<rss version="2.0" xmlns:dc="http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/" xmlns:atom="http://www.w3.org/2005/Atom"><channel><title>Hacker News: mvalmostnoogler</title><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=mvalmostnoogler</link><description>Hacker News RSS</description><docs>https://hnrss.org/</docs><generator>hnrss v2.1.1</generator><lastBuildDate>Sun, 21 Jun 2026 13:56:53 +0000</lastBuildDate><atom:link href="https://hnrss.org/user?id=mvalmostnoogler" rel="self" type="application/rss+xml"></atom:link><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by mvalmostnoogler in "Google: 90% of our engineers use the software you wrote (Homebrew), but..."]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>I'll be starting at Google in a week and a half. I can't go into specifics, but I can say this:<p>I had two phone interviews - the first had quite a few questions about my prior experience (over a decade) and how to approach real-world problems from a high-level, including some that I had worked on at my current position. The second was primarily purely technical, but did have some more theoretical/project-management-y type of questions. In neither one was I required to write any code.<p>On-site: one interview was entirely whiteboard-coding (in a collaborative style), on a set of related generic problems. Next was one with a set of problems related to my experience. Third was almost entirely telling war stories. Last two were some generic graph-theory-type problems and some simple problems involving data structures relevant to the my area of experience.<p>As I hadn't interviewed for anything in 11 years, I did spend some time brushing up on my basic algorithmic theory, and essentially followed Steve Yegge's suggestions. I honestly think I probably could have done the vast majority of it without any studying, but spending time practicing solving problems on paper (with a countdown-timer as an artificial pressure-inducing device) certainly did help me, I think, in the on-site. No amount of memorization could have helped with most of it, aside from basic knowledge that anyone who's taken Data Structures should know.<p>I didn't find the process to be insulting at all; it was an enjoyable challenge. Everyone I talked with on the engineering side of things I can only say the best about, and so far as I can tell the team I'll be with has some really great people. I am a more senior developer, so perhaps I got a different experience than some.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Thu, 11 Jun 2015 03:36:56 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9697332</link><dc:creator>mvalmostnoogler</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9697332</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9697332</guid></item></channel></rss>