How to get a job at Google, interview questions & process

I interviewed with Google for a SRE position earlier this year and their screening process sure is tedious: Lots of grilling on obscure UNIX trivia and data structures/algorithms but nothing on the broader picture, like how to write good, maintainable software. I like nerding about graph traversal algos as much as the next guy, but not for 90 minutes on the phone after a long day of work.<p>I'm sure the screening process filters out duds but it's bound to generate a lot of false negatives as well. People that would otherwise be a perfect fit but who get fed up with the interminable interviewing or simply don't do well under that kind of stress (for me it was both).

Why would anyone want to work at Google at this point? They can't hold onto their people, have very high churn and dissatisfaction rates, etc.<p>I could see maybe wanting to put in a year to learn the google stack, or if you have a particular area you've been researching and they will pay you to do exactly what you want, but beyond that... there are lots of companies offering better salaries and options with serious value, with similar challenges, that are going places. When you have people leaving despite half million dollar retention offers... why would you jump on that ship? Don't get me wrong - I think Google is fundamentally a good company. I just don't get why people aspire to work there, given the other options available.<p>Is it a mensa thing, with a brand recognizable outside the valley? Like you pass the interview, you're in the IQ club, stamp of approval, all that?

When I saw this I felt like I had seen this exact thread play itself out before, so I Ducked around to check my feeling. It was correct:<p><a href="http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1130984" rel="nofollow">http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1130984</a><p><a href="http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=784479" rel="nofollow">http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=784479</a><p><a href="http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=374722" rel="nofollow">http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=374722</a><p><a href="http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=145035" rel="nofollow">http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=145035</a><p><a href="http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1520323" rel="nofollow">http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1520323</a><p><a href="http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=135666" rel="nofollow">http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=135666</a><p>(And for future reference, for when I inevitably re-post this in some future Google interview thread and forget to include this post itself in the list: <a href="http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1690792" rel="nofollow">http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1690792</a>)

&#62; Google offers are very competitive, some might say generous, and very thorough.<p>Interesting, I've always heard Google doesn't pay very well. Similar to game companies, they can take advantage of the fact people really want to work there and know candidates will accept lower pay because of it. I've heard that from several Google employees past and present. Perhaps things have changed?

Whenever I read about these interviews, I get the impression that they are designed for recruiting students - that is, they are loaded with theory and don't test experience.

I've heard several claims about Google: 1) They hire less than 0.5% of applicants. 2) Their interview process is extremely time-consuming. 3) They pay below-market salaries in many cases. 4) They're a reasonably nice place to work, by big-company standards.<p>The current article supports (1) and (2), disagrees with (3), and supplies no data about (4).<p>For a talented engineer, what's the expected payoff of actually going through this whole interview process? If there's only an 0.5% chance of getting hired, it seems like a poor investment of time. If, on the other hand, Google is throwing out 98% of applicants as completely unqualified (which is typical in the industry), then the expected value of applying might be high enough to be worth the effort, provided you're in the remaining 2%.<p>Also, what's the upside of actually working for Google, compared to a startup? Do they give out enough Founders' Awards to make their base salaries irrelevant to people who would otherwise be launching successful products at a smaller company?

&#62; We set impossible goals and achieve many of them.<p>I suppose they keep setting impossibler and impossibler goals...

Personally, I think Google's recruiting process can become very long and tedious. I interviewed with Google 4 months before my graduation and went through 6 different interviews (all technical) for two different positions. The HR person told me that she would like to schedule another hour for interviews and took my availability for next 2-3 weeks. I got no response back. I contacted the HR person again, and she told me that they were going through reorgs and things were getting lost. She then took another 2 weeks of availability. No response. I didn't have much time to wait any longer, I decided to join another company.<p>From friends and colleagues who interviewed and/or are working at Google..I found out that the interview for college hires can become very long. One of my friends took 6 months to get a job. If this is still happening at some part of Google, they must improve this process. People don't usually have time to wait 6 months to know whether they got a job or not.

This interview process sounds like searching for reasons to reject a candidate

Just went through a recruiter screen myself. Contrary to what I've always heard, they said they don't care that I don't have a relevant degree given enough years of experience, though I'm intimidated by the prospect of what kind of grilling I'm going to get from the actual interview.

I had an honor of being interviewed in Mountain View CA for a basic in-house tech support person, but didn't make it. It was in May 2006. I was one of the finalist, but just not good enough. The experience however was fantastic and a huge ego booster. They flew me over to California for few days and gave me a tour of GooglePlex. I have to say that my interview process was consistent with the article. My "google question" was: "How would you fill out exact 4 liters in a Can of 5 liters and another Can of 3 liters, with unlimited supply of water?" I was able to answer it: Pour the content of the 3L can to the 5L one. Repeat the process again until the 5L can starts overfilling. So now you have 5L can full of water and 1L left in the 3L can. So now, empty the 5L can, and pour in it that 1L leftover water from the 3L can. Now you have 1L in the 5L can. Fill 3L can with water and pour it again in the 5L can. So 1L + 3L == 4L :) Still it wasn't enough for the job as I may have failed the regular expression part of my interview...

I know that the larger more prestigious companies will require more intensive hiring processes but I think this kind of attitude is really hurting smaller companies. The process for getting hired at smaller companies is getting so convoluted for one particular reason. It is hard for a company to simply hire and fire. In the most logical situation, you hire the best application, work them for a week and throw them out if they don't fit. As it is now, people whine, sue and pitch a fit when they get fired so that companies have to come up with aggravating hiring practices to get the people that will work out.

The problem with "what do you know" questions is not (or so much) that they may reject people who know stuff but recall it differently, but that they aren't selective for having the ability to stick with something for an extended time. Avoiding distraction with the internet, or the more subtle types of distraction into futzing with things rather than doing the most important but more discouraging tasks.<p><a href="http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1690578" rel="nofollow">http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1690578</a>

This article focuses on the process for a vanilla (by Google standards) candidates but does Google place any value on or change the rules based on the stature of an applicant it hasn't headhunted? Let's say Nat Friedman or Alan Cox decides he wants to work at Google. He's not going to be fielding "balls on a bus" type questions, right? Or is he?

I had a round of interviews at the London office a long time ago, and another one recently. I think they are improving, but the fact they don't tell you where you failed is annoying. Also, some of my friends say they couldn't believe I had been rejected both times when they compare me to people they know who got accepted.

Does anyone know about interview process at Apple(for Eng/Design positions)? It will always be debatable which of the two(Apple and Google) are more innovative - I consider Apple to be a better mix of innovation and engineering, whereas Google comes out as primarily an engineering focused company.

Why anyone with the talent to get through the interview process at Google would rather work there than start their own startup I will never understand.

don, awesome post. hope to see more of you on hacker news

i'am sick of hearing google's interview process.a company like google with kickass problem solvers should not hire a person based on his fucked up SAT scores{to me it sounds like sad scores!!} it has to be purely based on talent,his aptitude/attitude and skills.

In norvig page, norvig.com it is said that a good method to increase the power of the team is to choose someone that is better that someone at google. The author did a statistical simulation to show the positive effect of this strategy compared to another one. There is someone working at google that was working at apple and is good at social blogging (I don't remember now his name) but he didn't pass the test and he is working remotely (a exception). Also someone said that if you go before seven p.m. you are looked down, I am only remembering things I read on blogs.