How I Interviewed Candidates at Google

[@victortruong2538]

Imagine preping for Google interviews with neetcode videos, and then you realize that he is the one interviewing you

[@NeetCodeIO]

The test is that the candidate must say "let's write some neetcode today" and they automatically pass

[@joelpww]

​@@NeetCodeIO keeping that in mind for brownie points

[@Axl124124]

@@NeetCodeIO Or 'Do you atleast agree with me...." while whiteboarding a question.

[@one_step_sideways]

That could be basically impossible back when he was in Google because the face reveal happened after he had left. Unless it was one of his biggest fans to be able to recognize his voice from that one youchewb channel

[@lizi6113]

@@one_step_sideways but his voice is so unique

[@yang5843]

When people are nervous emotionally, their logic brain doesnt work properly.

[@lucaxtshotting2378]

if you can't write a loop when nevrous its more than fine taht you get rejected. Memorizing some pattern that will never be useful (at least not as is) should never help you get anything.

[@monkeydluffy2063]

@@lucaxtshotting2378 ok so the day job involves something that makes you nervous all day? If that's the requirement then sure, put that in your job ad as well so people know what kind of shit place they'll be working at. Rarely can you find a person who can do stuff correctly when nervous. Trick is to NOT make the candidate nervous. I don't know where you're going with the 2nd point but yes I'd agree with that. But then I see your 1st point and I'm lost.

[@AnkitaNallana]

After having gone thru some brutal interviews and listening to you say that 10mins in they're really struggling and that it's gonna be a long 35 mins ahead and that you felt bad for them - thank you for saying that, good to know that. As an interviewee I never get to know about that part of the interviewer so it's good to know that you were one of those!

[@puddleglum5610]

I’d say it’s probably nerves. In one of my final interview rounds with Google, my brain pretty much just stopped functioning correctly and I completely lost track and started making stupid mistakes. The problem was easy too-if I had just taken a deep breath and recomposed myself, I would’ve crushed it. Luckily, it didn’t end up hurting me too bad because I accepted a really good offer at another company (got an exploding offer) before I could get through Google HC.

[@nomad6913]

One constructive criticism I have for Neetcode, is that problems should be ranked with regard to acceptance rate. This has many benefits: 1) solving problems on your own 2) getting confident 3) gradually being able to solve harder problems.

[@sigfigronath]

im really loving this series of personal stories

[@enrico8730]

Id recognize neetcode's voice as soon as I heard it in an interview

[@schan263]

I prefer to be interviewed than interviewing others. I felt that I was more nervous than the candidates.

[@Coderell]

I think adding more easy problems is a good idea.

[@xPussySlayerx69420]

At google I asked (find the avg of a set of numbers) as a warmup, I explicitly told them it’s not a trick question. I expected for this to take like 2-3 minutes but it usually ended up taking like 15m before I would abort the question and move onto the “real” question. Even the Stanford grads that I interviewed couldn’t do it within a few minutes. People really need to learn the basics.

[@luisr1421]

Holy shit. I'm self-taught, and even I could have answered that warmup.

[@Yusuf-sy6rb]

You literally just mean write the basic for loop to add the numbers and divide at the end right? That took them 15 minutes? How?

[@gustavo-yv1gk]

@@Yusuf-sy6rb he prolly capping

[@MaxFung]

cap

[@luisr1421]

@@Yusuf-sy6rb not even sum(arr) // len(arr) (if I remember correctly)

[@ness3963]

Had a moment like this where I messed up on a basic if statement that would normally be automatic for me. The nerves make your brain go completely empty. It’s like suddenly you’re thrown back to the first time you took AP CS and everything becomes cloudy

[@SquirtleSquadee]

the dude who told you to pick harder questions explains everything about why programming interviews are a mess. too much focus on trivia and less on the skills that matter, like the ability to find solutions and execute on them with clean code. leetcode and sites like it, along with senior programmers like the one you mentioned need to stop existing

[@pumpedupbro4200]

I agree. I would guarantee those senior devs will trip too if asked the same question and their jobs depended on it

[@cyclox73]

Nerves will get the best of you for sure but an for/while/if etc should be second nature and shouldn’t even been a barrier during an interview. I do fear that gpt/ai is messing a bit with people who are just getting into dev…. Why know how to write a for loop when it just happens automatically?

