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I'd be curious to know if this is typical. As someone that's never interviewed at Google but idly wondered at moments if I'd ever work there this sounds hellish. Not necessarily the exercises themselves (although they seem to have nothing to do with what any developer does day-to-day), but the sheer number of them and the amount of preparation required. I already have a full time job, I don't want to take on another part time job of "practicing for an interview at Google". Especially when I don't even know what I'd be working on (if anything) at the end of it all!

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All I can figure is that's by design. The process selects for some combination of IQ and how bad you want it, basically. If you can't or don't want to put in 10-15hrs a week prepping, for a few months, on top of your actual job (god knows nothing I actually do at work as a programmer helps me be better prepared for this kind of shit), to then subject yourself to a crushing marathon of a day, they don't want you. They have enough people who are willing to go through that, so they don't need to cater to those who aren't.

Probably one inherent benefit of a process this shitty, in addition to whatever benefits of the criteria they're selecting for, is that selected candidates identify more strongly with their co-workers and with the company than they otherwise would (see: Cialdini's Persuasion on the benefits of hazing)

Between everything I've read about it and my own experiences, I get the sense that Google's interview process is by design a mirror of grad school. If you aren't willing to spend weeks to months prepping for the test so you can impress a committee (that you will hear from three months later), you just don't want it enough.

I'm not sure this is a great way to hire engineers, but at the same time I'm sure it feels pretty familiar to people fresh from grad school.

Sometimes the people that want it the most don't have other options. It's like a clingy date.

You and the parent have explained exactly what I've been running in my head when it comes to these interviews. I'm currently evaluating one of the FAANGs and with the amount of time and LC grinding I'd have to put in I'd rather learn a new technology.

nit: Cialdini's Influence: Science and Practice.

Yeah, that. That's what I get for not checking my shelf first. In my defense mine's the version that at least does contain the word "persuasion" somewhere in the title, though the proper short version is still Influence. I'll leave my original post as-is as a monument to my failure.

"I'll leave my original post as-is as a monument to my failure."

I don't think anyone cares and there is no reason to make them read the wrong title.

> I don't think anyone cares

Exactly. The only successes or failures we care about are our own. Very rarely do we even think of someone else's embarrassing moments. We are all pretty self-centered and that's liberating in a way.

Yep.

"I was worried about what people think of me, but now I know they don't think about me at all."

A human smile is when you pull the sides of your head upward and back with the muscles under your skin.

Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion.

Let's look at it from another perspective (and this holds true for most FAANGs): A month of serious work and preparation can land you one of the most paying jobs on the world which will make you a millionare in a few years if you play it right.

Most people (especially if they didn't win the birth lottery by being born in CA, USA) go to schools and colleges for YEARS and YEARS to come even a few steps towards what you can get at Google and FAANGS by working for a month or two to prepare for the interview.

Take a step back and consider just how damn pampered we are in this business when doing exercies for a few weeks before interview for a 250.000$+ job is too much for you.

Let's put it the other way though - there's an enormous amount of noise in the interviewing process, even the people responsible for the process admit this. So you can spend months preparing for a Google interview but you get put in the wrong role and get rejected for it, you can bump into an asshole in the interview process, you can simply screw up because of the pressure, or maybe they simply have some different set of skills they have in mind for that role. There's a thousand things that can go wrong.

So yeah, you can spend ages preparing for an interview, but remember you're probably topping your odds out. A genius well prepared might have a 90% success rate, if they don't prepare that's 0%. But not many of us are a genius and none of us are 0% prepared. So maybe you're actually boosting your odds from 40% to 50%.

Then finally, you've got your dream job! Oh but actually 3 things are possibly true. 1: You're surrounded by people who walked the interview in which case you are going to be sprinting to keep up and actually your job is going to be incredibly difficult. 2: You're surrounded by people who also had to desparately prep for the interview for months- so none of you are well suited to the job, actually google is interviewing for the wrong things and actually your life is going to be tough. And 3: Anyone who can't afford to spend months prepping for Google won't be working with you- anyone with any responsibility in their personal life probably won't be able to afford to do this stupid prep work and so they're simply never going to work there, so you're now in this homogenous leet code clique.

