Comments on: The Google Interviews http://www.dangrossman.info/2006/12/28/the-google-interviews/ Entrepreneur and web developer Wed, 08 Feb 2012 22:53:00 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3 By: Peteris Krumins http://www.dangrossman.info/2006/12/28/the-google-interviews/comment-page-1/#comment-62334 Peteris Krumins Sat, 06 Sep 2008 05:11:31 +0000 http://www.dangrossman.info/2006/12/28/the-google-interviews/#comment-62334 I forgot to add that I am writing an article series on my blog about MIT's "Introduction to Algorithms" course. The series starts here: <a href="http://www.catonmat.net/blog/mit-introduction-to-algorithms-part-one/" rel="nofollow">MIT's Introduction to Algorithms, Part I</a> I forgot to add that I am writing an article series on my blog about MIT’s “Introduction to Algorithms” course. The series starts here:

MIT’s Introduction to Algorithms, Part I

]]> By: Peteris Krumins http://www.dangrossman.info/2006/12/28/the-google-interviews/comment-page-1/#comment-62332 Peteris Krumins Sat, 06 Sep 2008 03:38:14 +0000 http://www.dangrossman.info/2006/12/28/the-google-interviews/#comment-62332 Hi, it was an interesting reading. I'd like to correct you on the k-th order statistics algorithm. The expected running time of this algorithm is O(n), and not (n·lg(n))!! Also the worst case for this algorithm is O(n^2)! There is an algorithm by Blum, Floyd, Pratt, Rivest and Tarjan (by 5 gentlemen) which has worst case O(n) running time, but it is rarely used in practice because of the constant term being too big! Hi, it was an interesting reading.

I’d like to correct you on the k-th order statistics algorithm. The expected running time of this algorithm is O(n), and not (n·lg(n))!!

Also the worst case for this algorithm is O(n^2)!

There is an algorithm by Blum, Floyd, Pratt, Rivest and Tarjan (by 5 gentlemen) which has worst case O(n) running time, but it is rarely used in practice because of the constant term being too big!

]]> By: Joe http://www.dangrossman.info/2006/12/28/the-google-interviews/comment-page-1/#comment-60119 Joe Sun, 22 Jun 2008 05:38:58 +0000 http://www.dangrossman.info/2006/12/28/the-google-interviews/#comment-60119 It seems that google goes through a lot of time and effort to pull "the best and brightest" that were forged by other institutions. If google has so much time and energy to throw their best engineers at this lengthy costly process why not just bring a bunch of people on that have "potential" and then throw in a few oddball candidates that they wouldn't touch with a barge pole and mix them up and put them on 2 week projects and see who shakes out. Do this over a period of say 6 months (because not everyone is going to shine right away) and at the end of that stint, pick the ones who work out the best. In the end it would cost less money and they would have some production (or near production) ready results and it would waste less of their top engineer's time. It just seems to be that all this is doing is costing google a ton of money and wasting other developer's time who's talents are far more needed where they currently are that was built up in a culture outside of google. The end result is just going to be an elitist group of computer scientists and it seems that could only serve to hurt the company's end-game because it's the mix of backgrounds that makes great things happen. Example, look at the tech + creative mix at Apple. It seems that google goes through a lot of time and effort to pull “the best and brightest” that were forged by other institutions. If google has so much time and energy to throw their best engineers at this lengthy costly process why not just bring a bunch of people on that have “potential” and then throw in a few oddball candidates that they wouldn’t touch with a barge pole and mix them up and put them on 2 week projects and see who shakes out. Do this over a period of say 6 months (because not everyone is going to shine right away) and at the end of that stint, pick the ones who work out the best. In the end it would cost less money and they would have some production (or near production) ready results and it would waste less of their top engineer’s time. It just seems to be that all this is doing is costing google a ton of money and wasting other developer’s time who’s talents are far more needed where they currently are that was built up in a culture outside of google. The end result is just going to be an elitist group of computer scientists and it seems that could only serve to hurt the company’s end-game because it’s the mix of backgrounds that makes great things happen. Example, look at the tech + creative mix at Apple.

