
Google interviewing process for software developer role in 2020 - atomlib
https://habr.com/en/post/489698/
======
cmckn
I interviewed with Google last spring. My experience was different, but about
as disappointing.

I applied for a job, and received an out-of-the-blue email from a recruiter
about a different job a couple months later (my resume must have landed in
some "recent" bucket). The position was in Google Cloud. I was frustrated by
the "you'll talk to a team _after_ you've passed 100 hurdles" nonsense.

I had one phone screen with my recruiter, which was positive. She said we'd be
scheduling a phone interview. I got a call a few days later; she said we'd be
skipping the phone interviews and going to an on-site at Sunnyvale. I thought
this was a good sign! In hindsight, I think they just needed to fill a lot of
positions quickly.

I did the onsite, which I thought went terribly, and I left feeling really
discouraged. My recruiter said my packet wouldn't go the hiring committee, but
that she thought the feedback was positive enough that I could find another
role at the company. I got handed to another recruiter for a lesser role doing
developer support. That recruiter reached out to me a few days later to tell
me that he didn't actually have any roles for me.

The whole process took a couple months, and ultimately made me feel bad about
my abilities. Everyone I met at the onsite was kind of an asshole. My "lunch
interviewer" complained about the bureaucracy and said he was looking for
another job after being there for ~18 months.

It's unfortunate that positions at FAANG are so beneficial to my resume,
because I'd love to never go through that process again. I'm going through it
right now with Amazon.

~~~
foobiekr
The only time I interviewed with Google involved a phone screen that
apparently went very well and then dead silence for three months: my recruiter
has apparently gone on vacation for 2+ months and was finally getting back to
me. In the intervening period I had taken another job (that turned out to have
been worth more than the google job would have been).

The recruiter was nonplussed when she called me out of the blue months later
trying to schedule my on-site. She couldn’t believe I was not interested in
continuing - how could I turn down Google??

This was when the google koolaid was far stronger - early/mid 2000s. To this
day I consider it the most amazing example of a company being so entranced by
its own narrative that it was genuinely incomprehensible to her and required
spelling it out slowly.

~~~
steelframe
To be fair, Google in the early-mid 2000s was actually a really good career
option. If you played your cards right you could easily be comfortably retired
today if you started at Google in, say, 2004. In fact I know someone who
started at Google fresh out of college in 2005 and was in "FIRE" (Financial
Independence, Retire Early) zone by 2017. They quit Google, didn't work for a
couple of years, and then took a senior position at a San Francisco startup,
where they work 35-hour weeks playing with shiny new hardware tech and
couldn't care less whether they're laid off.

Google is still a great place to land as a new college grad, but these days I
would consider many other options as an experienced professional. There are
indicators that Google is starting to run into issues detailed in The
Innovator's Dilemma, particularly with respect to its Cloud business.

~~~
rhizome
If I was hiring at a relatively tiny startup, a person who had only ever
worked at Google and didn't need the job on top of it wouldn't be my first
choice. Probably sounds good at meetings though.

~~~
sk5t
Yeah, if "doesn't need the job" is in the top five things you'd say about them
as a team member... you really want people who will tolerate or even attack
with some zeal the grind that it is to get a business going.

------
jedberg
Man what a stark contrast to how my Netflix interview went. I was contacted
directly by the hiring manager, three days later I was onsite for the phase
one interview, three days later I was onsite for the second phase, and I had a
verbal offer on my way out the door (for more than I asked for).

Came back a week later to sign the paperwork after I emailed with the
recruiter a few times about offer details. Started a week after that. (And
then went on a one week vacation after working for only two weeks and got paid
for it, because it was already scheduled).

And this wasn't an outlier. Pretty much everyone we hired had a similar
timeline. Sometimes the candidates made us wait for an answer because we were
so quick that they hadn't even had their first round at Google.

~~~
hkarthik
Netflix is known for being speedy with hiring because they are also speedy
with firing under performers.

So they see hiring as a relatively low risk proposition and will make
decisions faster since the long term effects are greatly lessened.

~~~
Apocryphon
At least they're making good use of California being an at-will state.

~~~
asdfasgasdgasdg
All fifty states are at will states.

~~~
Maledictus
I thought Montana is an exception, but I don't remember where I read that.

~~~
CameronNemo
Yeah but all the "people" in Montana are secretly bison.

~~~
DrScump
"On the internet, nobody knows you're a bison."

------
compiler-guy
Google is an enormous company. Well over 100,000 employees. The answer to any
question in the vein of, "Does X happen at Google?", or "Does Google do X?" is
almost surely yes: Somewhere at the company, some team is probably doing that.

Google's interview process is notoriously bad for some folks, and that is
absolutely true and something Google tries to fix. And there are absolutely
plenty of unhappy people. Even if the odds are very low that any particular
person is unhappy (and they aren't), the total probability across the company
is quite high.

On the other hand, you don't hold on thousands of workers--most of whom has
many, many choices of place to work--if you aren't doing _something_ right.

So the experience is valid, but generalizing is tricky.

~~~
dunkelheit
One thought that I had after reading the article was just how average his
experience was. This is really the bog-standard "how my Google interview went"
post and not some kind of outlier.

One complaint that I have seen over and over (even in this thread) is his
frustrating moment #3: "Google doesn't respect your time". That's of course
entirely subjective and many people may be ok with months of preparation, days
of interviews and weeks of waiting for feedback (with recruiters occasionally
going dark for months). But many folks are justifiably irked.

~~~
kelnos
A problem with the long, drawn-out process is that often people are
interviewing at multiple companies, and might have to make a choice between
shutting the door on Google and accepting another offer now, or pushing
through the murky, very-uncertain Google process, and possibly allowing other
offers to expire (even if a reasonable company won't have an
"expiring"/"exploding" offer, they're not going to wait forever for you to
make up your mind).

------
untog
I'd be curious to know if this is typical. As someone that's never interviewed
at Google but idly wondered at moments if I'd ever work there this sounds
hellish. Not necessarily the exercises themselves (although they seem to have
nothing to do with what any developer does day-to-day), but the sheer number
of them and the amount of preparation required. I already have a full time
job, I don't want to take on another part time job of "practicing for an
interview at Google". Especially when I don't even know what I'd be working on
(if anything) at the end of it all!

~~~
karatestomp
All I can figure is that's by design. The process selects for some combination
of IQ and how bad you want it, basically. If you can't or don't want to put in
10-15hrs a week prepping, for a few months, on top of your actual job (god
knows nothing I actually do at work as a programmer helps me be better
prepared for this kind of shit), to then subject yourself to a crushing
marathon of a day, they don't want you. They have enough people who _are_
willing to go through that, so they don't need to cater to those who aren't.

Probably one inherent benefit of a process this shitty, in addition to
whatever benefits of the criteria they're selecting for, is that selected
candidates identify more strongly with their co-workers and with the company
than they otherwise would (see: Cialdini's _Persuasion_ on the benefits of
hazing)

~~~
chrisvogt
nit: Cialdini's _Influence: Science and Practice_.

~~~
karatestomp
Yeah, that. That's what I get for not checking my shelf first. In my defense
mine's the version that at least does contain the word "persuasion" somewhere
in the title, though the proper short version is still _Influence_. I'll leave
my original post as-is as a monument to my failure.