> will make you a millionare in a few years if you play it right.

This is a pretty steep exaggeration.

No, it really isn't: https://danluu.com/startup-tradeoffs/

Ok let's say you make $300k/yr at a FAANG. Lose 40% to taxes and you're looking at $180k/yr.

Living in SV your expenses will roughly be at least $45k/yr.

So you save $135k/yr (180 - 45). That's great, but a far cry from being a millionaire in just a few years.

Of course as you get promoted your comp increases, hitting $500k gross at L5, but that takes more than a couple years to achieve.

I work at a FAANG-type company.

My effective tax rate is much closer to 30% than 40%, but I'm married so I get a bit of a break vs. being single since there's a big gap between my income and my wife's income.

Even so, $135k per year post-tax, post-expenses is a fantastic amount of savings.

This is much more than I made pre-tax, pre-expenses earlier in my career.

Just having access to $135k means you're more or less a millionaire if you invest it and never need to dip into your investments.

The S&P 500 has averaged around 10% or so over the last 90+ years. Over 30 years, at a 7% growth rate, you'd have $1 million in savings with no additional contributions, assuming I didn't screw up my math.

With such a high income sustained for just a few years, it'd be hard to screw up later in life so long as you avoid the hedonistic treadmill.

> Lose 40% to taxes and you're looking at $180k/yr.

Who's paying 40% taxes on $300k/year? Your math is wrong straight off the bat. Including 401k and match, this hypothetical person is making at least $200k after taxes. Even more if they're married or have a dependent or two.

And as others have noted, $135k/year will make you a millionaire in 7 years even if it's cash under your mattress. You'll make it there even faster if you invest it in an index fund like most people would do.

> Who's paying 40% taxes on $300k/year?

People in California.

> $135k/year will make you a millionaire in 7 years

Yea if you are a person who somehow has 0 expenses over the course of those 7 years. Again, all but impossible in California.

> People in California.

The only way you'll end up with a tax bill that large is if you contribute $0 to tax-advantaged retirement accounts. And that's taking into account state taxes, SSI/Medicare. You don't have to believe me, try it out yourself. https://smartasset.com/taxes/california-tax-calculator. Putting in $300k of income for a single person, it gave me $175k take-home pay + $19k in a 401k, which is an effective rate of 35%. Keep in mind, I'm not including the 401k match, which is pretty darned generous at the BigCos. If we assume the max allowed IRS match ($9.5k or thereabouts) the effective rate falls to 32% and this hypothetical person is banking $145k/year after living expenses.

Lots of people (especially young, healthy people) also opt for health plans with HSAs, which give you more deductions.

> a person who somehow has 0 expenses

Where did you get 0 expenses from? GP stated pretty clearly expenses of $45k/year - on the modest side (probably assumes living with a housemate, or not eating out too much). I was going with $60k/year expenses on $195k/year after taxes.

$45k/year is an absurd estimate of expenses especially in silicon valley.

$45k/yr is a little bit more than the mortgage principal and interest on a million dollar house, at today's interest rates assuming a normal 20% down payment. If you rent you a normal apartment you would spend less. If you rent a luxury apartment you'll spend more but you don't need to.

I've lived in Silicon Valley my entire life, except for when I was in college, and I don't think my living expenses ever got close to $45k/yr until I bought a house, which was an entirely optional decision on my part.

I think my overall expenses are less than that and I spend an exorbitant sum on food (almost as much as I spend on rent). I just don't have crazy expensive hobbies.

There are people I know who live in the bay area on less than 45K/yr in wages, so no its not at all absurd.

I pretty clearly stated $60k/year. $45k/year was someone else's suggestion. But $45k/year isn't "absurd" at all if you live with a housemate.

Heck assume spending $70k/year on $205k/year after taxes and 401k + match. It's still $135k/year. I don't know why you're arguing against arithmetic.