[@Cosmaghz]

How were you assigned to interview candidates? Was it randomly assigned? Or you could pick among candidates or nominate yourself to be considered as an interviewer for specific roles or areas. Also, do recent hires start interviewing candidates right away?

[@one_step_sideways]

Most likely he was randomly assigned to prevent networking and patting each other on the back to gain an unfair advantage during hiring. Also, he was likely able to interview candidates because he had already become a middle dev after 6 months of work. Middle devs hire junior devs, that's how it usually is.

[@tarasaurus24]

Didn’t he work there for like 6 months why would they have someone with no experience interview others?

[@xPussySlayerx69420]

@@tarasaurus24 Googlers within cloud only need 3 months of tenure to undergo interview training then start interviewing others. Other PA's need 6 months. Also L3 devs (entry level) can interview L4 candidates.

[@yang5843]

Bro would pass every candidate

[@nick-nj2gt]

he said he failed every candidate

[@vectoralphaSec]

Heres my question. What would happen if all companies stopped doing technical coding interview questions? Just plain got rid of all coding interviews. How would that change things for the industry?

[@alexzhang3870]

Although I don’t like how tech interviews are almost always LC interrogation nowadays, getting rid of them will mean companies are gonna hire a lot of people who can’t code but know how to fake resume😂

[@bp56789]

I'm happy with coding assignments. Coding interviews are too much stress.

[@xTriplexS]

We don't have the computing power to run a spaghetti restaurant like that yet

[@venkateshchakravarti2817]

Exactly my situation where I know the solution but cant able to code in interview

[@sukapow]

The whole interview process needs to change since today we are living in a world where technologies are evolving and different languages are surfing up in the world. It's not like back in the old days where people had terminal and they're only coded in the backend. They're use the backend to make a interface with a print statement back in the old days. You will be surprised companies still uses old terminal... people will have different skills in tech than mastering a backend language. It's needs to change because they're making the cs degree useless and people will point at college/university for making they're cs department as an money mill sick monopoly. Nepotism is real in Faang companies...

[@xTriplexS]

Interviews are fine the way they are as long as you don't get asked a question you will never implement ever again. They mostly try to see if you can think like what the algorithm requires when needed in the future. For example: our professor taught us how to fine digits of a number with palindrome numbers as well as calculating exponents without importing a new library/header or using a built-in function then asked a question during our midterm to utilize all that to create loop where you enter the starting and ending point and then find all the Armstrong Numbers in that range and output them all. Nobody got it right and pretty much just complained about how they will never use that specific algorithm even though we were all taught the bits and pieces of the algorithm one by one. All we had to do was to put them all together. It wasn't anything we haven't learned.

[@sukapow]

@@xTriplexSit depends on the company, then you wilk know what type of data structures and algorithms they're will use often. Even the primary language. One person cant know all of the algorithm and know the language inside and outside of it. If I apply to a game developer job, they're expected me to know a lot of pathfinding algorithms compared to Faang. Usually C# is in the industry and they're want to see a portfolio or a game was very successful in the marketing. God bless me on a good easy leetcode problems on interview days. When comes to those big tech companies then you really don't have no any ideas what their primary projects are based on. Most people who get a job in Google will have no idea what they're going to do inside like Neetcode experience. Google can run by itself without people. Employees are sucking on the ads money like mosquito.

[@imtryinghere1]

Htf do people interview at Google and can't write a for loop

[@owenmurphy2022]

Very strange.. someone that had a hard time writing a "for loop" in a Google Interview. One would think people interviewing for Google would not struggle with this (rudimentary) concept. How they got the interview in the first place? Just shows how applying is really just a numbers game or people just lie on their resume. Idk what else it could be...

[@theophilusowusu470]

This is exactly my life yesterday interview with Microsoft.

[@MBXD001]

I agree you should add waay more easy on your site

[@madanmohan5661]

this is so true for some of us.

[@Epic-Adam]

great insights

[@eradawnz]

How are people who can't write for loops even getting interviews at google?

