According to intervieees all people applying for Google are asked this question:

You walk into a TED talk auditorium full of people. Estimate how much poo is in all of their bums collectively

Explain your reasoning

  • oddlyqueer@lemmy.ml
    14·
    11 days ago

    yep. If I may be so bold as to presume what the question writer is thinking: the question is supposed to test for how well you account for other changes in a dynamic system when one variable changes. It’s not an unreasonable thing to want to test an engineer for. Your power-to-weight ratio is dependent on your weight, so the clever engineer should be able to start with the independent variable (size) and work out the ramifications and derive a solution (better jumping ability -> just jump out). Unfortunately, the questions are so divorced from reality that they introduce a ton of other factors the author makes assumptions about and doesn’t explain, like how your muscles or circulatory system functions under this mysterious shrinking magic. Can you even breathe in this scenario? Is it “less correct” to assume this is a “Honey I Shrunk the Kids” situation and your jumping ability remains proportional to your height? Do we know whether this blender, like all blenders, has a lid? Am I strong enough in this scenario to remove the lid? etc. And the further you get from “real-world” scenarios, the more of the hypothetical world you have to explain, and most questions really underestimate how many assumptions they’re introducing. So you get these insane questions that you can only get right if you already know the answer, which is why this book exists. It’s a great system.

    • SchillMenaker [he/him]@hexbear.netEnglish
      13·
      11 days ago

      In my imaginary tech company my interview process asks these insane questions and only considers the candidates that push back against their absurdity.

      • oddlyqueer@lemmy.ml
        3·
        10 days ago

        I’ve never worked for one of the big “big tech” companies so I don’t know how deeply they’ve drunk of the kool-aid, but that attitude isn’t uncommon at smaller shops. Questioning assumptions is an important part of the engineering process after all. I have been on the other side of the interview table a few times and I like to make up my own questions, and part of the interview process is seeing how well the candidate clarifies the parameters of the question. It’s not dissimilar to GMing an RPG. You lay out an environment, the player-candidate asks questions about it, then they take a course of action and we see how it proceeds. I try to be prepared with a solid, work-related scenario because I don’t like candidates having to workshop my questions for me when they’re hunting for a job, but if they spot an inconsistency or something else I hadn’t thought of before, it’s a positive sign that they’re thinking about the problem the way I expect an engineer to think about problems.

    • KuroXppi [they/them]@hexbear.netOPEnglish
      8·
      11 days ago

      It sounds like an absolute headache and I’m sorry you’ve had irl exposure to it. I’ll let you off the hook of answering my ‘how much poo in the TED talk auditorium’ question as a sign of my maganimousnessness

      • oddlyqueer@lemmy.ml
        8·
        11 days ago

        Thanks, it is lol. I am currently weighing whether to even continue with the industry or move on to something else. I’m job hunting right now and exceedingly over it. I still like the work when I can get it but the interview process has gotten significantly more insane since the last time I was actively looking for work, and it wasn’t great then.