If you're not a software engineer... be thankful

[trudie]

If you're not a software engineer... be thankful You may have to answer questions like this on interviews: Google Interview Questions Some time back I interviewed with Google, and a number of other well known software development companies. I've written up a number of questions very similar to the ones I was asked, changing them enough so that I'm not breaking my NDA. Q: Why are manhole covers round? Q: A man pushed his car to a hotel and lost his fortune. What happened? Q: Explain the significance of "dead beef". Q: Write a C program which measures the the speed of a context switch on a UNIX/Linux system. Q: Given a function which produces a random integer in the range 1 to 5, write a function which produces a random integer in the range 1 to 7. Q: Describe the algorithm for a depth-first graph traversal. Q: Design a class library for writing card games. Q: You need to check that your friend, Bob, has your correct phone number, but you cannot ask him directly. You must write a the question on a card which and give it to Eve who will take the card to Bob and return the answer to you. What must you write on the card, besides the question, to ensure Bob can encode the message so that Eve cannot read your phone number? Q: How are cookies passed in the HTTP protocol? Q: What is the size of the C structure below on a 32-bit system? On a 64-bit? struct foo { char a; char* b; }; Q: Design the SQL database tables for a car rental database. Q: Write a regular expression which matches a email address. Q: Write a function f(a, b) which takes two character string arguments and returns a string containing only the characters found in both strings in the order of a. Write a version which is order N-squared and one which is order N. Q: You are given a the source to a application which is crashing when run. After running it 10 times in a debugger, you find it never crashes in the same place. The application is single threaded, and uses only the C standard library. What programming errors could be causing this crash? How would you test each one? Q: Explain how congestion control works in the TCP protocol.

[labossiere]

no wonder computers crash so much!!

[ventress]

i know the answer to the first one and the second do you know the rest?

[teat]

these seem like reasonable questions you seem like a poser.

[osinski]

Oh you know those pesky MIT graduates!

[curling]

*buzz buzz buzz*

[leiser]

Thanks. I'm not. I was talking about how such questions are asked on engineering interviews. Most people I talk to about their interviews (even high-class sales and marketing people) aren't asked anything like these kinds of questions.

[weisz]

dead beef is what??? I'm over 45 and never heard of it

[minteer]

*re-evaluated career* that's easier then the GED

[wilmawilma]

hey Bob- me. Q: You need to check that your friend, Bob, has your correct phone number, but you cannot ask him directly. You must write a the question on a card which and give it to Eve who will take the card to Bob and return the answer to you. What must you write on the card, besides the question, to ensure Bob can encode the message so that Eve cannot read your phone number?

[lamarr]

why assume Bob has your number already?

[ramana]

Read the 1st part again "You need to check that your friend, Bob, has your correct phone number" You are not trying to get Bob your number, you're trying to verify if he has it or not. If you ask him to you, and your phone doesn't ring, then you have your answer, the answer being he does not have your number.