~~~
gdy
"I'll leave my original post as-is as a monument to my failure."

I don't think anyone cares and there is no reason to make them read the wrong
title.

~~~
cmonnow
> I don't think anyone cares

Exactly. The only successes or failures we care about are our own. Very rarely
do we even think of someone else's embarrassing moments. We are all pretty
self-centered and that's liberating in a way.

~~~
gdy
Yep.

"I was worried about what people think of me, but now I know they don't think
about me at all."

------
choppaface
“You can pass every interview with A grades and still not get a job, because a
senior Googler decides that you're the wrong person to be hired.”

Google doesn’t need you. They probably already have a clone of you. They have
gobs of rank-and-file SWE effort on reserve should one of their key products
fail.

The process is designed to entertain the hiring manager and certain key
employees. They don’t want you for your productivity. They want you for the
chance that you help surround one of their favorites with things they like so
that this other guy doesn’t bounce elsewhere. This other Googler likely
already has a competing offer— that’s how he got promoted last year.

At this stage, if Google hires you, you are almost certainly being used to aid
in the retention of somebody else. You’re going straight for the bench.

Don’t prepare for months for just Google; prepare for your own future. Don’t
let Google hijack your capacity for critical thinking.

~~~
tyrankh
This is ludicrously false and not at _all_ why Google hires people. They hire
people because - big surprise - there are projects that need staffing.

"At this stage, if Google hires you, you are almost certainly being used to
aid in the retention of somebody else. You’re going straight for the bench."

I mean, just wow. Do you really believe this? This is fantasy to an incredible
degree.

~~~
simonkafan
Of course this is sarcasm.

But after all, most of the newer Google products really seem to be there just
to entertain their own people and give them something to do. No one can tell
me, for example, that there was a serious business case behind Google Allo.

~~~
choppaface
Oy vey. Based on the voting and comments here, my post seems to be a bit of a
rorschach test, with perhaps some correlation between readers who work at
Google and those who don't. But definitely an interesting time-based
correlation with voting.

No matter how you see the ink blot, everybody should be exercising their
critical thinking skills, especially when it comes to the hiring process.
Don't take things at face value; and don't take things too seriously. Don't
let the brand or hype of any company disarm you of your ability to question
the process, nor of your ability to invest yourself in your own passions.

------
bquinlan
Bias alert: I work for Google.

I enjoyed the write-up but I have a small correction to make about _"
Frustrating moment #2. You can pass every interview with A grades and still
not get a job, because a senior Googler decides that you're the wrong person
to be hired."_

The author is referring to hiring committees, whose job it is to take the
feedback from every interview and make a hire/no-hire decision based on the
blended results. I've done hundreds of interviews at Google and I've never
seen universally positive interview feedback result in a no-hire decision.

The problem is that most feedback is not universally positive (or negative).
So the hiring committee has to dissect the feedback and try to figure out if
the identified negatives are (1) credible and (2) sufficient to be
disqualifying. That can be pretty difficult (especially if the feedback is
contradictory) and why a committee does it rather than the recruiter or hiring
manager.

~~~
tomnj
I greatly enjoy the absurdity of this: Xoogler rejected own packet (while at
msft, presumably)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22345234](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22345234)

~~~
htrp
he and his entire hiring committee reviewed all of their packets from when
they, each individual member of thebhiring committee, were interviewing at
Google.... the recruiter was just making a point that they were being too
picky

------
dijit
I interviewed at Google for an SRE:Systems role around a month ago; I can
share my anecdotes.

The first interview put me in contact with a recruiter who would basically be
my guide throughout the process, at first he asked me some basic questions to
feel out where I was weak and then told me to prepare those weaknesses for the
next round.

The next round was 2 phone interviews, lasting about an hour each and over
different days, one focused on my programming skills (of which, I have little
because sysadmins don't typically do anything relating to data structures) and
the second one was surrounding linux internals and debugging (which I was very
strong on).

I spent roughly 2 working days worth of time preparing for them.

Preparing for the on-site was pleasant, I was put in touch with another google
recruiter who ensured I knew where I was going and what I was doing, they told
me that I'd be there the whole day and while they couldn't tell me what I
would be asked/who I would meet/what to prepare; they gave me an approximation
of the _kind_ of questions, very broadly.

I spent roughly 18 working days preparing in my weak areas, including
leetcode/data structures and reading comp-sci papers (paxos and ilk).

On the day, I went through about 5, 1-hour long interviews that focused on
various aspects of SRE (one of them being 'googliness'), some were about
distributed systems (where the interviewer got hung up on the fact that I said
I would use postgres instead of making my own database) and others were
heavily programmer focused (linux internals was more about knowing the
implementation of 'ls', scripting was all about the kinds of questions you get
on leetcode).

I'm not going to lie, it was gruelling, and I'm typically pretty comfortable
interviewing;

I thought I'd be fine with these interviews because I'm considered to be "shit
hot" in sysadmin/writing glue by my peers, but I guess not, as I'm not a
Google-SRE. :)

(sidenote: everything in TFA rings true, including the tips, google recruiters
are quite transparent about your process. But they also said that the last
stage is not the interview, it's roughly 5 hiring committees that are looking
at your application "package" through different lenses)

~~~
speedgoose
I would never dare to suggest writing a new database in a professional
context, even less during an interview. Probably as a joke at the coffee
machine because it's ridiculous but otherwise no.

It's so many distributed databases around there, no one is better than one
good PostgreSQL for the majority of uses cases.

~~~
bauerd
Google's requirements differ. Also if the interview question was about
distributed systems, "I'll just use Postgres" is not super constructive

~~~
speedgoose
Google has good in-house database software that fit their requirements. I
wouldn't say that I can do better in an interview.

~~~
bauerd
Yes but that in-house database software did not fall from sky. Google
developers wrote it. Remember their interview process is generalised. Even for
candidates not expected to implement databases, they test for the awareness of
tradeoffs posed by distributed databases: read-after-write/eventual
consistency, linearizability, how many masters /quorum/leader election, etc.
"Just use Postgres" does not demonstrate any of that, it's not what the
interviewer was after.