You've read both of these things incorrectly. First off, 40% all in is too high for california (but not by a huge amount, it's like 38% but that matters). Secondly, they allowed for living expenses, the 135 was what was left after (from the 180 take home). Can argue about the amount, but they allowed for it.

Realistically you're going to do 401(k) and match so you're probably taking home a bit over 200k. Allow 50k/yr living expenses and you'll have another 150/yr or so. Quite plausible to bank 1 million in 5 or 6 years with these numbers.

So using your numbers it took roughly 7 years to be a millionaire. Damn crazy good to me.

That's not counting the actual compound interest on your money. Even if you don't re-invest the stock they give you, which is a significant part of your compensation, the stock at most of these companies goes up 20% YoY, so you will easily become a millionaire 5 years in with a little investing.

Yes, hence why I used "few" - doable in 7-10 years timeframe. Still something unthinkable for most professions.

I guess the contention here is the definition of the word "few". When I think of "a few years", I think 2-4, not 7-10.

If you're losing 40% to taxes you're doing it wrong.

Also, stock appreciation. A $500k grant last year is worth $640k this year.

Can you expand on that? How do you get out of paying taxes?

Good tax planning make best use of 401k and other tax advantaged plans there are these Roth planes for example.

A FANG developer in London has even more opportunities

Max out your pension (Tax relief at 40%) plus presumably an employer match around 5-8%

Put £20k a year into a Stocks and Shares ISA - which puts that beyond tax for income and CGT (apart from stamp duty on share purchases)

Put £30k into premium bonds and than start thinking about VCT's and EIS

This is ignoring any shares scheme you are in

I think the 40% number is the point of contention. The highest tax bracket for 2019 is 37%, and that's a marginal rate, so no one is going to be paying 37% of ALL of their income. More likely it'll be in the range of 20-25% of all income.

You forgot about state tax in addition to federal taxes.

right, but federal, state, and FICA is still less than 40%

Not really. That's about what I paid last year.

It's about 38% last year on that gross, as I noted elsewhere (including FICA and state). But assuming no 401(k) or match isn't realistic either so it's actually lower.

I'm not really sure why you keep pushing back on all of this. It's just how the math works.

The short version is, if you make $300k year if you are careful with the money you can have 1 million in savings in (conservatively) 6-8 years just by doing the obvious things, assuming reasonably similar market conditions.

I paid 20% federal (effective) and something like 6% state (effective).

On average, the top quintile of earners pay 22.9% effective federal rate [1]. Take a look at your effective rates for 2019, I bet you pay less as a percent than you think.

[1] https://www.pgpf.org/sites/default/files/All-income-groups-p...

Few is probably 6 at faang, if you're investing and budgeting and getting promoted. Even if you start at the bottom.

> (although they seem to have nothing to do with what any developer does day-to-day)

Depends on what you do at Google.

Google Guava is a data-structure/algorithms-heavy great Java library.

Dart and Golang are programming languages. I'd imagine you have to know how to write a compiler etc and the standard library definitely has sections for data-structure and algorithms.

They pay tons of money and prefer people to stick around and do different things within the company so I guess that's why they set the bar high for that specific section of skillset (algorithms and data structure).

Some people are willing to go through that for the Money, Prestige, and hopefully the experience. Some people don't. That's life.

> Depends on what you do at Google.

I imagine they have multiple PhDs working on those projects. For your bog standard SDE these interviews have very little to do with the day-to-day job.

In all honesty, there are not that many "bog standard SDEs" at Google. That's not what the company is hiring for: it wants engineers who are comfortable with complexity, whether measured in technical challenge (Tensorflow, Dart etc.), robustness (cloud, GSuite) or extreme scalability (Gmail, ads, search etc.) A PhD is clearly not the only path to that skillset, but it's not unusual either.

Separately, I'm sorry the original poster had a crappy experience: that does sound awful. It happens, unfortunately, and I'm glad they drew attention to it.

Disclosure: I work at Google.

> That's not what the company is hiring for: it wants engineers who are comfortable with complexity, whether measured in technical challenge (Tensorflow, Dart etc.), robustness (cloud, GSuite) or extreme scalability (Gmail, ads, search etc.)

