,
but also them are not perfect, but at least they try to be gentle. After a two
of year I recived a mail for an interview, I was suprised because I did not
solicitate it, I was very relaxed because I was discard the previous time, so
why this time should be different? (I'm fine that better developer exist), the
interview seem goes easily, at the end interviewer ask me where I'd like to
work if I could decide and describe some offices on google on different
coutry, It was too exciting to be true, and replied all are the same for me,
but why you call me, on the other interview I was discarded, he was suprised,
told some 0info and asked some info on precedent inverview. Also this time I
was informed by mail that the interview was not successful. Lesson 2: I
thinked they call me by error, so two mistake in two interview:. nobody is
perfect.

------
eatsleepmonad
I had a similar experience my first time, but I applied again a year later and
passed. I did study algorithms (mostly DP and graph stuff) via HackerRank for
two weeks before each onsite, but I never did fully succeed with any of the
algorithms questions.

The second time, I think I was just lucky with questions I liked. I don't
think my programming ability changed drastically in the year between.

------
akhilcacharya
I'm becoming convinced that the only way to get into Google is to get in as an
intern or new grad if OP studied for 6 months and still didn't get an offer.

It doesn't seem that way at other top companies like FB, Amazon and MS from
the people I've talked to.

~~~
JabavuAdams
Meh, just try again in a year. High variance.

~~~
akinalci
"Just try again in a year" is a good option when you're young. But it gets
less attractive as you get older, especially if it means abandoning an
interesting project or senior role you accepted after "Company X" rejected
you. There are too many good opportunities out there to get hung up on any one
company.

~~~
ryandrake
I've lost track of the number of times I've gone through the interview wringer
at Google. It sounds like a great place to work, which is unanimously
confirmed by a number of people I know who work there, but I'm no longer going
to go out of my way looking for the chance. Prepping and going through the
process is like a second full-time job.

And so unnecessary. Think about it--it's Google. They should have enough data
on me by now to know my skills and potential with high confidence, to the
point where their interview shouldn't even need humans in the loop.

~~~
Operyl
I could only imagine the legal shit show that'd occur if they tried to do
that, however amusing and novel the idea may be.

------
Artlav
> In this model, the sourcer discovers a talent

> The talent is then picked up by a recruiter

Am i the only one who trips over such terminology of calling a hired worker
"talent" and finds that it feels like it's manipulative, PC or doublespeak?

What meaning does the word "talent" have in casual English?

~~~
CommieBobDole
It's jargon from show business (movies, music, TV, stage, etc)- the "talent"
is generally the performers or maybe just the star.

I don't think it's insulting, but it may be manipulative; it implies that the
potential hire is a star performer and/or brings something unique to the role.

------
rifung
> The recruiter also said I was borderline, which might be just a nice empty
> word from her, but made me feel better.

I don't think this is just her being nice; I was also told I was borderline
and they actually ended up letting me interview again for a different position
(SETI instead of SWE). Alas I got rejected again, but the year after they
called me back because I was borderline, or so they told me, and I am working
there now.

As others have said, there is some element of chance, both on their part and
also likely on yours. Hopefully you'll apply again as it seems like you have a
good chance.

~~~
steelframe
I've heard of Google hiring committees rejecting candidates who got all "Hire"
recommendations from the interviewers. I've also seen candidates get hired who
seemed on the wrong side of "borderline." There are many more factors at play
than just your interview performance.

------
itake
Is that photo of "Google" really the culc at Georgia tech?

~~~
gil_vegliach
It is the Zurich office from the street.

------
mawood20
What other professions are like this? Do lawyers, accountants, civil
engineers, bartenders, etc. take massive time to memorize stuff every time
they want or need to go job hunting?

~~~
dev_head_up
A friend of mine was shocked when I told him how things are looking for a job
in the software world. He's a civil engineer. I guess it makes it easier in
their world owing to accreditation and certs. He just found it astounding the
amount of prep time it takes your average dev to get ready for an interview.

