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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: 0s | source
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ohitsdom ◴[13 Oct 16 15:47 UTC] No.12701539[source]▶
It is scary if this is how Google hires engineering directors. Passing this test would select all the bad candidates! Answers to many technical solutions are "it depends". If you have a director that "knows" the right answer, they won't be very likely to encourage their engineers to experiment and find the best solution to the specific problem at hand.
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JorgeGT ◴[13 Oct 16 15:58 UTC] No.12701634[source]▶
A brilliant professor of mine liked to say "The Answer of the Engineer: it depends".
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1. ksec ◴[13 Oct 16 16:35 UTC] No.12701990[source]▶
That is nearly the answer i give to every questions. But when i asked for more detail no one likes it. They all simply want "answers".

Well much like most things in life, there is no such thing as concrete answer.

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2. bostik ◴[13 Oct 16 18:59 UTC] No.12703151[source]▶
I keep pushing the message that getting a "correct[tm]" answer to a technical question is probably not the answer you should be looking for. Problem solving skill trumps rote knowledge every time.

I recently wrote a somewhat lengthy post on the subject, after realising how bad some companies are at this: https://smarketshq.com/notes-on-interviewing-engineers-a4fa4...