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Google Vs. Microsoft: a Tale of Two Interviews
jfruh writes "You might be a bit jealous of Andrew Weiss: fresh out of college, he got interviews with both Microsoft and Google. He discusses (to the extent NDAs allow) the differences between the two experiences, ranging from the silly (Google's famous gourmet cafeteria vs. Microsoft's gaming room) to the serious (Google's technical emphasis vs. Microsoft's focus on explanatory and consulting skills.)"
He went in unprepared for possible the toughest IT interview of his life and he did not get the position. BIG SURPRISE. then he had some job leads spoon fed to him, interviewed at a few other places and nailed the MS interview. the end. saved you the 45 seconds it takes to read it. the position at MS was more MIS/marketing, and they asked "softer" questions, big whoop. Just some ivy league brat who didn't nail his first interview, and wanted a way to bitch.
Having been an intern at both, and gone through at least the intern version of their interviews, I didn't see a huge difference. Can you solve problems? How do you approach different types of problems? Simply put, did your education (both formal and personal) teach you enough to know the important things that any software engineer should know? Communication is incredibly important, and your ability to communicate how you are solving the problems and dealing with issues factors in quite a bit.
Once inside, they do have different cultures, goals, focus, but as far as getting in, I feel there's very few people who would be hired by one, but not the other.
Or, that he was interviewing for completely different positions.
You want a job? Pay for it with you time.
Google is wanting to you to be technical and MS only cares about how well you can talk.
Which only goes to show that Google cares about the tech stuff, and MS just cares to make money.
Not saying that Google doesn't want money, but it doesn't seem to be all that matters to them.
MS on the other hand, that is all that matters to them.
One of the best advice I ever got was:
Remember, no matter how great of a thing you create, unless someone sells it it will be forgotten.
I'm a consultant - I convert gibberish into cash-flow.
Not saying that Google doesn't want money, but it doesn't seem to be all that matters to them.
Playing devil's advocate, you could also say "Not saying that Microsoft isn't technical, but it doesn't seem to be all that matters to them".
To be fair, a lot of companies underestimate the ability for tech people to have good communication skills, for both inside the company and without. When you have big companies like Microsoft and Google, to have a good infrastructure, you need good communication. This just shows that, for one reason or another, Microsoft has chosen to focus on this in their current hiring process.
Honestly, they both want / need money and tech to stay in business.
"Intelligence has nothing to do with politics!"
-Londo Mollari
I've rarely interviewed more than once for a job, never 3 times. And got every job I ever wanted (there were some I didn't want I got and some I didn't want I didn't get). Either
1) I am a super mega-uber-super-fantastic-interviewee and you are a loser or
2) different companies hire in different ways.
The number of interviews is meaningless.
putting the 'B' in LGBTQ+
I have a dozen or so former classmates working at Microsoft and they had 2 on-site interviews max.
Google is wanting to you to be technical and MS only cares about how well you can talk.
You do realize that the people the pay the bills are often not interested in the tiny highly technical details. This is also why very often Architects are higher up the food chain than operations personnel.
It's the architect's ability to communicate that separates them.
I have a job I like, pays well and lets me set my own hours. You have to convince me to come work for you.
One of the unique aspects of my time in Redmond was the interview environment. In between interviews, I was in a room filled with music, video games, and movies. While it may sound unheard of, it actually worked in my favor helping to keep my mind off things for a bit.
Entry interview: you'll need to dodge alien laser beams.
Exit interview: you'll need to dodge flying chairs.
Best advice?
Sounds like one of the most depressing things I have ever heard.
I would rather create something wonderful no one ever sees than have what I create be dictated by some salesdrone.
Here's my experience in Google vs Amazon
In summary, Google's interviews don't get a flying rats behind about anything but microbenchmarks on small pieces of code. Amazon cared more about technical design but started asking me questions on the Linux Kernel (I was applying for Java Engineer position)
Some more odds:
One of the Google interviews disagreed with me that a Java HashSet was not Big O(1) for the contains() method when I wrote out my sample code. I pointed out (very kindly) that I believe HashSet is backed by HashMap in Java, which is constant time. He said he didn't think that was true and I conceded and said, "I can assume then for now that it is not constant time then." I was extremely polite, but I'm fairly certain that cost me the job.
