I know the author IRL and he's one of the nicest people I know. He's also incredibly whip-smart and, I suspect, the reason why it's so unnerving interviewing with him is that he can surgically hone in on your exact areas of weakness and gaps in your knowledge.
People who have survived all these years on pretty lines of bullshit and puffed up records will find the interview process harrowing. People who are smart, humble & enthusiastic should do fine.
I think that shows that the author may be a poor interviewer (at least on a first glance).
It is the job of the interviewer to make the interviewee to feel at ease, and relaxed as much as possible.
Some people get very nervous in interviews, and panic a bit, and some of them can be very good engineers.
It seems the author's "surgically honing", is more of a "look at me, I know more than you do", ego stroking type of thing.
Since I do interview people often (not google, but another top company on the valley), I make sure to make people at ease.
When I was younger and stupid, my first instinct was to find the interviewee weakness and 'hone' on them.
Looking back, that was plain stupid. It helped me make myself feel good than actually do any good to the process. I gained later on some insight on my behavior once I was on the other side. Since then I made sure to be really really fair and unbiased on the questions I ask. You need to find both strengths and weaknesses of a candidate, but make sure not to trigger a panic induced 'coder's block'. Otherwise you failed as a interviewer.
Are you his equal or better? Assholes are kiss up, kick down people. I'm not suggesting he is because I don't know him, but giving people shit on the grounds that they're less capable isn't endearing.
I agree. No matter how 'nice' someone else claims this guy to be, if he was trying to make someone cry because they didn't know something during the interview, makes him a prick.
That is is plain and simple bullying -- no better than a physically stronger kid beating all the weaker ones on the playground. The playground here is the interview process and he is the bully.
I'm sure he is a great person -- in no way should my characterization of his interview style be construed as a knock against his entire person. But his interview style stinks.
(It is important to weed through people that just know buzzwords and get to the meat, but this kind of interview style is not really acceptable IMO. You should be able to know if somebody actually goes deeper than buzzwords in a 5-10 minute, casual conversation in the cafeteria over a cup of coffee.)
He talks about 5 interviews a week like that's some crazy number, try 5 a day for a while.
Someday, he's going to be interviewed by one of the people he turned away (at least he should approach it like that).
People who have survived all these years on pretty lines of bullshit and puffed up records will find the interview process harrowing. People who are smart, humble & enthusiastic should do fine.