]]> By: Celebrity http://www.dangrossman.info/2006/12/28/the-google-interviews/comment-page-1/#comment-59768 Celebrity Thu, 12 Jun 2008 17:32:00 +0000 http://www.dangrossman.info/2006/12/28/the-google-interviews/#comment-59768 excellent read. excellent read.

]]> By: Dan http://www.dangrossman.info/2006/12/28/the-google-interviews/comment-page-1/#comment-43879 Dan Sat, 29 Sep 2007 16:26:53 +0000 http://www.dangrossman.info/2006/12/28/the-google-interviews/#comment-43879 There have been several updates (see the trackback) and I went to work for Microsoft instead. There have been several updates (see the trackback) and I went to work for Microsoft instead.

]]> By: Fahd http://www.dangrossman.info/2006/12/28/the-google-interviews/comment-page-1/#comment-43869 Fahd Sat, 29 Sep 2007 12:56:11 +0000 http://www.dangrossman.info/2006/12/28/the-google-interviews/#comment-43869 That was an interesting read, Dan. Any update? Its been almost a year now. That was an interesting read, Dan. Any update? Its been almost a year now.

]]> By: Me http://www.dangrossman.info/2006/12/28/the-google-interviews/comment-page-1/#comment-5630 Me Sun, 18 Feb 2007 06:57:57 +0000 http://www.dangrossman.info/2006/12/28/the-google-interviews/#comment-5630 Nice post. I have heard from people that the questions asked are puzzle-type questions. Ones similar to <a href="http://www.technical-interview.com" rel="nofollow">http://www.technical-interview.com</a>, for me I have not gone through one and planning to apply to Google once I graduate :) Nice post. I have heard from people that the questions asked are puzzle-type questions. Ones similar to http://www.technical-interview.com, for me I have not gone through one and planning to apply to Google once I graduate :)

]]> By: Michael Ellis http://www.dangrossman.info/2006/12/28/the-google-interviews/comment-page-1/#comment-4914 Michael Ellis Thu, 08 Feb 2007 02:58:20 +0000 http://www.dangrossman.info/2006/12/28/the-google-interviews/#comment-4914 Google seems to only be interested in hiring aspergers syndrome babies who can spit out the big-O of a obscure algorithims without (gasp!) having to look it up in a book. I know several extremely talented software developers who've interviewed there and not been made offers because they've spent their careers focusing on the difficult things that matter in software development, as opposed to the minutae that anyone with a room temperature IQ can look up when they come up. No surprise that their products and services are a complete mess. Google seems to only be interested in hiring aspergers syndrome babies who can spit out the big-O of a obscure algorithims without (gasp!) having to look it up in a book. I know several extremely talented software developers who’ve interviewed there and not been made offers because they’ve spent their careers focusing on the difficult things that matter in software development, as opposed to the minutae that anyone with a room temperature IQ can look up when they come up. No surprise that their products and services are a complete mess.

]]> By: Dan Grossman : The Google Rejection http://www.dangrossman.info/2006/12/28/the-google-interviews/comment-page-1/#comment-3733 Dan Grossman : The Google Rejection Sat, 06 Jan 2007 02:29:49 +0000 http://www.dangrossman.info/2006/12/28/the-google-interviews/#comment-3733 [...] Looks like I won’t be packing up and moving out to California in April; Google turned me down for the job I applied to. Maybe that second interviewer’s questioning really did mean they wanted a C coder despite the job description listing C++. Hi Daniel, [...] [...] Looks like I won’t be packing up and moving out to California in April; Google turned me down for the job I applied to. Maybe that second interviewer’s questioning really did mean they wanted a C coder despite the job description listing C++. Hi Daniel, [...]

]]> By: Dan Grossman : Google Interview Scheduled http://www.dangrossman.info/2006/12/28/the-google-interviews/comment-page-1/#comment-3563 Dan Grossman : Google Interview Scheduled Tue, 02 Jan 2007 19:59:02 +0000 http://www.dangrossman.info/2006/12/28/the-google-interviews/#comment-3563 [...] Update: You can find how the interview went here. This post is tagged: google. Feel free to trackback it, or even digg it. [...] [...] Update: You can find how the interview went here. This post is tagged: google. Feel free to trackback it, or even digg it. [...]

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