~~~
speedgoose
That's true. We don't know how was the interview, perhaps it was about
implementing a distributed database from scratch, perhaps it was about storing
as many personal data as you can.

~~~
inkeddeveloper
I would hope the answer to "how would you write a distributed database from
scratch" isn't "I'd use PostgreSQL."

Actually, I'd probably do the same.

------
FlorianRappl
I interviewed at Google and some other big tech companies in late 2015. From
all the big ones Google's process was the most terrible. After the initial
screening I had to deal with obviously terribly placed engineers who had an
"ah I need to take another interview with a non-Googler - what do they know?"
kind of attitude. Arrogant, dismissive, and actually a waste of time.

In contrast, Microsoft was much more professional and a real pleasure to
interview at. They have been really interested and all the engineers I talked
to have been great.

Disclosure: Did not decide for any of these - went for a smaller company as it
was overall what seemed best for me. Did not regret my choice even though the
Microsoft offer is something I'd love to try out in a parallel universe.

~~~
ng7j5d9
That's funny, I just had a bad experience with Microsoft. I applied for a job
on their site that had several locations listed, one of which was of interest
to me.

A recruiter sent me a bunch of questionnaires to fill out and then connected
me with a Tech Lead for the initial phone interview. The Tech Lead introduced
himself and the position, said the position was available in 2 locations
(neither of which were my preferred location), and that was that.

I followed up with the recruiter and she expressed surprise, since she saw the
same job posting I did.

A couple days later, Microsoft's site tells me I was not chosen for the job,
no further information.

But of course, that's just one experience, and it's a large company, and all
that. Maybe I'll apply for something else there.

------
JDiculous
Google just loves to waste your time. A close friend of mine interviewed
there, was flown out to Mountain View, and one interviewer showed up to the
interview over 30 minutes late, with only about 5-10 minutes to spare. He
didn't get the job.

Seems like a lot of engineers there get the job after many months of (unpaid)
preparation and years of interviewing many times. I can understand doing this
for one's dream job, but my issue with the whole thing is that you don't even
know what group you'll be placed in, which is in stark contrast with the
interviews at most other companies. I'm not spending months practicing
Leetcode questions and going through some hazing interview process only to
potentially be placed in some boring group working on something super specific
and uninteresting.

~~~
toephu2
So because "A close friend of mine interviewed there" and the interviewer
showed up late, you have concluded that the entire company, Google, "just
loves to waste your time"? And every one of the tens of thousands of
interviews Google does each year, all start late?

~~~
JDiculous
Did I say that? Also, did you read the article?

------
falcolas
The biggest WTF I got out of this was:

Writing code and tests in a Google Doc. I can't think of a much less friendly
environment to write code in, except perhaps Notepad. I did it once (for an
intra-company interview), and it was nasty to deal with.

The WTF in second place was a blind requirement to know the mechanics behind a
somewhat niche game that was big two years ago.

~~~
_throwawayyyyyy
one of my in-person interviewers at Google forgot they had to do this - I
spent like 38 minutes of our interview whiteboarding and then he said, "oh
crap you're supposed to do this on the computer" \- i furiously typed for a
few minutes to try to replicate what i'd done.

when i later talked to HR there was no mention of this in the interviewer's
report.

~~~
Traster
Can you imagine working with that guy though - "Hey guys, I'm just about done
with this feature get ready for the PR". "Paul, you've written it all on the
whiteboard again. How many times Paul, it's got to go in the computer."

~~~
blackflame7000
_Paul throws 100 page manuscript of code into trash and walks off_

------
mtnGoat
All I have heard are nightmare stories from everyone I know whom has
interviewed at a FAANG(or the likes).

It's crazy how disrespectful(and frankly insulting) these companies are to
candidates, under the guise of trying to get the best. I would assume the best
aren't sitting around on their hands for months waiting for offers, nor are
they overly willing to be jerked around.

~~~
johannes1234321
Maybe it's a good filter for them. If people start complaining in the
interview process they will complain at work, too. Maybe such a process only
keeps the ones who are eager and willing to work there and will continue their
tasks even when jerked around ...

~~~
yongjik
Nope, if that's the intention then it's obviously not working because Google
employees are famous for complaining about _everything_ , from the choices of
microkitchen snacks to high-level decisions by SVPs (Google+, anyone?) to
whether exceptions should be allowed in C++ to ..., well you get the idea.

* Worked at Google until 2015. Culture might have changed a bit since then.

------
diego
Google wants people who are desperate to work at Google. The plus (for them)
of getting someone to invest so much effort into getting in means that they
will be committed for a while because of the sunk costs / defeated ultimate
boss effect.

Luckily there is a large supply of those people for now. They won't change
their interview process until this stops being the case.

Edit: I guess someone at Google didn't like this comment :)

~~~
hello_moto
I did not downvote you but ask yourself: do you want to hire a primadona
candidate that thinks she/he is above the company?

Of course you'd want to hire people who want work for your company. That's
call a matching-process.

Would you marry someone who's not into you?

~~~
Supermancho
> Would you marry someone who's not into you?

Trophy spouses are a thing. It ends about the same way. An opportunist doesn't
change their ways because they achieve one goal.

~~~
aznd
Indeed, companies are opportunists and don't change their ways.

Incidentally, companies are perfectly capable of exploiting a superstar
developer who thinks he is above the company by the usual group pressure
tactics.

Especially if that developer is self motivated.

------
loriverkutya
> I had been waiting for them for several weeks, and now they wanted to be
> «time efficient».

> Frustrating moment #3. Google doesn't respect your time.

Yeah, usually at that time I already wrapped up my interviews with other
places and off the market.