------
johnrob
I'm curious if the people giving the interviews have an incentive to be
conservative with scoring. Maybe it looks bad when your score is the highest?
As if you're lowering the bar? If true, I could see that contributing to how
these interview stories play out (candidates thinking they did better than
their no-hire outcome).

~~~
EmployedRussian
There are no such incentives.

When writing feedback, you simply look back at 20 other interviews where you
asked the same question, and write "candidate X's performance on this question
was was in {top,bottom} {5,25,50}% of ... at this level".

You also have _no idea_ how other interviewers will score, and if your score
is 1.5 when everyone else's is a 3.9, it's likely that the HC will ignore you.

The HCs do see multiple feedback from you and your peers, so they build a
model of your feedback for themselves: P is a soft interviewer, so we'll
adjust his score down but Q is a very hard interviewer so we'll adjust her
score up ;-)

~~~
steelframe
My hires are uniformly distributed across the score spectrum. Not sure how the
HCs "adjust" me. I have gotten props for the quality of my written feedback
though.

~~~
EmployedRussian
It doesn't matter how your candidates are distributed across the spectrum (and
I _do_ hope that your _hires_ are not uniformly distributed ;-)

What matters is how your scores compare to other interviewers scores on the
given slate.

> Not sure how the HCs "adjust" me.

Maybe they don't. Maybe you are the most precise and best-calibrated
interviewer on every slate, and never make a bad call. Good for you ;-)

------
jacekm
Does anyone know how Google's interview looks for QA/Software engineer in
test?

------
expertentipp
> Alas, rejection

Is anyone getting accepted to Google at all? So many stories of applications
which failed at some point. Calls, tests, onsite, over a month of teasing.
Maybe person in his/her 20s has enough time and energy to throw away for
something like this.

~~~
str33t_punk
Yes people are getting jobs. It's just the ones that don't who write the blogs
that get up voted. Many college seniors I know have gotten offers without
preparing that much outside of their usual work

~~~
cableshaft
Well, college seniors should have the easiest time getting a job at Google,
since they are closest to the material that Google tests on and would have it
fresh in their minds, so I wouldn't be surprised that many of them do get
offers.

I have a feeling there's a significantly higher rate of failure for people who
have been in the industry for 5-10 years and haven't had to most of the things
they'd get tested on since college.

------
employee8000
At google, I was given some code that manipulated some bits and the
interviewer, in inexplicably terrible English, kept asking me what the purpose
of this code was for. He has a very thick Eastern European accent which was
not understandable and I don't know how he was able to get into interviews. I
could tell it was doing some sort of overflow detection but other than that I
had no idea. I hadn't done anything with bits since college. He kept insisting
that I keep trying to understand what the code was doing even though it was
obvious I had no idea. After a 40 min, excruciatingly awkward conversation we
moved onto his next question which I also couldn't understand due to his
terrible English. What a complete waste of time.

~~~
ryandrake
Thick accidents and borderline language proficiency is even worse on phone
screens, where interviewers always seem to sound like they are talking through
a sheet of plastic placed over the phone. I've lost count of the number of
times I've had to get someone to repeat their question over and over and over
on (not Google) phone screens. Once did a phone screen with an exec who I'm
pretty certain was conducting it from his handsfree in an open-top convertible
car (clearly heard traffic noise). I've always wondered how many opportunities
I've missed out on due to poor audio quality.

~~~
steelframe
I have a very hard time with accents. I've done a couple of phone interviews
where I hardly understood a single thing the candidate said. In those cases I
usually write my question verbatim in the shared document and focus on the
code the candidate produces. It has probably hurt the chances of at least one
or two interviewees.

------
ycat
If you have a Google account why should they still need to do an interview?

~~~
gil_vegliach
Apparently they are thinking about it (perhaps just a rumor):
[https://www.thesun.co.uk/tech/3332120/google-creates-
jobsite...](https://www.thesun.co.uk/tech/3332120/google-creates-jobsite-
google-hire-but-does-that-mean-employers-will-be-able-to-snoop-on-your-grubby-
digital-history/)

~~~
expertentipp
Having completely blank account means hired?:) Hard to escape google in
today's internet:)

