Comment by lukaslalinsky
11 years ago
Another way of looking at it is that they do these kinds of interviews particularly because they do want to hire fresh grads (and ideally, the best 5% of those) over experienced programmers. And if that's the case, then it's not really flawed, it's doing what it's supposed to do.
Actually, Max himself said that it "Felt like they would have preferred a fresh comp sci grad."[1]
Investment banks recruit bright young graduates, putting them through a tough selection process (c.f. all those hard-working interns we keep reading about), and select the ones who perform/conform the best. The rationale for bringing in young (as opposed to experienced) people is that they'll work their asses off, can be moulded to fit the culture (i.e. independent thinkers aren't necessarily sought), and (perhaps most importantly) are too junior to present a threat to the incumbents.
If Google's going down the same path, it may be a sign that their corporate culture is solidifying, which would be a bad sign, IMHO.
1: https://twitter.com/mxcl/status/608698037100244992
I think this is probably overall true. I'm a bit cynical, maybe, but the set of tech used by developers here at Google does not necessarily intersect with what is used in the rest of the industry. So much is proprietary, and best practices are heavily codified and well understood. So in reality I suspect that new grads are as valuable or more valuable to Google as experienced engineers since it's unlikely the specific technologies an experienced engineer has under their belt will be specifically applicable here.
For the top elite of experienced engineers that may not be the case, as they will come with some overall good analytical skills that Google wants. But for most in our industry, what we have learned over the years is how to be good in various sets of tech around our platforms of choice... and that is mostly irrelevant to Google, as they have their own platforms.