The Amazon interview didn't go after they started asking me the internals of the Linux kernel. Then, the gentlemen asked me to implement a C function. I stopped him immediately after he was done speaking and said, "There must be a mistake, while i'm more than willing to attempt this in C, I thought I was applying for a Java position." He said he didn't know Java and asked me to implement atoi() in Java then. Needless to say he wasn't satisfied with any iteration of my Java code and made it a point that C was far superior to Java when we were done.
I really wanted the Google job, and I feel I was definitely qualified. What makes me feel better about it I guess is that it seems some Googlers couldn't pass the Google interview.
Well, that was a fairly lame article...
Anyway, I interviewed with Microsoft back in 1989 or 1990, and it appears that things have changed since then. Back then, they definitely were more focused on technical questions. I don't remember anyone asking anything about customers or business or communications. It was all technology, with a bit of design thrown in. The position wasn't even a hard-core programming job. Since I was a few years out of college, the customer/business/communications questions would have been nice, since I would probably would have been better positioned to answer those than the college seniors, as my then current job had me working with customers a lot. Their recruiting group was horribly disorganized back then also -- they switched recruiters and the job at the last minute, so no one (myself, the recruiter, the interviewers) was properly prepared. I suppose they've probably fixed that since then... One of the weirdest things was the "cult of Bill" -- whenever you asked a question, the answer seemed to always be prefaced with something like, "Well, Bill thinks that..." Even questions that had nothing to do with technology or Microsoft, like "what do people in Redmond do for fun?" "Well, Bill thinks that being fit and active helps the brain, so a lot of us like to mountain bike..."
Considering that he was offered the job of "Associate Consultant" at Microsoft, I'd say he was interviewing for completely different positions.
I don't care how technical you are if you can't explain what you are doing to others. You need to be able to explain what you are going to do during design phase, so that others can make sure it fits in with the pieces they are working on. You need to explain what you are doing to production support teams, so that they can understand the system well enough to support it. Also, depending on the type of project you are working on, you will probably need to explain some of it to people who do user manuals, phone support documents, training documents etc. There are several different levels of explanation that need to be done and you better be able to explain your application to all of them.
My company home page
"Hmm... why would someone be jealous?"
Not to mention that I'm sure both Google and Microsoft employee plenty of minimum wage workers... those campuses don't clean themselves (yet) as well as hordes of junior level monkeys, clerks, secretaries, etc. Just getting an interview at a company isn't all that impressive unless it's a high-up job that falls into the "dream job" category for thousands or millions of people.
Who is this insanely awesome employer of yours?
From what I've gathered so far: they hire clueless idiots who spend all day posting banalities on the 'net, pay them excessively, and don't force a standard workday.
For the love of god please clue us in.
I have a few friends at both places. At MS, the style and topics of an interview can change from team to team, and from internal organization to organization. From what I hear, at Google it's a little different in that you get interviewed by a wide variety of folks, and then teams "bid" on you based on your interview results and strengths/weaknesses, so the technical interview experience there is largely the same for every candidate.
"False hope is why we'll never run out of natural resources!" - Lewis Black
Or they changed job requirements part way through and are still interested in you for a related position but not the specific job they were looking for before.
Not to mention that I'm sure both Google and Microsoft employ plenty of minimum wage workers...
Actually Google singlehandedly raised the "minimum wage" across the Silicon Valley back in the day with all other tech giants having to catch up to avoid losing talent... don't sound so bitter man...
Bow before me, for I am root.
It's a nice thought... but the problem is it becomes very difficult to fund future creations with that mindset. Unless you're fortunate enough to be in some funded department who is just doing R&D it's not a great way to go through life. Even if you are that fortunate, chances are there's some very political individual properly extracting enough from your group to make sure the company at large is getting value out of their funding.