I wonder why people still wants to work for google after they put through this
"you jump, when they say jump" where they clearly giving you the signal:
sorry, your time worth nothing to us.

~~~
falcolas
> I wonder why people still wants to work for google after they put through
> this

Unfortunately, I think the answer is quite simple, and twofold: Google pays a
lot, and having Google on your resume will get you any job you want
afterwards, if you don't want to keep working there. It's a highly pragmatic
decision early in your career (which also corresponds to a place in life where
many folks place little value on their own time).

------
Leherenn
My experience was relatively positive.

I was contacted by a Google recruiter a bit more than a year ago, as I was
starting to look for a new job.

First had a phone call with an HR, which explained the whole process and asked
me to grade myself on various skills. I was a bit surprised they explicitly
told me to train on leetcode or similar (with a link and everything), since it
seems to kinda defeat the point, but that seems par for the course.

Biggest surprise was how vague the job description was (software engineer),
and that you have no idea what you will do. I get it, from the pov of Google,
they want generally competent people that can easily switch to another role.
It's hard to get motivated though; I personally really care about what I am
working on (more than the technologies themselves), and the fact I might do
all of this just to get assigned to something I do not want to do was a big
turn off.

I ended up studying for about 8 hours before the phone screen interview. The
person doing the interview was really nice and competent. I ended with a
review of "great communicator but a bit slow", so the HR wanted me to do
another round to tip the balance one way or another. They told me to use
whatever time I wanted to study; all around the pace was rather slow, but you
could set your own timing, which is great when you're just looking at options,
but probably not ideal if you need a job quickly.

Second interview went the same as I had barely studied more. I am no genius,
and there's no getting around the fact that I need to put in the hours if I
want to succeed. I was turned down as expected, though the HR really wanted me
to study hard and try again in 6 months. I found another job at a really nice
place a few months later, so that was the end of it.

Ultimately, I felt the process was pretty decent and streamlined all around,
though quite time-demanding, it just wasn't for me. Simply working at Google
generally, or the salary/reputation weren't enough to motivate me to put the
effort needed.

------
makecheck
If an interview process takes lots of time, it will automatically exclude a
lot of candidates, even really good ones. Ironically companies that claim to
want only the best will manage to lose quite a few of those people.

Even if someone is a star, if they have a job (and life outside of work) they
can’t realistically spend lots of time on interviews.

You can’t really apply to just one job at a time, either. That’s why almost
any friction is unreasonable: across job postings, every cover letter, phone
call, online coding test, homework assignment and fly-out interview adds up to
a lot. (And that’s before you consider sites that require you to create
special accounts only for them, and retype half of your résumé into their
forms.)

I’d expect many people to strongly prefer the first reasonable offer they see,
rather than wait months and risk being rejected anyway.

------
ctvo
The current interview process is expensive for giant tech companies.

In one hour chunks, per candidate:

\- Engineers for the phone screens or coding assessment reviews: 1-2

\- Interviewers for the on-site: 6-7. 3-4 engineers, 2-3 managers

\- Reviewers for the feedback sessions: Interviewers + 0-2

This doesn't take into account the cost of HR, flights, hotels, on and on.

Giant tech companies have data going back decades now on the performance of
this method vs. alternatives. The position that they blindly incur this
expense for no benefits is hard to believe.

If you have a cheaper, more accurate way of identifying candidates that also
improves the candidate experience it sounds like you have a winning start-up
idea. Please go execute.

~~~
untog
> The position that they blindly incur this expense for no benefits is hard to
> believe

You really find it hard to believe that giant companies like Google spend
money needlessly?

------
mobileexpert
The part about Google not respecting your time is I expect pretty ubiquitous
among big tech cos. The hand off between outsourced sourcing (LinkedIn
searchers) to inside co recruiters is often a fumble point, so is the time
between passing a screening and next step in the interview process. Whenever
it seems you move between one functional area and the next
(sourcing,recruiter,interview, packet/candidate review) there is some
unnecessary (from the candidate perspective) waiting. I think this is unlikely
to ever get better.

------
phillypham
I know it isn't perfect, but I personally am a huge fan of Google's interview
process. It's a boon to people switching careers because data structures and
algorithms can be studied without any professional experience. Behavioral
interviews and GitHub portfolios are biased towards those with previous
experience and internships, which many of us never have the opportunity to do.

After leaving graduate school (not CS), every startup expected me to magically
know how to be a professional software engineer, and I found Google to be the
only company willing to hire and teach me. If the goal is to bring together
smart people with diverse academic backgrounds, I find that Google's process
is rather successful.

------
rkagerer
_After several months of interviewing, I understood that Google is just
another big enterprise company that has all these bureaucracy problems, opaque
processes and weird rules._

I interviewed Google twice in the last 15 years. Flew out to Mountain View
both occasions. Definitely sensed more of the above sentiment the second time
around. Judging from (the admittedly small dataset of) this article and some
of the comments here, I guess it's gotten worse.

Don't feel bad. It sounds like you'll have a lot more fun and runway for
meaningful accomplishment along the route you've chosen to pursue.

I have no qualms with googlers - I interact with a lot of them at I/O every
year and it's a blast. But at an institutional level the company was a lot
more humble back in the day (and incidentally, more deserving of the high-
caliber reputation they now take for granted).

------
kelnos
I interviewed at Google quite some time ago, back in 2009. It seems like their
process has gone heavily downhill since then. I wasn't given an offer, but I
was only subjected to two phone screens (one recruiter, one technical), and
then had a day of in-person interviews. One interviewer seemed a little
dickish (or perhaps just didn't feel like being there), but the rest were
overwhelmingly positive, and were fun and interesting to talk to.

The process wasn't _quick_ , but it didn't feel long and drawn out, either. If
I had to wait weeks between each stage, and was expected to pester my
recruiting contact for status updates, I wouldn't bother with it at all. I get
that it's different when you have to deal with remote interviewers and
recruiters, but there's still no excuse for stringing people along like that.

~~~
bradlys
I believe the interview process is the same today as what you experienced but
probably more difficult. As that's what I've experienced at FB/Google/etc.

I think this person wasn't performing to the same level as some other
candidates and that's why they kept getting asked to do more phone interviews.
Google tends to only want to progress you if they believe you're going to
succeed in the next steps - otherwise, what's the point? In this person's
case, I think they would've failed and that's what the phone interview
filtered out.

Btw, most of these places are more than willing to speed things up if you tell
them you have an offer. e.g. FB has a rule of "no meetings Wednesdays" and
says they won't interview then. I told them that was my only option - they
said, "oh, ok. Let's do Wednesday then!"

------
mnm1
> Google doesn't respect your time.

Not only that, but they can't even tell the time in my experience. When I
interviewed with them, they did not call at the agreed upon time and were many
hours late. This happened the first time and with the rescheduled appointment.
Yeah, they pay a lot of money, but if they're too stupid to tell the time, it
seems to me they are not hiring smart people, let alone the best and
brightest. The only other conclusion is that they are assholes looking to hire
assholes. Because only an asshole or an idiot would mess up the time of the
interview twice and be off by hours. So when they wanted me to make their
stupid algorithm faster, I told them I wouldn't since I didn't want to work
with such people.

------
luord
It's interesting how the process seems... completely backwards.

A group of engineers studying the CV/portfolio of the candidate followed by a
culture fit interview should be the first and second thing to happen, IMO, yet
for Google they're the last and second to last, respectively.

Afterwards, there should be an interview discussing the developer's portfolio
with the candidate.

And then, and only then, (and if and only if the candidate's portfolio isn't
extensive or clear enough) there should be a technical interview. And even
that shouldn't be a stupid hackerrank/leetcode type challenge or a generic
take home test, but a pair programming session resolving a recent bug that the
company/team faced, in a simulated environment.

Obligatory IMO, of course.

