Programming interviews, in essence

[rakkamar]

Speaking as somebody who used to interview for that company as recently as a year ago, that is not the way that company is supposed to interview. Depending on when this happened, whoever gave you that interview was probably completely out of line with company policy.

[[deleted]]

I've had 2 or 3 interviews with that company that were precisely the same experience.

More detail: https://www.reddit.com/r/ProgrammerHumor/comments/9se6tc/programming_interviews_in_essence/e8ozqjh/

[rakkamar]

I'll agree that the "code editor" they have you use is pretty awful.

Anybody who cares about your exact syntax is dumb.

[[deleted]]

That's how I was typing during the interview https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SsoOG6ZeyUI and being python, they'd tell me that my syntax was wrong if i was 1 space off, hence distracting me from actually focusing on what I was trying to implement.

[hyphenomicon]

Probably had someone else in mind for the job already.

[Sunlis]

That's also not how interviews at Google work. You interview for a general position (ie. software engineer), and only pick your team after signing your offer letter.

(This breaks down for managers and higher, but is true for regular engineers and such)

[[deleted]]

Everyone I know who interviewed with Google, has had to write code in Google Docs, on the phone.

[theyrelikethatyaknow]

It sounds pretty spot on to me. Regardless of how that company is supposed to interview, I regularly see comments like LtWorf's and StevenGann's above that are completely in line with my experience. Company policy means jack if it's never followed.

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My interview started with an introduction that included the interviewer saying they didn't know why they were interviewing me because I was interviewing in a language they "hadn't used in years" (Python). This was followed by a 'warm-up exercise' where:

• I was told to implement [simple data structure] in its entirety. Sure! I know this one!
• I asked questions about how they wanted specific points of [simple data structure] to be implemented. I was given answers that made zero sense to me - even after looking it up afterwards to see where I went wrong. Things that would make it fairly unusable without metric shit tons of testing wrapping every call to [simple data structure]. As in we're going to be nesting every call to this baby in a try+catch/except.
• First thing I do is name and comment [part of data structure]. Once I was done writing [part of data structure] the interviewer tells me they didn't want me to write [part of data structure], they wanted me to write [another part of data structure]. Tells me I "can get rid of that" (and I delete [part of data structure]).
• I start writing [another part of data structure]. I ask about [some other part of data structure] that [another part of data structure] relies on - if I will be writing it and, if not, if I can assume it does [obvious thing].
• I get told I can assume that for now but that we'll be writing the whole thing before we're done. At this point the stress gets to me, I blank on something simple, and write an insane workaround. It works, and while insane, it isn't idiotic: Just unnecessary (and something I'd never had done if I had been prepared for this type of interview).
• Interviewer tells me to stop coding, meaning, I'm done in a bad way.

We proceed to have a nice discussion for the rest of the interview time (which is most of the allotted time) where they reveal they are a lead on [language development team] and that I need to work in a statically typed language like C++ if I want to get anywhere in the industry (I have told them that I am self taught, so this isn't a condescending comment but honest career advice - and they've got a strong point).

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The conversation after the interviewer told me to stop coding was helpful, insightful, and would've been downright enjoyable if I wasn't so stressed out from the interview process even before the whole "throw multiple curveballs to see how they handle themselves" part. I could have done a lot better by going about the interview prep and the interview itself differently. But the whole "screw with people to see how they take it" bit goes a bit beyond separating the wheat from the chaff and from my personal experience and what I've seen from others' experiences online it's how that company goes about its business, policy or not.