Same holds for pretty much any productive endeavor.
Why so many? Sounds like huge pain in the ass. I get irritated if interviews run more than 1 hour. If you want my time, pay me for it.
Agreed. They may be the top of the prestige ladder, but google and microsoft are both places where you'll be expected to put in long hours for average pay. Maybe the hours and hours of interviews is really just to determine who values their time the least?
I was very interested to read your post, having just recently interviewed with both Amazon and Google.
Here's my experience with each. Amazon was four 45-minute interviews, with a 15 minute break between each. Clearly they had decided on the problems for each candidate beforehand, as each interviewer asked a different question or two about my previous experiences and then a technical question that took the remainder of the interview time. I was also given the opportunity to ask about their experiences, which was actually quite illuminating as it was clear their past projects heavily influenced each technical question they asked.
Google was five hour-long interviews with only a minute break or so between them. Additionally, there was an hour-long guided lunch after the third interview. My first interviewer gave me a rundown of how the process worked (in particular, they had a sheet keeping track of what problems I had been asked that was passed on to each subsequent interviewer) and then each interview pretty much was 100% dedicated to solving a technical problem. The only person who asked anything about my previous experience and gave me any information about the workplace culture was my lunchtime interviewer. From what I gathered, it sounds like after a training session most developers are put into an interview rotation, which I suppose makes sense when one considers the number of applicants they must have. As a result, my last interview also had an observer present, presumably in training.
I won't talk about the questions asked except to indicate that both companies asked interesting and engaging technical questions - only one of which (Google's "warm up question") I'd seen on glassdoor or other interview question lists. But Amazon seemed much more interested in my experience in addition to my technical abilities, whereas talking to Google was more like taking a standardized exam.
Google is wanting to you to be technical and MS only cares about how well you can talk.
Of course, Google has the advantage of prior knowledge here. They probably had the guy profiled before he even signed up for the interview.
If Pandora's box is destined to be opened, *I* want to be the one to open it.
When I interviewed at Google, I was struck by how my main interviewer had no work life balance after he moved to Google. He talked about all of the things he used to do - hiking, mountain biking, etc. When I talked to him in more detail about some of his favorite hikes and rides, it became apparent that they were all done before he went to Google and that he no longer has time. Then as I talked to the rest of the team members I found the same thing - their lives revolve around Google. And as I looked around I saw all of the great amenities that are geared toward keeping you on-campus - great food, free laundry, haircuts, oil changes, gym, swimming pool, etc. You could literally live at the office and have everything you need.
That's when I realized that I didn't want to work there. They wanted to bring me back for another interview for a team member that wasn't there for the first one, but I declined and took another job.
I know people who work for these companies. What you say here is absolutely not true.
Very good point. I had the chance to interview at both Google and Microsoft. I found the interview styles to be pretty similar. Google was a bit heavier on the technical. Microsoft was a bit heavier on general problem solving. That's easily explained by the fact that I was interviewing to be a developer at Google and a tester at Microsoft. No big deal. There was one glaring difference between my experiences at the two companies. Google flew me to their Seattle office, set me up with a hotel, rental, car, food, etc., and spent the whole day in interviews with me before the recruiter told me that they don't actually have any openings and they're just building a candidate pool. Microsoft took me to Redmond, gave me a similar treatment, and I got an offer the same day.
Microsoft actually has people who will talk to me about the problems I have with their software and systems. They, in many cases, will work with my company to fix the problems, or at least provide a workaround. I've never been able to talk to anyone at Google about a problem or have them acknowledge it, much less work with me to fix it.
Google is wanting to you to be technical and MS only cares about how well you can talk.
Well, right out of the gate he was not applying for the same job. So its inherently and apples to oranges comparison.
Which only goes to show that Google cares about the tech stuff, and MS just cares to make money.
That's drawing a pretty specific conclusion from virtually no information. Your wouldn't have some sort of bias would you?
One could chalk it up to the different requirements of the job he's applying for.