~~~
Retric
Abstractly, assuming equivalent costs the highest efficiency comes from
whatever step rejects the most candidates first. However, the costs at each
stage are not equal so whatever is cheapest for the company while also
filtering effectively tends to happen first. Thus generally you get something
like recruiter resume review, phone interview, face to face interview, and
then background checks in that order.

In that context Google’s remote coding tests must seem reasonable for them.
These tests are cheap and as long as Google is getting enough talented people
out the end of the process, cost savings are a significant goal.

PS: It’s not uncommon for companies to put most resumes in a holding pattern
randomly. As long as they find someone good enough they don’t need to look at
thousands of candidates, and if they don’t find someone they can just keep
going down the list.

~~~
luord
I completely see your point and I understand _why_ they do it that way; I was
trying to highlight how their doing it that way is a complete nightmare and
it's the reason I've declined every time a FAANG has contacted me (which,
admittedly, hasn't been that many times).

------
mattbillenstein
I interviewed at Google late 2019 after years of building startups - they
don't really value anything other than jumping through their
recruiting/interview requirements, which makes total sense, they need people
who can conform.

No doubt they are solving some interesting problems in some spaces - but it's
not what it used to be - many of us see it as a retirement home for Engineers
now.

Got a weak offer after the onsites, passed and I'm doing interesting stuff in
startups again.

------
speedgoose
I don't think a Google recruiter will ever contact me, but if one does I will
remember to politely decline the offer and not waste my time.

~~~
mav3rick
Excellent. Works out for everyone.

------
paulcole
This shouldn't be shocking to anyone. There's clearly a staggering surplus of
people who will jump through any and every hoop for the opportunity to work at
Google.

What's Google's incentive to change their process?

~~~
downerending
All true, but Google's reputation is starting to take a small hit on this.
They'll always draw people who want high comp, but they may start having a
harder time drawing people who really _care_ about tech.

~~~
sickygnar
Yeah. I asked their recruiters to leave me alone. I haven't interviewed there,
nor will I. Realistically I won't pass the interview, so it's no use wasting
my time trying. I actually was sponsored by them for GSoC (google summer of
code) - my proposal was accepted by a prestigious open source project (and my
code merged/accepted), but there's no way in hell I would pass an interview,
despite the fact that I'm probably considered a decent engineer by most of my
peers. Google has convinced me I'm not smart enough to work for them.

~~~
eq_sd_
I'm convinced I'm probably smart enough for at least a handful of roles there,
but I'm not convinced Google (and others) care about people who interview
poorly due to mental health issues. My thoughts, feelings, etc were shamed
growing up so now "sharing my thoughts" to someone who is very clearly sitting
there judging them sends me into a dissociative state and shows I can't "work
under pressure". It's not near as big of a problem once I'm more comfortable
with my coworkers. I wish I could magically overcome C-PTSD so it's not an
issue, but it's the hand I was dealt.

It makes me feel very sad for anyone who struggles with their mental health,
even if they are making progress. It makes me feel sad about what I have or
will miss out on in my own life.

~~~
paulcole
> I'm convinced I'm probably smart enough for at least a handful of roles
> there

There's a scene in Zero Dark Thirty where the CIA chief asks a subordinate for
an assessment of another agent. "She's smart," he says. The chief shakes his
had and replies, "We're all smart here."

Google has 0 need for more smart people to apply. They have all the smart
people they need and then some. What they want are people who will do whatever
it takes to work at Google, regardless of the hassles of applying. Then they
find the smart people in that group and hire them.

~~~
downerending
A part of their research, geneticists give flies mutagens and then screen
(filter) them for desired properties. A famous one opined that if you push a
screen hard enough, you'll always get what you asked for, just not what you
wanted.

That thought has stuck with me, and I think it applies to this sort of
interviewing as well. FAANG-style interviews push their screens extremely hard
for a few traits. They get what they ask for, but in my experience, the
resulting pool can be quite poor on a lot of other traits that turn out to be
quite important. Some of these people can be truly miserable to work with and
strikingly unproductive.

~~~
eq_sd_
This comment will stick with me. This is how I have been thinking of it.
Google et al are not looking for a person like me.

------
aprdm
The state of interviewing for software companies in the FANG or wanna-be-FANG
companies is really sad.

They barely talk with you and just waste your time in multiple online tests
that you have to prepare for spending at least tens of hours. Those tests have
problems that either you don't face in the day to day or if you do you would
have more than 30-50 minutes to solve (anyone breaks jira tickets in 30-50
minutes intervals?!)

I believe for senior developers they must only get people who are willing to
sacrifice their personal time to study leetcode.com and read elements of the
programming interviews. To pass those interviews is an effort in itself and
there's a whole industry to prep for them.

It's extremely sad in my opinion! As a senior developer who is happy with his
job but would consider an offer from one of those companies I essentially
won't ever compete with people farming leetcode as I have interests in life
outside work hours that do not involve solving algo questions and I don't want
to work at FAANG that bad.

~~~
coconut_crab
Google has more than one hundred thousands employees, so interviewing is a
very hard problem at that scale. So is there a better way of hiring for giant
companies? One that doesn't involve forcing interviewee to farm leetcode for
months?

~~~
aprdm
I unfortunately do not have the answer to this problem and understand it is a
hard problem to solve, that said, I still feel sad about the state of the
industry in this regard.

------
jaimex2
Do people still aspire to work at Google?

10 years ago I certainly would have while it was still run by Larry and
Sergei. Today it very much seems like another Microsoft, IBM, Oracle - if you
like working at large corporations great but you won't be doing anything
meaningful.

Android, Maps, Search, Youtube, Drive are all mature products that can be
labelled as done, their creators have long left so thats just maintenance
work.

The closest thing to exciting would be their self driving division which seems
to have made bad fundamental choices in LIDAR.

Anything else you can already see has a death timer on it.

