My Interview at Google in Zurich

A week ago I visited Google in Zurich, Switzerland. The reason: during the years their recruiters asked me once monthy to join Google. I had so much invitations to join Google in Mountain View, Zurich and other locations that I finally decided to see at least what they offer. After passing successfully two phone interviews I was invited in their office in Zurich for a comprehensive 1 day interview.

Google Interview Process is Like a Programming Olympiad

I was amazed how Google perform their interviews. Really! They asked me only about data structures and algorithms. I was feeling like at a programming contest. I needed to solve 10 Olympiad style problems, each for 20-30 minutes. They requested to write a source code on the dashboard.

I will not reveal any of the questions (because I signed NDA) but their interview style was like at the programming contests and Olympiads which was lost ago in my childhood and student’s years.

Believe me, a 15 years old schoolboy, a good programming contestant, can pass these questions without having any experience in commercial software engineering.

That was all. Nobody asked me about my software engineerign skills, technologies, etc. Only algorithms and problem solving, data structures, complexity, etc.

Google Interviewers Don’t Ask About Software Engineering, Technology and Soft Skills

I have been interviewed in tens of interviews and was and interviewer for tens of job candidates but I have never thought that some company could could employ anybody only by his technical skills.

What Google don’t aked me:

1) They don’t ask anything about technologies, e.g. AJAX, Java, Java Web technologies, databases, SQL, XML, Web services, multithreading and synchronization, software architecture, etc.

2) They don’t ask about software engineering, e.g. the software project lyfecycle (requirements, design, implementation, testing etc.).

3) They don’t ask about your experience. No questions about what is your current job, what is your experience, what projects you have been part of, etc.

4) They don’t ask about personal character, e.g. are you a team pleayer, are capable to manage a team, do you have experience working in an International team, do you have good communication skills, etc.

It is really strage. My experience shows that soft skills are more important than the technical skills and I always weight them more.

How Google will employ somebody that has only algorithmic thinking and analytical skills without having a team working and communicational skills? I have no idea. I asked my collegues working for Google and they also don’t have an idea. Strange …

I was Overqualified to Work in Google

I week after my visit to Google I was informed that my results at the interview were very good but I was not accepted because they don’t have a suitable position for me. It was strange because I solved well all the algorithmic problems during my whole day interview sessions in Zurich. I was a leading programing contestants for more than 10 years, a champion in tens of Olympiads and contests (Bulgarian and International) so the technical questions were not complex for me. There were no other questions except the technical ones which I solved so I believe I passed the interview successfully.

I filled an employment application form in which I requested a relatively high salary and high position because I was an Olympiads medal winner, had more than 12 years of commercial experience as software engineer, trainer, consultant and project leader, and currently hold very high technical position in Sofia. I believe Google will have such open positions in Zurich but unfortunately they didn’t. I was rejected probably because I was overqualified.

Posted by nakov as news, blog at 3:45 PM EET

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Never use GoDaddy! GoDaddy are cheaters!

A year ago I needed to purchase hosting services for hosting few domains and emails. In the adveertisment it was said that GoDaddy supports anything I need (hosting emails, web, subdomains, enough traffic and hosting space) but it was misleading advertisment. GoDaddy is a fraud!!! Here are few reasons why:

1) You can not try the service for free. The only chance is to purchase it. You can not purchase it for just a month. They let me purchase 1 year hosting with not option for money back refund.

2) After they crarged my credit card, I found that GoDaddy can not host email for subdomains, e.g. if you need to have email like somebody@subdomain.host.com this is not possible with GoDaddy. They don’t have secure FTP. They don’t support catch all email filter. They don’t have most usual hosting features offered by cPanel.

3) GoDaddy has extremely unusable user interface. If you want to do some change, e.g. create a new mailbox, you should submit the change and wait for few hours for changes to happen. Hey, GoDaddy, which century you are living? I was amazed how terrible is their admin interface.

4) After you register, you will soon find the GoDaddy’s service is unusable and you want to cancel it. This is impossible! They don’t refund money back. You pay some money, find that the service you purchased is fake and does not work and you can not do anything.