Or one could spin it that Microsoft values effective communication highly even for its technical positions.
But then he'd miss his own comment!
"If you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear." - Every fascist, ever
I'll take number 1.
No sensible employer will keep a number 2 employee beyond year 1 and I don't like to switch jobs that often. In fact if number 2 was a serious option I would expect you were going to axe me after 12 months for a total spend of ~$66k rather than keep me for 24 months at a total spend of $268 million. Meanwhile I'd need to keep myself in ramen noodles for the first 10 months while living in my parent's house.
Ten cents and hour doubling every month will make you more in a year and a half than the $100k/year would in those same time, and impossibly more after that. I'd see it as a question judging how long you wanted to work at Microsoft. If you were in for a career, you'd end up making more than Bill. If you wanted to jump ship in a year with MS on your resume to make more some place else, then 1 would be the answer. Different people want different things. Some just want to jump jobs every year or two for better raises and to keep things interesting. Some are looking to stick around for the long haul. Projects also look for both sorts of people. Since we probably don't know what he wants, I'd be honest and discuss how long I wanted to stay with MS and what my future plans were.
What I would have answered would have depended on when I interviewed. Earlier, I'd take the money and run. Later, when asked what I saw myself doing two years from now in an interview, my response was "still sitting here doing the same thing. I've played the .com job jumping game for years now and am ready to settle down." That was the answer they were looking for as they had to refill that position every year. They paid me more than I asked and here I still am ten years later.
From what I've gathered so far: they hire clueless idiots who spend all day posting banalities on the 'net, pay them excessively, and don't force a standard workday.
For the love of god please clue us in.
I bet he edits /. summaries.
In most companies each person in the committee has his/her own style of questioning and sets of questions. So it would be quite a stretch to extrapolate from a few anecdotes about the interview to estimate the company policy. I know one guy who was fixated on the area of a 2D polygon and the point in-or-out test for a 2D polygon. There was another who would always ask for reversing a char string without temp storage, would not let go till he makes the interviewee agrees using recursion and double XOR is one hell of a trick. Then he would let the dazed applicant go with a self satisfied smile. Then there was this guy who was proud of scoring 800 in GRE analysis. All his questions would come out of mensa puzzle books. So unless your sample size is large, do not extrapolate from interview anecdotes to company policies.
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
Honestly it could be 0.10 cents a month and doubling every month and it would still be well worth it by the end of the second year. The growth function is so insane that your short-term downside is rapidly outstripped by the hyper fast growth of the function. I mean, yeah at month 12 you would get a measly $204.80, but at the end of month 24 you would pull down $838,860.80. So...yeah.
Hourly it builds even faster - $16 for the first month (160 hours at 0.10 / hour) and by the twelfth month you're getting $32,768. So after 12 months at 1) you made $100,000, and after 12 months at 2) you made $65,520 - but in the 13th month at 2) you pull ahead.
The more interesting question to show true understanding would be to ask them to figure that out for a job that only lasts exactly one year, where the correct answer is the one that doesn't double, just to catch the slackers that think they have it memorized. That's exactly the kind of thing I would put on a computer science algorithms test if I was a professor.
Yeah the same thing happened to me. If you have to do a lot of interviews it doesn't mean the corporation is an awesome place to be. Just that it is so large that it has people who have to justify their paychecks by spending days interviewing people. Not exactly a sign of a productive environment I may add...
Out of curiosity, what is the difference in the amount of money paid to Google for the software you want help with versus what has been paid to Microsoft?
I've never been able to talk to anyone at Google about a problem or have them acknowledge it, much less work with me to fix it.
Depends on the product. I know that Google Earth, at least, takes bug reports and feature requests via a public issue tracker on code.google.com. I've filed two feature requests. They acknowledged one of them.
Why so many?
Sounds like huge pain in the ass. I get irritated if interviews run more than 1 hour. If you want my time, pay me for it.
Going AC since frankly my work history is my own, and I'd rather not have any negative commentary that follows be pinned to current/past employers.
