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On November 12 2011 09:28 Triscuit wrote:
Hey guys, just a quick update. I've got a lot of stuff going on right now so it's tough for me to respond to a lot of posts. I will check through here later and respond to any specific questions.
I would like to say that my interview with Google is actually this upcoming Monday. I just got all the travel information stuff worked out. I know Google is maybe a little more secretive about their process than Microsoft, so I shot my recruiter an e-mail to verify that it would be okay to write a blog about it.
I don't want to fuck up my chances by posting something I shouldn't and potentially violating the NDA they're having me sign, although I'm not sure if the NDA even pertains to the process, it is more previous employee confidentiality, but I can't read legalese very well so I'll have to go back over it a few times to really "get" it.
Regardless, thanks everyone for all your support. This was an incredibly surprising amount of exposure for me, and I'm glad to be able to help those of you who are already, or will be in the job market. Or at the very least present a halfway entertaining story. <3 <3
GLGL
For me, Google interviews were much harder than Microsoft. Just some perspective: I didn't get an offer from Google but received offers from Microsoft and Amazon (didn't apply to FB/Apple).
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On November 12 2011 12:42 Cambium wrote:Show nested quote +On November 12 2011 09:28 Triscuit wrote:
Hey guys, just a quick update. I've got a lot of stuff going on right now so it's tough for me to respond to a lot of posts. I will check through here later and respond to any specific questions.
I would like to say that my interview with Google is actually this upcoming Monday. I just got all the travel information stuff worked out. I know Google is maybe a little more secretive about their process than Microsoft, so I shot my recruiter an e-mail to verify that it would be okay to write a blog about it.
I don't want to fuck up my chances by posting something I shouldn't and potentially violating the NDA they're having me sign, although I'm not sure if the NDA even pertains to the process, it is more previous employee confidentiality, but I can't read legalese very well so I'll have to go back over it a few times to really "get" it.
Regardless, thanks everyone for all your support. This was an incredibly surprising amount of exposure for me, and I'm glad to be able to help those of you who are already, or will be in the job market. Or at the very least present a halfway entertaining story. <3 <3 GLGL For me, Google interviews were much harder than Microsoft. Just some perspective: I didn't get an offer from Google but received offers from Microsoft and Amazon (didn't apply to FB/Apple).
I think the way Google handles their interviews works a bit more to the way I think. Most of the questions I have encountered from Google have been fairly simple to comprehend at a O(n^2) speed or O(n) space, but they just drill you until you're able to optimize it to O(1) or O(n) time, and O(1) space.
Like I said in my previous blog, I thought I did horribly on the phone interviews, but apparently I did quite above average because I was relentless in trying to optimize the problems, and I guess they liked the way I thought about things.
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gl dude!
for the sorting of the integers in the binary tree, couldnt you just read it and then e.g. quicksort it for O(n+n log n) which makes O(n log n) ?
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On November 12 2011 04:56 Okiesmokie wrote:Show nested quote +On November 11 2011 04:29 Perfect wrote:
Now I know some people will say, well you could just figure out the algorithm and you have the password. Which is true of advanced Scripters, but to scrub IT tech they won’t figure it out. Not to mention that you could put your Blank spaces and Tabs ANYwhere (between words, at the beginning of code) and build it that way, which would be much more complicated but very secure.
I'm not sure about your definition of very secure, but any method of storing a password in plaintext (be it readable letters, or binary representation) is far from secure 
Yeaah... you shouldn't ever assume that your algorithm is unknown, though I don't think he was protecting himself from any hackers or anything.
Also, OP you went for a testing job? Why do they ask you coding questions? I've never interviewed for QA, but I've never seen QA even look at a single line of code (apart from coming over and seeing my computer screen).
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On November 12 2011 16:02 Montana[TK] wrote:
gl dude!
for the sorting of the integers in the binary tree, couldnt you just read it and then e.g. quicksort it for O(n+n log n) which makes O(n log n) ?
Yeah, that's easy. But the hard part is writing the code for quicksort or mergesort. Which I don't know off the top of my head.
On November 13 2011 00:14 King K. Rool wrote:Show nested quote +On November 12 2011 04:56 Okiesmokie wrote:On November 11 2011 04:29 Perfect wrote:
Now I know some people will say, well you could just figure out the algorithm and you have the password. Which is true of advanced Scripters, but to scrub IT tech they won’t figure it out. Not to mention that you could put your Blank spaces and Tabs ANYwhere (between words, at the beginning of code) and build it that way, which would be much more complicated but very secure.
I'm not sure about your definition of very secure, but any method of storing a password in plaintext (be it readable letters, or binary representation) is far from secure Yeaah... you shouldn't ever assume that your algorithm is unknown, though I don't think he was protecting himself from any hackers or anything. Also, OP you went for a testing job? Why do they ask you coding questions? I've never interviewed for QA, but I've never seen QA even look at a single line of code (apart from coming over and seeing my computer screen).
I don't understand. How can you test the functionality of software without writing code?