How confident are you about that assertion?

A lot of Googlers are doing generic web/app work that happens elsewhere from those I've talked to. Not HQ tho so maybe it's different out there

A lot of the requirements around generic web development at Google requires deep knowledge of things. Not always algorithms specifically, but I've also never been slowed down because someone wasn't familiar with a concept I was working on (or able to catch up very quickly).

No no one is writing basic CRUD apps at Google. At that scale there are optimizations needed at every level. I know people who work on the cutsom kernel for the servers to front end people for apps.

Since we're on anecdotes: I've interviewed people who wanted to leave Google because they were bored of not having any interesting work to do.

If you truly believe that "no one is writing basic CRUD apps at Google", then their marketing has been incredibly effective and explains why their interview process remains the way it is

They definitely are, including internal tools and the like. My friend works on one like that.

This is like claiming nobody at Amazon or Facebook works on CRUD apps, lol.

I'm sure Amazon definitely has boring jobs.

What exactly is your deal here?

I think Facebook is known to have more interesting jobs.

> I think Facebook is known to have more interesting jobs.

If influencing democratic elections is your idea of interesting, sure.

This may have been true 15 years ago when they were a small company. Google now employs ~60K engineers and the majority of them are "Bog Standard".

Disclosure: I worked at Google twice.

May I ask: why did you work for Google a second time? Thanks.

The first time I was a new (post) grad and I didn't much like it and left for a startup within a year.

I figured I'd give it another go with more experience, so the second time I was hired at L5 (expected to be leading teams). Liked it even less the second time, but stuck around for about 2 years for logistical reasons.

In my experience at Google and other large companies, the team you join ends up dictating your experience. I would be open to a third stint at Google, but would be very careful about vetting the team (especially the leadership).

Having said that, I don't think I like the culture at Google. Especially the second time, it felt very mercenary and there was cutthroat competition. It didn't feel like I was working on a cohesive vision, but just moving protobufs around. I think I preferred Google when Eric was CEO, maybe because it was smaller, but it felt like Larry was running Google with too much emphasis on the bottom line and not enough on product or vision.

Thank you, that was pretty interesting.

I actually think this is a big issue for Google, and maybe why there is so much time burned on internal threads.

There aren’t enough good problems to go around and a lot of folks who were promised the world end up bored, working on just another mobile app or whatever else.

I stand corrected. But in all honesty, that smacks of privileged elitism. Do these pop quiz, brain teaser interviews really prove the person can be successful on the job at Google?

Besides not being related to day to day job a lot of these questions also select for a specific set of knowledge. If you've done that particular class of problems (graph, tree, dynamic programming etc), then you do well, if not then you don't. They also typically have a single or very limited number of solutions, so if you deviate early the chances of recovering is very low.

I see this style of interview questions pretty frequently and I really question their effectiveness, vs say something more open ended and fluid.

> I don't want to take on another part time job of "practicing for an interview at Google"

Problem is someone else will. And there's no easy fix.

If there was an easy way for a group of uncoordinated people (applicants) to coordinate against bullshit (stupid-long interviewing processes sometimes unrelated to the job and other stuff) we could solve many of this world's problems, don't you think?

I imagine there are industries where this is a lot more punishing. Personally I'm not prepared to go through that bullshit, so I just get a job somewhere else. But we're lucky that our industry is flush with jobs, I have to imagine other industries have similar requirements that are much less avoidable. And maybe there will be a downturn in tech one day, and I'll very much rue this day.

I'm not aware of another industry that has interviews as awful as FAANG and their copycats. There may be something out there but I've not seen it. Try describing what they do to non-tech folks and watch the reactions. Incredulity and/or astonishment are typical, in my experience.

But yes we do have tons of jobs and IME most places don't do this crap. So that's nice, compared with how other workers have it. Though you won't get anywhere remotely near FAANG comp without encountering those sorts of hazing, high-prep, high-variability interviews.