Frankly a bit surprised seeing people make comments of this sort... I strongly suspect most of the folk making claims like this frankly either are naive and doing entry level (think university assistant admin where you're just starting out- which was usually hour to two, single interview in my experience), or blatantly arrogant (and perhaps a few who actually have skills to match their mouth, although the mouth usually offsets the skills).
~15 years in, I can't recall *ever* having a single hour interview w/ a company once beyond getting university positions- frankly unless they already know me very, very well (have worked w/ me and it's a formality), an hour isn't enough time to suss out the person and is a sign they frankly shouldn't be in charge of hiring since they don't know WTF they'yre doing. I say this coming from offers/interviewing w/ bigger names like google/intel/facebook to smaller like yelp/twitter, to early stage startups (think pre series A), all highly technical positions.
Each and every one has always been multi-hour, multiple person. The interviewing varies (sometimes technical grunts trying to verify skillset/ability to play nice with others), to soft-interviewing where they're the dept. head/CTO/CEO are trying to sell you on why you should join, and feel out your comp requirements- think salary vs equity preferences, if you're excited enough they can go lower, etc.
There is one sole exception that comes to mind, and it was for a well known company- in that case it was a 90 minute on the phone interview, sub-contracted position (think warm body provided by a HR firm), and mostly turned into me advising the client on what they should do for problems they were having, rather than them quizzing me. Took it (was interesting work, even if as a contracted warm body), but it was pretty obvious they weren't screening worth a damn, and that they were open to high turn over/canning rates (thus less of an investment for them, especially via the HR firm angle). Even then, that incident was an exception- the other times I've been in a similar scenario, it was always a more thorough validation; which frankly is fine, made it easier to demonstrate "and this is why you're not going to argue, and you're going to pay me exactly what I want if you want my skillset" ;)
Which is not to say you are unfit for the position. It's an indicator, but people get bad interview loops. Google knows this.
Average pay for a new Software Engineering BS grad is 80,000 USD? Microsoft was paying that in 2010. What are the above average companies paying and who are they?
I started at $60k for 30-35 hours a week at no-name company in PDX in 2006.. Cost of living is way less there than Redmond. I did a few phone interviews with MS back then, but they only wanted to start me at 68k or something like that. Though I'll admit having MS on my resume might have been better for my career in the long run, but I had a damn good time in Portland and I'm glad I got to live out most of my 20s with short working hours and a decent wad of cash in my pocket in a fun town.
I wish it did. But even artists need to eat.
For better or worse (I'd argue better), we're past the days of aristocracy founded artistic endeavours so if you plan to do "interesting work", be it paint, code, write, architect, etc. you better find a way to market it. It doesn't necessarily have to be mass marketed or commercially successful, but doing it as the OP suggested "something wonderful no one ever sees" isn't viable unless it's just your spare time.
And if it is, more power to you, but I'd argue that to push any real envelopes in these worlds you need to dedicate more serious time, which means some one needs to feed you.
An interview is a two way process.
Many of us wouldn't work for a company that had such a one sided view of things. I want a better job. The company wants the best employee. I'm happy to prove I'm the best employee, but they have to prove they're the best employer. If they want me to jump through hoops, then clearly they want a trained poodle and not an experienced software developer.
In that sense I agree with you. We're clearly not going to get on.
You have to be assertive. I think they wanted me because I was arguing heavily with the development boss of the whole product range and convinced him that my non-typical solution was better
If I was interviewing, this would impress me. I'd be inclined to argue because having people come up with alternative solutions and able to explain why theirs is better will generally lead to a better product.
I'd wager it's a fairly bottom heavy ratio.
Google would be well served to have an internal department which handles only the resolution of software problems for paying customers - and I'm not talking about just "tech support", but something more akin to Launchpad (complete with user-ranked bugs). Things like the bugs in Google Calendar which make client-side association with the calendars in eg. Outlook or Thunderbird cause events to be unmodifiable by the owners when the account data is imported.
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