------
SQueeeeeL
"Because Google’s hiring process has one more step, which will take place
without you. In this last stage, several senior Googlers (who don't know you
and have never spoken to you)"

I love this, it sounds like something the judges in The Trial would do

------
CamperBob2
_The second interview was about the «2048 game». It was the first time I
couldn 't understand the task clearly, maybe because I hadn’t played the 2048
game at all. The questions were about a strategy to win in the 2048 game and
an elegant solution to generate the next board state. Only two days later I
realized that the 2048 game is some kind of «Game of Fifteen» and the solution
could be found with the help of A_ search algorithm.*

That is just absolutely silly. How can they expect to hire quality people with
a process like this? Someone who has never heard of the "2048 game" (including
myself) would be at a steep disadvantage, regardless of their coding talents.

I'm very sure that I wouldn't pass this interview process, and I'm equally
sure that I'm a more effective developer than many of the people who do pass
it.

The only conclusion is that Google, not being stupid, is optimizing for
something else.

------
ssully
I guess my question is to people who have passed these interview successfully,
do you feel the interviews were actually representative, even broadly, of the
kind of work/skills you would need for your day to day job?

~~~
prabhu7286
Google employee here. I was asked a very fun question about some memory
management. Another one was a simple DP. There was a math question from the
IMO I think, which I happened to know beforehand and told the interviewer. The
design question was around a load balancer.

To answer your question, I think some of the skills are useful like memory
management when designing protocol buffers for your system. Or thinking about
how my gslb config could possibly be messing up the load balancing, causing
pages for our service etc.

Overall I think, and this is my personal theory that as long as the question
gives the candidate an opportunity to think on their feet given the know
Computer Science, I would support the process.

------
_throwawayyyyyy
here's a new position you ought to see at FAANGs: interview engineer. imagine
if they had actual engineers who didn't feel like doing interviews was a time
suck from their actual jobs or a way to ingratiate themselves to a promotion
committee. full-time, technical people who engage with candidates in
meaningful ways as their actual job description.

------
max_velikanski
Indians occupy most of the management positions in FAANG, and even though
developers from other races/groups do very well during the interview process(I
participated in), they barely pass, because they are not from the chosen race.
I would be highly surprised if Management in FAANG is not at least 80% of
Indians, so please don't even bother applying here (yep, worked for AA and now
G).

~~~
president
This is quite obvious in Silicon Valley but nobody talks about it because they
are then called “racist”.

~~~
Bhilai
Based on the diversity numbers reported by Google[[1] in 2018, 59.7% of
leaders hired in 2018 were White. This number was 63% in 2017, 65% in 2016,
69% in 2015 and 68% in 2014 (I only found numbers only from last 5 years)

Overall workforce representation numbers tell us that Google's leadership team
in 2019 is 66% White so I am not sure if what you are claiming is right.

[1]: [https://diversity.google/annual-
report/](https://diversity.google/annual-report/)

~~~
president
That link you posted shows the percentage change of certain groups in tech
hires, but conveniently leaves out the overall percentage breakdown for all
tech hires, which is the real issue. I invite you to walk into the engineering
department of any major tech firm in SV and tell me it’s not majority Indian
engineers.

What would be really helpful is a study that shows the breakdown of Google
engineers in different locales. So far, I haven’t seen any of these come out
of these diversity reports that SV companies really love to show off these
days.

------
yalogin
Google has a terrible process. I will never speak to them for sure. A friend
of mine got great feedback on his interview and is now waiting on team
matching. Its been almost 9 months now. He has moved on but they are still
matching teams. Just a terrible process overall. I don't know why they would
interview without a team in mind.

------
5cott0
I wonder if the trend of not respecting swe candidates time is actually big
tech testing our tolerance for frustratingly incompetent, opaque bureaucracy?

~~~
_throwawayyyyyy
they can put you on 'salary' to get you to work unlimited unpaid overtime, not
give you specific days off so that you can have 'unlimited' (no) vacation,
fire you at will any day for any reason, and make you go through a vicious
gauntlet of dystopian interviewing for the privilege.

i think it's obvious that we're already pretty tolerant

~~~
5cott0
your list of tech co perks left out free snacks and ping pong

------
lbj
It can be like this, or it can be worse. I have a friend who was interviewed,
screened and xrayed before finally getting the job and a sweet contract. Shows
up on his first day of work and there's no relevant team for him to join, so
he gets placed in the basement pending openings. He quit after 2 months.

------
tobyhede
I see a lot of comments along the lines of "plenty of candidates" ... Which is
probably true, but the candidates are preselected for tolerance of the process
and capacity to study and prepare relentlessly. There is a reputational impact
that over the long term has real consequences.

------
thorwasdfasdf
I think it's sad that everyone is forced to jump through excessive hoops just
to get a chance at getting a job.

All software engineers should join a collective industry wide union that
agrees any coding assignments that take longer than 2 hours would bill the
interviewing company 150$/hour (or whatever the rate is in that location). I
think that would be fair.

It's a bad sign when a company doesn't respect you enough, to even look at
your previous coding assignments.

------
thedance
The best way to get a job at google is to get some high ranking insiders to
refer you and then show up at the interview and do your best. The yammering
about how to ace the coding interview overlooks that without a referral you
are at a severe disadvantage.

~~~
drewg123
Among my collegues at L5-L6, we found it rare that anybody we referred was
hired.

(I'm an Xoogler, and was there 2013-15)

~~~
thedance
The odds of anyone at the top of the hiring funnel getting an offer are really
poor, but the odds for people with referrals are much higher.

~~~
drewg123
The chances of getting a conversation with a recruiter and interview with a
referral is almost 100%. But even after the initial interview, the odds of
getting hired are tiny. That's the point I was trying to make.

~~~
spacecondition
Going through the interview process and just last week I was rejected from
Google with a referral and without even getting a recruiter conversation.
Caught me by surprise because with current education/work exp. I had no issue
reaching the "talk to a human being" step with other FAANG companies... a bit
disheartening but mainly just makes me wonder what Google is looking for at
that point in the process that's different from other top companies.

------
adpirz
Point blank: is it all worth it? Googlers and Xooglers alike, is going through
all of this worth return? If it depends, what does it depend on?

~~~
drewg123
Xoogler here: Yes. I'm mid/late career, and came into Google in 2013 and left
in 2015 after more than doubling my pre-Google salary. IMHO, it has been worth
it for the salary alone.

~~~
zerr
Interesting, did you reveal your pre-Google salary to Google during
negotiation and they doubled it? (without changing the location). As for your
current position (Netflix?) - I guess it wouldn't matter if you came from
Google or no, their standard package would be the same (around 450K) I
believe.

------
cflewis
Alright, so Mountain View is waking up now and you'll get comments from
Googlers, so here is mine.

DISCLAIMERS:

1\. I work for Google, but these opinions are mine.

2\. Everyone at Google is expected to interview, but I no longer do, and have
not for two or three years. I have a medical exemption because for anxiety.
Trust me, I know just as much as any candidate how stressful it is to be in
that room.

