This is absolutely true. I work at Giant Search and Advertising Company, and joining was a huge mistake. I thought I would be working interesting technical problems with a high degree of autonomy — instead the work is extremely boring, and you get ahead by playing political games rather than by innovating. I’m one of the rare few here who managed to get through the interview without really preparing.

Before joining, I had endless enthusiasm for computer science and programming. Now I feel so unenthusiastic that I question my future in this industry.

I don’t think there’s any intention to it at all.

Unless one takes extraordinary steps to examine what brings truly brings value, most people interview for clones of themselves. Or worse: their idealized self-image.

Google started off with very mathy people, and highly competitive people, and interviewing this way has always worked for them, so why change?

Some people have done internal studies showing how wildly counterproductive their interview process is, and yet it does not change.

I suspect psychological factors are the main reason why this process persists.

> Cynical answer though

Honestly I don't think it's that cynical - it just makes sense. There are the people who can and will do that stuff - and do it happily - and they would presumably be the easiest to hire as junior devs. Google views it as a stepping stone towards their next product launch, and the programmers see it as a stepping stone to a more enjoyable job.

And then the inventors and entrepreneurs create their own projects, and typically both produce and earn more than they would've at the company.

It kind of works out in everyone's best interest (although I'm sure the Google hiring managers sometimes regret missing out on the guy who invented New Cool Thing, and the guy that invented New Cool Thing is probably still a bit miffed that he couldn't land or get through an interview for a job he/she was clearly qualified for).

> They want people who can churn out code when given specific instructions, and that is what their interview process optimizes for.

I think the reason is a bit different.

Google is a search engine. It's a company whose success was due to one (or several) but very good algorithm.

That explains everything: why they are so obsessed with algorithms, why they hire so much olympics winners, why they don't care about anything else.

Their code is pretty bad most of the time, they've took beautiful Webkit and turned it into Blink mess. They are all about algorithms, they don't care about code.

And that's a pity that people are copying Google's methodology without understanding why Google is doing so. If you are developing an OS, you'd be better copying Microsoft, which had much of a different approach, nearly without any algorithm questions.

>> They want people who can churn out code when given specific instructions, and that is what their interview process optimizes for.

Somehow I doubt that. Can anyone who actually works at google comment on what it's like? Do people come to you with specific requirement and expect you to crank out code like the interview problems?

I've never worked somewhere where the software folks were actually just coding machines.

Right. Coding tests are designed to find people who are happy in a job where their only responsibility is: "Here's your coding assignment. Go do it." Technology companies are overfull of engineers who want more responsibility than that. They don't need any more.

And it reminds me of this one too: https://twitter.com/brianacton/status/3109544383

Brian Acton, rejected by Facebook in 2009. Then in 2014 FB acquired his company for $19B...

Agree, they want smart workers (well you have to be smart at some degree to do software). And they don't care if they will miss some genius, they just let other companies help the selection process, and if you turn out to be gold, they will pay a big money to get you.

It is actually pretty well known that the second way into FAANGs is through acquisition.

You could have saved a lot of space just saying button pressers. This is most large companies and why I am burnt out on writing software professionally.

The reasoning for this is the commoditization of software hiring. The idea is to target the median of the bell curve, to lower risks and costs associated with hiring. This targets the greatest quantity of developers in a moment, but it also means the people who play it safe, follow popular trends, and don’t take any risks on product improvements.

To think about it another way the idea is to create mediocre software with mediocre developers because the software is thought to cost less than finding, hiring, and retaining top quality people.

Makes perfect sense. Thats when you know you need to short the stock in the LONG RUN. Because all they know is taking orders from someone and running it. This is the same with all companies. If Mark Zuckerberg steps down from Facebook, you can pretty much know, it's going to go down.

False; Google wants everyone like them to keep them away from the competition.

Edit: it's unfair to single Google out. It's unfortunately the correct game theory and impossible to regulate.

Reading posts like that make the process seem stupid, but it has utility for the interviewers. All of this silliness is creating an artificial talent shortage which drives up salaries at FANG companies.

It’s far from universal, but the incentives between managers, workers, and shareholders never really align that well.