[@black_wind2794]

It still is incredible to hear that there are people interviewing at Google that don't know how to write a for loop... Like how did they pass the resume screening in the first place? I probably need advice from them 😅

[@dcgcPT]

What about coding for security engineering interview, how does it work?

[@JasonLatouche]

What I really hate about these online interview coding environments is the lack of auto-suggest or intellisense. I have gotten so used to it from pretty much any modern IDE and code editor that I often forget how to do pretty simple things without it...

[@lizi6113]

Well you could also say you are used to Copilot..

[@Papa_Static]

It's because up until covid most coding interviews were in person on whiteboard. Prior to getting hired at a FAANG I practiced writing code in Google docs so that I could get used to not having all the bells and whistles of an IDE

[@cylemons8099]

If the interview is on a whiteboard, do they expect things like getting function names right (think set.add vs list.append in Python) or would they accept pseudo code?

[@marcjall]

Thanks for sharing your knowledge.

[@anotheraleks]

I thought that if you struggle writing a for loop, you wouldn't even come close to a Google interview

[@hellowill]

3/4 google questions I got were on leetcode... and no I did not pass it

[@Brainiac5]

Nerves nerves nerves man haha

[@va11bhav_rana]

bruh hey, any views on competitive programming for online assessments, really need tips for that

[@iseeflowers]

This sounds really familiar. Oh that would be me 😅. so true.

[@Darth_Bateman]

4:55 How the HELL did this guy get into a google interview and cannot even write a loop???

[@DavidDLee]

Maybe one day NeetCode will realize that the Leetcode-type questions are just a bad strategy for recruiting. Also, bad interviewers can be quite senior. Engineers need to realize they do this to themselves.

[@flatmapper]

Yeah, add please more easy problems

[@lucaxtshotting2378]

good for google. Too many sweaty nerds try to force themselves into where they don't belong by memorizing this leetcode thing.

[@edwardcheng8974]

How the hell could someone doesn't know writing a loop get a Google interview. Like how. Did they hire someone writing their CV from fiveer or what? (Excluding making trivial mistakes while coding, it happens when u get nervous)

[@lottexy]

He didn't say they don't know how to write a for loop lol also CV has nothing to do with the video context. Get off your high horse.

[@edwardcheng8974]

@@lottexy 1:30 There you go ~ Also, Grandpa, in the Internet world, people don't take the literal meaning word for word. We might use sarcasm or analogy, or exaggerate things a bit. Just as saying "get off your high horse" does not necessarily mean telling others to actually jump off a 2 metre high horse. Often used in British conversation, comedy and Twitter. Cheers!

[@tamachanusko]

@@lottexy bro is probably chinese, there's a reason why youtube is banned in china because they are arrogant af

[@lottexy]

@@edwardcheng8974 He said people make small errors and be like "1 off" meaning they know how to write loops, if statements etc but often forget about edge cases, that's what he's saying and you're misinterpreting that as "can't write a loop". Also CV has nothing to do with this, just FYI. Take care.

[@edwardcheng8974]

@@lottexy Man this guy literally takes literal meaning literally. Must be German 🤣🤣🤣 Just don't know why you so triggered about the CV thingy, no sarcasm allowed?

[@zeburgerkang]

Imagine testing people of basic code when we have Chat bots to do it for us... frankly if you are basing employment just on that, then you will lose many viable candidates.

[@GuruPrasadShukla]

is CP compulsary for getting into google? i have applied 4-5 times and have not yet received anything from them even when applied via referrals!

[@BRabbid]

Depends on what you mean by competitive programming. Being good at DSA I'd say is necessary.

[@GuruPrasadShukla]

@@BRabbid like CP profiles, like good 4* or 5* rating

[@BRabbid]

@@GuruPrasadShukla nah having a profile at comp programming sites is definitely not necessary. Most google employees aren't competitive programmers.

[@GuruPrasadShukla]

@@BRabbid bro I recently got rejection email from Google even though i applied via referral this time and ensured that my skills align with the job description, maybe there's ton of competition here at India

[@BRabbid]

@@GuruPrasadShukla Big tech is harder to get into since the mass layoffs, a lot of the FAANG companies didn't even tell their summer interns if they have a return offer yet so don't take it personally dude, times are hard. Use this as an opportunity to improve your skills so when times get better you'll be ready.