I know Google interviews generate a lot of traffic on HN but I thought that I'd add something that I haven't seen covered, that is, the job itself.
I interviewed twice successfully for Google and the interview experience was impeccable (interviewers were great, HR was completely on the ball etc.). The first time there was a hiring freeze so that didn't go anywhere, the second led to offers in several countries in Googles empire. Most of these I could not accept for family reasons but one I could although Google were quite secretive about what the job was.
I accepted thinking that, well they know me well enough by now and what I can do. A mistake. Upon arrival it turned out to be writing an Android app which is completely the wrong end of the spectrum for me - I have never even written Java. I was been benchmarked against people who seem only to have done only that. The other thing that made me realise that I had no long term future in Google is that it was made clear to me that any experience of working for other software companies or other industries was neither interesting or useful. If you have a lot on your C.V. like I have this is problematic.
So I left after a few months.
Sure Google is a fabulous company, does some amazing stuff and has some great people (perhaps not as uniformly great as they'd like you to believe). If you fit the mould tightly enough you will have a lovely time.
TL;DR - They should not have hired someone like me, I should not have accepted.
Here is another attempt to try and get health care systems to learn how to deal with fallibility. In this case a woman died unnecessarily during a minor operation, however her husband was an airline pilot and he is now trying to teach the UK National Health Service the lessons that airlines learned long ago: http://www.newstatesman.com/2014/05/how-mistakes-can-save-li...
Thank you for posting this...surgery is one of the few professions that I think about, and then think, "Nope, no way, not even in the wildest dreams in an alternative universe, that I could ever be a surgeon"...but I get the sense that so much pride is tied up into the skill of a surgeon, such that mechanical ability and intuition are almost inextricable. I have no problem with the assertion that a human expert is needed to make decisions as the cuts are being made. But it's astonishing to me that so much of the success of surgery relies on a near-superhuman ability of muscle control and focus, an ability that surely declines with age, even as the surgeon's wisdom and experience grows. I would love to read more about "autopilot"-type advances in medicine (though too much of the coverage focuses on, "Will robots replace your doctor?" rather than man-and-machine working together)
This is exactly what we do where I work. We send them a small problem that any competent person can solve in 15-30 mins in Python/Java/C++. It is amazing what an effective filter this is and submitted results range from fully tested code, innovative O(1) solutions down to code submitted in MS Word that gives the wrong answer.
As a front line filter it is cheap, simple and revealing.
Well I am not sure about Facebook but a relevant comparison might be the British newspaper the News of the World[1]. It held an (assumed) unassailable position as one of the oldest and most widely read English language newspapers. It was shut down by the revelations that they (allegedly, and plausibly) hacked voicemails of a murdered teenager. A privacy issue.
In practice though, this involved a large international media empire shutting down a tarnished brand, then promptly relaunching an equivalent service using one of their stronger brands.
This would be broadly equivalent to Facebook killing the Whatsapp brand and letting the team go, and relaunching an enhanced FB Messenger a couple of months later...
You are only looking at the economics of accidents which are very rare. Economics also exerts a powerful influence on operations and with modern airliners with supercritical wing sections they can really only achieve optimum efficiency for hours on end on autopilot.
Well it did. One of the (probably lifesaving) actions that Sullenberger did was to deploy the RAT which meant electrical power was maintained. This was not a checklist item, merely something he though useful. This meant the computers were still firmly in control when the aircraft ditched and the stall protection they gave certainly helped the ditching.
Interestingly after the accident the NTSB and Airbus made a number of ditching simulations and it showed just how hard it was for pilots to achieve the correct entry mandated by the ditching certification (minimum speed, -1 degree approach). However one pilot, an Airbus test pilot, managed to do much better than this by levelling out at high speed and very low using the radar altimeter. He the allowed the speed to decay until the aircraft touched the 'water'. This unusual proceedure probably couldn't be done by many pilots but it could be done by a computer.
I think the RAT deploys automatically. The flight computers most likely run on a backup battery for a good while, but without the RAT there'd be no way to even move the control surfaces.
I interviewed twice successfully for Google and the interview experience was impeccable (interviewers were great, HR was completely on the ball etc.). The first time there was a hiring freeze so that didn't go anywhere, the second led to offers in several countries in Googles empire. Most of these I could not accept for family reasons but one I could although Google were quite secretive about what the job was.
I accepted thinking that, well they know me well enough by now and what I can do. A mistake. Upon arrival it turned out to be writing an Android app which is completely the wrong end of the spectrum for me - I have never even written Java. I was been benchmarked against people who seem only to have done only that. The other thing that made me realise that I had no long term future in Google is that it was made clear to me that any experience of working for other software companies or other industries was neither interesting or useful. If you have a lot on your C.V. like I have this is problematic.
So I left after a few months.
Sure Google is a fabulous company, does some amazing stuff and has some great people (perhaps not as uniformly great as they'd like you to believe). If you fit the mould tightly enough you will have a lovely time.
TL;DR - They should not have hired someone like me, I should not have accepted.