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On November 13 2011 00:14 King K. Rool wrote:
Also, OP you went for a testing job? Why do they ask you coding questions? I've never interviewed for QA, but I've never seen QA even look at a single line of code (apart from coming over and seeing my computer screen).
Usually a distinction is made between QA and automated (unit/integration/system/etc) testing. The OP didn't mention QA at all (though under some definitions QA encompasses pretty much all testing/verification processes).
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On November 13 2011 00:14 King K. Rool wrote:
Also, OP you went for a testing job? Why do they ask you coding questions? I've never interviewed for QA, but I've never seen QA even look at a single line of code (apart from coming over and seeing my computer screen).
It's different for every team at Microsoft, but my team is pretty code heavy. We don't look at the product code very much, as the developers handle their own unit/integration tests, but we still have a pretty good understanding of how the product works under the hood (gray box testing). We sometimes have to execute our test cases manually, but for the most part we have an automation framework to execute and verify the cases automatically.
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It's interesting how different those processes are handeled in different companies/instituttions. I work in the the IT department of one of my countrys biggest unverisities, yet my two interviews only took about roughly 45 minutes and i didn't get my travel expenses compensated.
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On November 14 2011 02:43 Doso wrote:
It's interesting how different those processes are handeled in different companies/instituttions. I work in the the IT department of one of my countrys biggest unverisities, yet my two interviews only took about roughly 45 minutes and i didn't get my travel expenses compensated.
I think that it is more about the location than the company. Here i was interviewed as a developer for Microsoft without even getting a refund for my parking fee.. (not that i blame MS, all the companies act that way here). So hearing that a company would pay you for flight, hotel, car and food just to get you interviewed simply blows my mind.
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On November 10 2011 22:13 TheDemigod wrote:
"The food was surprisingly expensive, but it was also very, very good. I had a grilled Italian sandwich and tomato basil soup and that was probably about 8 bucks."
In Australia that would be considered incredibly cheap! Just the sandwich at a nice cafe would be $15 or some mind-blowing number it still astonishes me sometimes even after being here my whole life!
You have to remember that your minimum wage is 15.51, while ours is 7.25 or so (it varies among states, as well). Something to consider. It isn't so much currency relationships, it's that your wages are so much higher than ours, and it balances out in the end.
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But congrats.
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As someone local to the Redmond area, I could imagine pretty much everything you wrote about from the airport to the mall you probably stayed at to the campus. Good luck with Microsoft and Google!
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Hey guys. Another update. I'm currently in my hotel in Sunnyvale, CA (Domain Hotel on El Camino Real if you're local). Google interview is tomorrow at 10:30 PST. I am still waiting to hear back from my recruiter to know if it's okay to write a blog about my Google experience. I am concerned about this because I had to sign an NDA coming into the process, but I don't think that was for the interview specifically.
You'll hear one way or the other by the end of tomorrow. I think I'll put a little more effort into my Google one, just because I'm disappointed at how sloppy my Microsoft write-up was, and I don't think it properly captured my emotions.
Also I'm really not sure if I should share, in any form, the technical questions they ask, in the off-chance that the NDA has a clause about sharing interview questions. Please understand from my point of view that I don't want to do anything to jeopardize a job offer I might receive.
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On November 13 2011 01:54 Triscuit wrote:
I don't understand. How can you test the functionality of software without writing code?
I work as a consultant for a big Swedish company and the way we work, we as developers test the code, the big company tests the product. They do regression testing and everything like that, but they do not write, nor read, any code. Some of them know their way around a database, but that's it.
The way to test a software without writing code is to use it.
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Just got back from my interview with Google. I'm going to write something about it, and because I didn't get an answer back from my recruiter if I should post something, I'm just going to post something anyway and if I get a response I'll edit the writeup or take it down (worst case).
@Tobberoth
I think Microsoft's thinking is to provide a structured framework to be able to test a product and its integration between systems, so that a lot of the issues that would normally come up during actual usage can be weeded out systematically before the product actually ships, like security, scalability, and corner cases.
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Great read man. I'm up in the Redmond Area myself. I lose to the AHGL guys once or twice a year at the Intel InfernaLAN events (super fun stuff!!). There's also PAX once a year up here as well, so the environment is well suited for gamerdom. Being from California originally, though, I desperately miss all of the sunshine. I look forward to reading your next post.
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tree and linked list the butter and bread of interview questions 
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I just actually got offered a phone interview for a job at the Redmond campus of Microsoft myself right now. I'm a UK student, so for me it's a pretty big deal for that to happen, especially when I had got denied by the UK division of the same company.
Any idea on tips I should know for the phone interview?
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On November 15 2011 10:03 Triscuit wrote:
Just got back from my interview with Google. I'm going to write something about it, and because I didn't get an answer back from my recruiter if I should post something, I'm just going to post something anyway and if I get a response I'll edit the writeup or take it down (worst case).
@Tobberoth
I think Microsoft's thinking is to provide a structured framework to be able to test a product and its integration between systems, so that a lot of the issues that would normally come up during actual usage can be weeded out systematically before the product actually ships, like security, scalability, and corner cases.
Pretty much. Thanks for the updates and good luck!
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EPT