5) A year after GoDaddy fraud me, I received a notice that my credit card is charged again for a service that I have never used and have not purchased. They sent me an email saying “We just want to let you know we’ve automatically renewed the following items … We have billed your Visa card …”. You can not cancel this charge. They just charge you without requesting a confirmation.

GoDaddy are fraud! Once created, you can not delete your account. There is not such option in their site menus. The only way to stop their charges to your credit card is to ask your bank to revoke your credit card. You don’t have a chance for chargeback. No way.

Now I am trying to cancel my account at GoDaddy and their support don’t answer me. They just steal my money.

Never use GoDaddy! GoDaddy are cheaters!

Posted by nakov as blog at 2:26 PM EET

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The “IT Boxing” Visited by 250 Developers!

On 11 December 2007 I organized the largest event of the Bulgarian Association of Software Developers (BASD). It was held in Sofia and was visited by 250 software engineers and thus BASD was proved to be #1 community organization in Bulgaria.

The subject of this first “IT Boxing” event was “.NET vs. Java database access technologies and ORM tools”. The .NET team presented the LINQ and the ADO.NET Entity Framework and Visual Studio 2008. The Java team presented Hibernate, Java Persistence API (JPA) and DB4O.

The Winner is the .NET Team!

The .NET Team won the first IT Boxing match named “ADO.NET Entity Framework and LINQ vs. Java Persistence API and Hibernate”. The vote of the audience stated the following results (not all visitors voted):

• The .NET Team: 136 votes
• The Java Team: 46 votes

More details about the event:

• The official site of the IT Boxing championship: www.itboxing.org
• The official site of the event: http://www.devbg.org/seminars/IT-Boxing-Databases-11-December-2007/

Posted by nakov as .net, news, java at 3:15 PM EET

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Next week (11 December 2007) I organized very interesting event for developers in Sofia: IT Boxing championship where .NET and Java developers will dispute the state-of-the-art data access technologies in their platforms: http://itboxing.devbg.org/events/adonet-entity-framework-linq-vs-jpa-hibernate/.

About the IT Boxing Championship

The initiative “IT Boxing Championship” is a series of events organized by the Bulgarian Association of Software Developers (BASD) at which we invite supporters of different software technologies to an open dispute “Which technology is better?”. At these meetings the adherents of the opposing technologies defend their vision for better technology by presentations, discussions and open debate that ends up in direct fight with inflatable boxing gloves. For each IT boxing event we assign a topic for dispute and teams that stand up for contrary visions. During the fight all contestants are obligated to keep the opponent of injuring.

ADO.NET Entity Framework + LINQ vs. Java Persistence API and Hibernate

The topic of this event is “Database Access Technologies and Object-Relational Persistence Frameworks in .NET and Java”. The .NET team will present the new ADO.NET, the ADO.NET Entity Framework and LINQ in C# 3.0. The Java team will stand up for Hibernate and the Java Persistence API (JPA).

Agenda

ADO.NET, ADO.NET Entity Framework and LINQ

ADO.NET is the standard data access library built in .NET Framework used by developers to access and modify data stored in relational database systems, call stored procedures and access non-relational data sources like XML.
LINQ (Language Integrated Query) is extension to C# and other .NET languages that adds native querying syntax directly into the language and thus simplifies querying data and dramatically reduces the amount of code.
ADO.NET Entity Framework is new paradigm for developing database applications. It allows developers to focus on data through an object model instead of through a logical/relational data model. It abstracts the logical database structure using a conceptual layer, a mapping layer, and a logical layer and provides support for LINQ to simplify querying.