3\. I interviewed candidates for software engineering jobs.

4\. I was an intern 8 years ago and 7 years ago, then flipped to full time 6
years ago.

5\. I _do not believe I would pass the interview process cold_. As an intern,
I got to use feedback from my internships to count for half of the interviews
I would normally need to take. This was clutch: I'm good as a software
engineer but would tank most Google interviews. I studied hard and I took mock
interviews with my team while I was an intern. I knew my way around the campus
and the rooms weren't alien to me, so I felt more comfortable.

6\. None of this is meant to be a defense or repudiation of the OP's
experience, nor is it meant to be a defense of Google or Google's hiring
process. It's just meant to offer my explanation of why things are they way
they are (other people may have difference perceptions of course).

With all that out of the way...

I've never met anyone at Google who is under any illusion that the hiring
process is where the company would want it to be if anyone in the process
could wave a magic wand. Even 8 years ago this was true. From the outside
looking in, the process is byzantine and the experience of the OP is not as
uncommon as one would hope.

The only way to make sense of it in your mind is to pretend to be on the
inside looking out. Think of the interviewing process as a result of a set of
constraints:

* Constraint 1: Google skews very heavily for no false positives, thus increasing the number of false negatives.

* Constraint 2: Google wants to hire as many people as it can that meet the bar in order to grow the way it wants, and it gets an enormous number of applications each year. But "Google" the company still grounds out to actual people running the show, and juggling this enormous candidate load is unenviable at best.

* Constraint 3: Because of how many people are being interviewed and the high bar, each interviewer somehow need to judge a candidate's quality within just one hour. This leads interviewers to ask hard/really hard questions about things you likely won't ever code but candidates who did good in school (or were good at studying for the interview) would have a shot at. I would never do this as I don't think that's a good signal at all; I would always ask questions that were basically about standard coding. I'd even print out a sheet of code that worked but had a number of code health failures and would ask candidates to do a code review of it.

Google has two main goals:

1\. Hire the right people.

2\. Knowing that the false negative rate is so high, make sure the process is
pleasant enough that candidates will come back again.

I think 1 is doing pretty well, 2 is not, and 2 is not because it's buckling
under the constraints. I would always try to help on a micro-level by doing
things like checking if the candidate needed water, food, bathroom, testing
out the whiteboard pens and replacing the bad ones (if I was nervous and I
found my pen wasn't working straight off, I'd be thrown for a total loop),
giving them 5 minutes to recenter themselves quietly, whatever. But those
micro-level interactions don't help the macro-level experience.

You can imagine many ways of interviewing that would be better if you didn't
have those constraints. If I was CEO of a startup, candidates who passed basic
screening would be given access to the code base and asked to work for a day
or two on an open bug. That would give you signal on their coding ability,
ability to see through the ambiguity in the bug, work through an alien code
base etc. etc. It would be great. It isn't possible here because there's so
many candidates to work through.

There have been multiple initiatives over the years to try and make the
process better, each one small nudges rather than global overhauls to avoid
rocking the boat too much. After all, the process does kind of work: I work
with smart people who I like being around and have done across all the teams
I've been on, so something is working in the results. I think interviewees can
now use a laptop for writing code in a room, for example (don't quote me on
it, I stopped interviewing before that).

So, that's that. I hope it helps in understanding things, at least.

~~~
christiansakai
Thank you for writing such a detailed response. I appreciate it as someone who
had interviews with Google 2 times (first one pass phone but failed onsite,
the second one failed on phone but that was primarily because I wasn't in a
good condition mentally during that time so that was on me).

I've heard and witnessed a couple people that I know who actually got into
roles at Google (also FB, Amazon) but were not technically strong (yes they
interviewed as SWE). I did ask what kinds of questions they got and it seemed
that they did not get hard questions. This range from L3 to L5 and I was quite
shocked.

This makes me believe that FAANG seeks something else as well rather than pure
DS&A skills. I don't know what those are, but can you give me pointers?

(I failed one Google onsite, one Google phone, one Amazon onsite, and now
currently will face a FB phone interview)

~~~
cflewis
Unfortunately sometimes it's just the luck of the draw on who you got as your
interviewer. Remember that it is expected for false negatives so it is totally
normal to just apply again in a year.

The thing you can do to help yourself is to study; there are only so many
problems you can be asked. Most candidates don't. That gets you a lot of the
way there. I used "Cracking the Coding Interview".

You are doing the right thing in interviewing as much as possible;
interviewing is a skill that you get better with with practice. _Always_ ask
your recruiter afterwards where your weak points were. Again, people make the
mistake of thinking that their coding skills are entirely correlated with how
they interview; this is 100% false. People can interview better but be
technically weaker all-round and get an offer, or they can interview poorly
and be the best technical candidate in the world and be rejected.

I hope this is helpful, I realize all of this stuff is demoralizing. As I said
in my post, I strongly believe I wouldn't have passed a full Google interview
round. Sometimes you just need luck on your side, but the more you interview,
the better the odds things fall into place.

~~~
christiansakai
Thank you for the answer. I've been studying a lot, Leetcoding like crazy but
lucky cases like that just demoralizes me.

Anyway, I guess what I can keep trying is to roll the dice. Thank you for the
answer, it motivated me.

------
aglavine
I failed my interview with Amazon, but I blame me. The interviewers were
mostly nice amd helpful. I missed a few questions. It was a learning
experience.

Sure the interview process can improve, but I didn't find it a mess as some
people here mention.

~~~
gitgreen
I failed my interview with Amazon and I blame them. They tried to rush me to
an onsite after passing my online coding assessment. 4 different recruiters
were in contact with me about the same position. Review materials were sent 5
days before the interview, I didn't know what Leadership Principles were
before then. Travel arrangements weren't made until 3 days before the
interview. A prep phone call where the recruiter tells me what DS&A material
to focus on wasn't scheduled until 2 days before the interview. Material I was
told not to focus on by one recruiter was brought up in one of my interviews.
Another had such crippling anxiety that he couldn't finish a sentence making
for a very agonizing hour where I made little progress on the parts of the
questions/problems he could communicate.

I did the best I could given the circumstances and I have no regrets. Had I
somehow passed it would've been very difficult to accept an offer given how
chaotic the whole experience was.

------
Wonnk13
Even internally, changing job ladders is a not a trivial task. I've had
friends pass the swe interview and have hiring committee come back and state
the questions weren't sufficient.

prepping for interviews is it's own 20% project...