I went through the interview process with Square and their compensation is around that level and it was just a 3 round interview process no muss no fuss. Phone interview went well, completely crushed the coding interview (which was coderpad with one human talking through my thought process as I went) and we were about schedule the third round which would have just been an onsite with a bit of white boarding and what not when they had a last minute internal transfer (which they profusely apologized about and offered other positions I could go for but they were all in SF not NY) but it was a pretty healthy process compared to some of the other stuff I've done in interviews so not all high comp companies are insane. Would definitely recommend them as a place to work.

The downvote without a reply is a really unhealthy thing for a community especially one that only gives downvoting privileges to supposed long time contributors. I provided a perfectly reasonable counter example with a company that demonstrably has similar compensation to the FAANGs (check levels.fyi) without a crazy interview process.

I didn't downvote you but you describe a crazy interview process and then conclude with "demonstrably has similar compensation to the FAANGs (check levels.fyi) without a crazy interview process." I would consider a company that can't figure out which side of the US they want you to work in a crazy interview process

I think you misread what I posted.

I'm sure if they didn't have the interviews, they'd only select from Ivy League or top X school computer science graduate pools.

I bet investment bank or hedge fund jobs are/were just as tough for anyone to apply to and get.

There's a certain persona I associate strongly with folks I've known from that sort of school that I think they do select for. A little offputtingly probingly-aggressive in conversation (at least to my non-elite midwestern sensibilities), probably honed by the style & tone of class conversations at elite universities and, assuming it wasn't directly socialized into them at prep school, by their peers who had experienced a few years of Harkness method at Phillips Exeter or whatever. It's the only kind of personal affect I can imagine fitting well into these types of interviews and, if it comes naturally through long practice, not leaving one so worn down after the first couple hours that one falls apart for the rest of the day.

That's because other well paid industries have YEARS of this - called "college", "internships" and several other terms where you go through months and months of grueling hazing rituals to have a far shot of anything remotely as well paid as a FAANG job.

Get some perspective, c'mon :(

> Get some perspective, c'mon :(

This isn't very compelling. Qualifications are a different bar. Perspective indeed.

They're the same kind of prerequirement to get to the same kind of wage and benefits. And I agree they're less compelling. Hence.

> Problem is someone else will. And there's no easy fix.

I personally think that that's a feature, not a bug, we don't actually need that many bright people working for companies like Google given how much data they have available (the same goes for FB).

>> I don't want to take on another part time job of "practicing for an interview at Google"

> Problem is someone else will. And there's no easy fix.

Isn't that... eventually... Google's problem that their interview process is putting of substantial numbers of engineers?

Apparently no, they have more candidates than they can manage so they can afford it.

Likewise, even if you were to ignore the upfront preparation costs just the timeline (months with not much indication) makes it pretty tough sell.

EDIT: Just, in general, it would be pretty difficult to commit time to such a task when it's more fulfilling to work on personal side projects (and potentially leverage that for employment offers).

> it would be pretty difficult to commit time to such a task when it's more fulfilling to work on personal side projects

Or if you, I dunno... have a child. That's something that (as a relatively new parent) leaps out at me with interview requirements like this. It feels like you need to get a job at Google before becoming a parent, or you're going to need to wait until your kid is in high school.

Kids in high school age are especially vulnerable and need a lot of vigilance on parents' part. It is tempting to think we can take our foot off the gas a little bit but between finding the line between helicoptering and kids on autopilot, this stuff is almost a full-time job in itself.

Even without a kid, I think I would be lucky to have prepared half as well as this person did.

What kind of parenting do you do where you can't find one day in your life for an on-site interview? Most parents (including us) can find time to have hobbies and life besides parenting (which also includes days not being home), is that really such an overwhelming thing to go through for one of the best paid jobs in the world?!

Did you... read the thread? Or the post?

This isn't about going in for a one day interview. It's about the huge amount of time required for the interview preparation that comes long before an actual interview. As the post I replied to said:

> even if you were to ignore the upfront preparation costs just the timeline (months with not much indication)

And the fact that it isn't just one day of interviews, as the post details it's multiple interviews, some remote, some in person.

All of these things are an absolutely enormous time suck.

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