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Google's “Director of Engineering” Hiring Test

(www.gwan.com)
1764 points fatihky | 2 comments | 13 Oct 16 15:15 UTC | HN request time: 0.647s | source
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buttershakes ◴[13 Oct 16 15:40 UTC] No.12701447[source]▶
I had almost exactly this same engineering test when google interviewed me in 2006. It was terrible, and left a bad taste in my mouth. Given the complexity of the work I was doing at the time, the entire thing seemed ridiculous.
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TheCapn ◴[13 Oct 16 15:51 UTC] No.12701579[source]▶
The inode question gave me flashbacks to my interview with Amazon. They wanted me to explain what a hash function is. I kept giving answers for about 3 minutes explaining hashing, common algorithms, reasons to use it and places it applies.

Recruiter: "I was looking for you to say it's a fingerprint"

So I guess I was wrong, because despite explaining them in decent detail, I didn't use the one keyword.

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1. mgkimsal ◴[13 Oct 16 16:07 UTC] No.12701711[source]▶
recruiters need to have a few levels of keywords they scan for.

level 1: foo, bar, baz level 2: frobnitz, barfoo level 3: 42, etc

In someone is using words from level 2 that work together in the ways laid out, they're probably beyond level 1, and wouldn't use the word 'fingerprint' (in this case) - they're giving more detail (and probably better) than what was being listened for.

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2. xigency ◴[13 Oct 16 16:28 UTC] No.12701924[source]▶
This idea sounds like a slightly more brilliant test than this candidate was faced with.