Java Persistence API and Hibernate

Java Persistence API (JPA) is a Java framework based on the concept of object-relational mapping (ORM) that allows developers to manage relational data in Java SE and Java EE platforms. JPA defines persistent entities as lightweight Java classes that are mapped to the database tables. Entities typically have relationships with other entities, and these relationships can be specified directly in the entity class by using annotations, or in a separate XML descriptor. Once the mapping between classes and tables is defined, the persistent entities can be loaded, modified, persisted, deleted and queried by simple API.
Hibernate is a powerful, high performance object/relational persistence framework, very popular among the Java developer community. By concept it is very similar to JPA and provides mapping objects to tables, querying and manipulating persistent objects.

Teams

Three teams take part in the event:
­ The .NET Team – stands up for ADO.NET Entity Framework and LINQ
­ The Java Team – stands up for Java Persistence API and Hibernate
­ The Referees Team – technologically neutral, moderate the discussion

The .NET Team

Branimir Giurov is very skillful Microsoft and .NET software engineer, with many years of experience as senior developer, trainer, consultant, team leader and development manager. He’s a C# MVP and a UG Lead at SofiaDev.org. Branimir is freelance developer. Visit his blog here: http://blogs.sofiadev.org/blogs/branimir/.

Stefan Dobrev is co-owner of Avaxo Ltd., an experienced .NET developer and distinguished speaker at various Microsoft events for developers.. Visit his blog here: http://ligaz.blogspot.com.

Deyan Varchev is experienced .NET developer and a speaker at various Microsoft events for developers. Currently he is co-owner of Avaxo Ltd. where handles complex .NET and Web projects. Visit his blog here: http:// http://blog.varchev.net/.

Galin Iliev is a senior software engineer with solid experience in .NET and Microsoft technologies. He has MCPD and MCSD.NET certifications. He is Microsoft certified trainer. Now Galin works as freelance developer. Visit his blog here: http://www.galcho.com/blog/.

Dimiter Kapitanov is senior software engineer at telerik. Dimiter has solid experience in development of .NET applications and reusable components. Visit his blog here: http://blogs.telerik.com/blogs/dimitar_kapitanov/.

The Java Team

Miroslav Nachev is software engineer with more than 18 years of experience in software design and development, system integration, VoIP and tele¬communications projects. Some of the programming languages and technologies in his competence include Java, Fortran-77, Pascal, x86 assembler, C/C++, 4GL Magic, Web Services, Hibernate, JPA, XML Security & Encryption, Java Security, X.509 Certificates, XAdES, Java EE, Swing and VoIP.

Martin Valkanov is senior software engineer in eBG.bg. He has solid development experience in Java and open source technologies, Web applications, databases and enterprise systems.

Peter Milev is experienced Java engineer. He has years of experience in Java and open source technologies, focusing on Web applications with AJAX and database systems.

Svetoslav Kapralov is senior software engineer, experienced in various Java technologies and frameworks.

Vesko Arnaudov is senior software engineer in VMware Inc.. He has many years of experience as developer, team leader, trainer and consultant. His expertise includes Java, Java EE, Oracle, Web and enterprise applications.

The Referees Team

Svetlin Nakov is software engineer with more than 10 years of experience in the development of Java, .NET, Web and Win32 applications, software engineering consultant and trainer, author of 4 books and above 30 technical articles and presentations. He is one of the founders and currently chairman of the Bulgarian Association of Software Developers (BASD), director training and consulting activities in the National Academy for Software Development (NASD) and one of the founders of the Bulgarian Java User Group and author of open source projects. Visit his blog here: http://www.nakov.com/blog/.

Nikolay Todorov is team lead in Musala Soft. He has strong commercial experience with both Java and .NET (he is Microsoft Certified Application Developer with .NET) and solid practice and knowledge about software development processes, including Agile.

Stanimir Boychev is technical director and managing partner in Musala Soft. His 12+ years experience in the area of software development covers a very broad set of technologies, including architecting and leading Java EE and .NET projects.

Venue

The event will be held on 11 December 2007 (Tuesday), 18:00 h in Park Hotel “Moscow”, Sofia, Hall “Moscow”.

Sponsors

The event is sponsored by two leading software companies in Bulgaria: telerik and Musala Soft.

Posted by nakov as .net, news, java, blog at 9:55 PM EET

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