------
mclightning
It might be an unpopular opinion but Google dropped from a place to strive to
work for, long time ago. I don't know why would you put yourself under so much
frustration to work for a company that has completely gone 180 degrees on its
motto of "Dont be evil".

They haven't come up with any extraordinary, interesting technology for years
now. Technologically they're becoming less and less relevant.

Tables have turned for Google long time ago, and they should be the ones who
do more to attract employees.

------
inertiatic
The scariest part about experiences like this is the time wasted and the time
spent under tension.

I normally can solve algorithmic puzzles pretty well without studying much,
and I'd be pretty fine with a weekend of studying.

But it sounds like a nightmare being strung along for months before being
subjected to 5 rounds of 1 hour of being under scrutiny from another person.

~~~
cmonnow
it's the scrutiny part that is strange.

as human beings, we are expected to behave differently when others are
watching us, than when we are alone e.g. why lock doors before changing dress,
or why cover mouth when yawning, or why not swear in an office etc. Naturally,
we don't speak everything we think, lest we air the dirty laundry.

Do you judge a building during construction ? Do you judge an author by his
first drafts ?

Either judge the final product, or only judge the process, or only judge speed
of execution. And if you want to judge all three, then leave the candidate
alone and let them think in their underpants and smoke if that's what gets
their brain juices flowing.

As it is, they want to judge your thought process, your final result, your
speed, and your ability to perform when someone is standing over your
shoulder. It's a bit silly, mainly because it's not representative of any
real-life scenario. Candidates who are introverted (exactly the IT geek types
they want to hire) would have a major anxiety issue with the scrutiny part of
it.

------
thosakwe
Every time this topic comes out, I can't help but think that the majority of
comments show some degree of confirmation bias.

What's missing from the conversation are the perspectives of those who had a
positive interview experience... Without that, the conversation doesn't have
quite so much education value.

~~~
daxfohl
I thought it was fine, and not much different from Amazon or Microsoft.
Actually way better than AWS, which was cold and uncommunicative the whole way
through.

Phone interview, onsite with five interviews, recruiter followed up with a
"sorry" a couple weeks later and an invite to try again. Tried again following
year, got to skip the phone interview, did onsite with five interviews again.

Second time was a little messier because after the onsite, the recruiter said
I was borderline and should try to do a "team fit" first to try and get an
"internal recommendation". So I chatted with a couple team leads but the one
that wanted me was the team that I didn't want. So you could call that wasted
time, but, it seemed like recruiter was actually trying to help and it was fun
to learn about the teams anyway. Then the hiring committee reviewed and came
to an apparently rare stalemate. I was brought in for two more interviews and
nailed them. But didn't get the job. Apparently a joke I made about not
knowing integer division got interpreted wrongly, and that was the pivot. That
was last year and I was to try again this year and will probably take them up
on it sometime if I get around to it.

The first time I interviewed there, I was actively interviewing everywhere so
I was already pumping through algorithms and such anyway. So no _extra_ spent
time studying. Second time I went in completely cold, and will again this year
if I go.

Each of my onsites seem to have followed the pattern: three went well, one
went poorly, and one I felt like the interviewer wasn't prepared or didn't
know what he was looking for. But in general the problems are challenging and
fun, so no issues with the interviews themselves. And recruiters have all been
friendly and helpful.

They need to fix the parking situation in Kirkland though, is probably my
biggest complaint.

------
alkonaut
I wonder how much great talent they miss out on just because they can’t be
bothered with this kind of process.

------
bitL
How often does it happen at Google that candidates get offered a job right on
the spot during interviews? It happened to me at Microsoft but I've never
heard about anything similar at Google/FB/Apple.

~~~
petters
Never saw that during my time at Google. That's not really how their system
works. We engineers doing the interviews do not have that kind of power.

~~~
bitL
My final interview was with some big honcho at Microsoft, so that might have
been the reason why mid-interview he started acting as a BFF, asked what do I
want to do, listed all possibilities in his organization and then HR came in.

------
rdiddly
Favorite sentence: _" After a tough interview with Google and several
interviews with small start-ups and companies, I have concluded that
employment is not for me."_

Me neither brother, me neither!

------
vkaku
Had a few frustrations with them last time. Concluded that Google may be great
in its own way, but it sure won't work the way it currently runs, for me.

Maybe it'll get fixed one day.

------
bitL
Google switched over to FB's interviewing process now?

------
thatiscool
The post has a great point: because a single senior Googler decides that
you're the wrong person to be hired.

there is no check and balance. It is about picking a person he/she likes.

And many senior Googlers work there for more than a decade, they do not
understand external world and full of arrogance and self-correctness.

------
htrp
Frustrating moment #3. Google doesn't respect your time.

about sums up every interaction I've had with them.....

looking at you GCP

------
hysan
Sounds like they aren’t using Byteboard
([https://byteboard.dev/](https://byteboard.dev/)) yet. It’s been a while
since that was launched. I wonder if Google plans to ever try it as part of
their hiring process.

------
nfRfqX5n
I honestly think they expect you to fail the first time just getting used to
the whole process

------
simonkafan
The only way to make companies like Google stop this arrogant bullshit
interviews is if no one applies anymore. But as long as hundered desperate
freshman Software Engineers fill their pipe because of "money and free food",
they can continue this game.

------
mav3rick
"I got an idea of how Google works internally"

No he didn't. He wasn't even hired. 99% of companies don't split interviews
over 2 days. Most people are pressed for time and days off. If he would have
gotten an offer, I would have loved to see if he would freelance then.

~~~
friday99
It was two phone interviews that he didn't want to do back to back after
having already completed two successful phone interviews. People can often
take a phone interview over their lunch break as it is typically less than an
hour. That is impossible if they want you to take two phone interviews back to
back. 99.999% of companies don't do four phone interviews before an all day
on-site interview. He was correct that Google doesn't respect an interviewer's
time and that signals that they will not respect your time when you are an
employee.

~~~
mav3rick
Yes. Extrapolate from one data point. Many many people are happy here. No
matter how hard HN tries to avoid this fact by citing random blog posts.

~~~
mtnGoat
Unfortunately, a lot of the most damning stuff posted here, has been from
google employees. I remember a long HN post recently where Google Engineers
were lamenting about how they do nothing at work all day, are losing their
skills, and only stick around for outrageous pay. Outwardly happy is not
always the truth of the matter.

~~~
mav3rick
Talk about confirmation bias. Do you think people who are happy will come and
post on HN ? "TellHN: I am really happy with my work at Google "

~~~
mtnGoat
Yes i do, i have seen Googlers post positive experiences and
defenses/responses to negative posts here.

~~~
mav3rick
So all 60k people visit this site and parse negative comments to rebut them ?

