(disclamer: I'm a noogler, and I failed google on-site once).
I think that citing this example every time "hiring at Google/Big tech" is discussed on HN is useless.
We know that there are a lot of false negative and and lot of chance in the hiring process (so many things can fail in a process involving so many steps and people).
There are also legitimate rejections, like hm, bold statements ("90% of your engineers use my software"), fingerpointing or not being able to seek for assistance when you don't know something.
I discussed interviews with many people, and I'm convinced that solving the problem with the theoretically-optimal solution is not the only way to get a positive review. Being open about things I didn't know helped me: for instance "Hm, I'm not sure about how to do this exact thing, I'll use the function do_this_thing() and implement it later if I still have time, if that's OK for you" buys you time and allows to keep the discussion focused on the main problem.
I don't think his statement, while bold, is at all unfounded. If he truly was rejected for not being able to invert a binary tree on a whiteboard, but has a proven track record of writing excellent software, I would agree with him that there are some serious issues with the Google/Leetcode/2nd-year-CS-trivia style of interviews.
>I would agree with him that there are some serious issues with the Google/Leetcode/2nd-year-CS-trivia style of interviews.
I think both you and your parent are in violent agreement.
It's not as if many people who were in FAANG haven't admitted there are serious issues with the interview process. Even advocates of the process are open about it.
No one has found an interview process that lacks serious issues. Hiring people solely on the basis of major contributions to software has its own serious issues.
placeholder function strategy is something that should be stressed more, it's always what the interviewers want you to do if you are stuck on some detail of the algorithm in my experience.
Well, he was invited for a on-site interview at Google rather than being a direct hire. But after this rejection, Apple directly hired him to work with the Xcode team.
In both cases he bypassed the recruiter and leetcode stages which are common steps before the on-site interview at most companies.
