Hung Truong: The Blog!

Google Update: Invitation to Google College Days

So I got an email back from Google the Monday after my interview, but I hadn’t posted anything about it. They invited me to their Google College Days, which I’ve actually never heard of before. It seems pretty cool. Here’s part of the email they sent:

Congratulations, your on-campus interviews went well and we would like to invite you to Google’s Headquarters in Mountain View, CA for a College Day!

Google College Days are fun! We’ll fly you out before the interviews, provide lodging and transport you to Google on Friday morning for a full day visit and then fly you back home. You’ll be on site from 8:45 AM - 3:15 PM on Friday. Below is the agenda for our College Days.

8:45 AM Depart to Google (we’ll pick you up from your hotel)

9:15 AM Arrive Google and Check-In

9:30 AM Kick Off (executive sponsor to speak and kick off the day, coffee and pastries)

10:15 AM Interviews (3, 45 minute technical interviews). Please note: You will be asked questions to test your coding, algorithm and design skills. You might want to refer to labs.google.com to learn more about our products in beta.

12:05 PM Tour of the Googleplex

12:50 Lunch at the Google Cafe with engineers

1:45 PM Organized Free Time (have a chair massage, chat with other students)

2:15 PM Q&A/Closing (Engineers and Recruiters show up to answer questions about life at Google and the hiring process, etc.)

2:45 PM Ice Cream Social (Build a sundae and chat with other students, Google Engineers and Recruiters)

3:15 PM Depart to hotel (we’ll transport you back to your hotel)

This is way too cool. I think it’s the dream of every nerd to visit the Googleplex, and to be flown out there (for free) for a tour, food, and interviews is just plain awesome. The fact that they’re interviewing me for a position is like icing on the cake for a nerd like myself. I wonder if I’ll be allowed to take pictures… It’d make an awesome blog post.

I’ll be attending their March 23rd one, since it’s the date with the least conflict for me. Hopefully everything will go well and I’ll be able to visit the Googleplex on a more regular basis. Like every weekday or so…

Dream: Door to Door Pig Salesman

So I had this totally weird dream last night. It involved my entire neighborhood! For some reason, there was someone going door to door leaving pigs at people’s houses. When the guy got to our house, we didn’t answer the door. He opened our outer shutter door and left a pig in between the two doors. I could see all of this happening through our peep hole, even though It’d be pretty impossible to see that low in real life. Weird. Okay, now that I think of it, I guess he was more of a pig mailman than a salesman, but I have a feeling we were billed for the pig. To be payed for at a later date.

Anyway, when I opened the door, the pig ran in and I guess we kept it as a pet. I went to my neighbor’s house and found that the pig guy had left a pig in her door as well. When I opened it though, it was like some kind of mutant weird pig and I ran away.

Later, I went to my across the street neighbor’s house. We had seen him with his pig earlier, so I guess we decided to check up on it. When we got there, he adamantly denied having any kind of pig. We knew he was lying because we saw him playing with the pig though his window from our house.

Then the dream ended. It totally made no sense to me, but that’s how a lot of my dreams go. It’s probably worth noting that today is Chinese New Year, and yes, it’s the year of the pig!!! Maybe that somehow subconsciously seeped into my brain while I was dreaming last night… Also, my Chinese zodiac sign is the pig!!! Dun dun dunnnn!!!

Each Day is Valentine’s Day

So I thought it’d be fun to do a recording of My Funny Valentine, since it’s a pretty cool song and it’s also almost Valentine’s Day. Not that I particularly like the holiday, being single and all… I like the song because it’s got weird mixed signals. Like the lyrics are somewhat upbeat, but the music itself is so freakin’ sad!

Anyway, here’s me playing My Funny Valentine along with a cool dude named Jamey Aebersold. I recorded it using the iSight from my Macbook, and the built in mic, so the sound quality isn’t the best. Also, I screwed up a few times, but hey, the song itself is about an ideal non-ideal valentine, so my solo doesn’t have to be perfect!

And here’s the lyrics in case you don’t believe me:

My Funny Valentine

My funny valentine

Sweet comic valentine

You make me smile with my heart

Your looks are laughable

Unphotographable

Yet you’re my favorite work of art

Is your figure less than Greek?

Is you mouth a little weak?

When you open it to speak?

Are you smart?

But don’t change a hair for me

Not if you care for me

Stay, little valentine, stay

Each day is valentine’s day

Song Currently Stuck In My Head: Fame!

So it’s partly due to Karaoke Revolution Party having the song, and one of my friends’ 80s pictures, but I totally have the song Fame stuck in my head now. During Christmas time, I got the aforementioned Karaoke Revolution game. My sister did pretty well singing it; I’m a little too young to remember the actual show.

I did try it later on though. It’s pretty darn catchy and soulful. Which means I’m pretty bad at singing it. I guess I just need some practice. Here’s the lyrics in case you found this page searching for them:

Baby look at me

And tell me what you see

You ain’t seen the best of me yet

Give me time I’ll make you forget the rest

I got more in me

And you can set it free

I can catch the moon in my hands

Don’t you know who I am?

Remember my name

(Chorus)

Fame

I’m gonna live forever

I’m gonna learn how to fly

High

I feel it coming together

People will see me and cry

Fame

I’m gonna make it to heaven

Light up the sky like a flame

Fame

I’m gonna live forever

Baby remember my name

Remember Remember Remember Remember

Remember Remember Remember Remember

Baby hold me tight

Cause you can make it right

You can shoot me straight to the top

Give me love and take all I’ve got to give

Baby I’ll be tough

Too much is not enough

I’ll grab your heart til it breaks

Ooo I got what it takes

(Chorus again, like a few times)

Sometimes the lyric is listed as “People will see me and die,” but that sounds kind of wrong to me. Like can someone be so famous that it causes death? I hope not.

Google Phone Interview #1: The Aftermath

So I finished my first phone interview with Google. Overall I thought it was very fair and I didn’t get the types of mind-bending puzzles that people claim they are asked.

I won’t disclose the questions I was asked, not because they asked me to, but because I think it would undermine the effectiveness of the interview process itself. Plus I have a feeling that Google “Googles” to find questions posted online and doesn’t use them anyway.

I had a chance to describe a project that I had worked on. I chose Notecentric, since it was more complex than Anime Nano and I could say that I worked on the entire thing by myself. I did a pretty simple (and nervous) high level overview of the system and my reasons for creating it.

The first question I got was a simple data structure implementation efficiency question. I’m pretty glad I studied my data structures beforehand. It took me a while (and a few hints) before I came to the correct solution. It was sort of a “well duh!!” moment, but I’m glad that I at least reached it. Though it took a while, I thought I did well in rationalizing my ideas and explaining why they wouldn’t work quite right. Plus coming up with a solution to a problem is very stressful with a real life Google Engineer listening to you think it through! I think the interviews are mostly to see how you think, not how quickly you can derive the right answer.

The second question was a pretty open ended one about role playing as a Google Engineer. I guess that’s as vague as I can get without actually saying what the question was. I think the question was more about seeing how much I knew about Google and how I would behave in the company itself. I think I did fairly well in this question, going through a lot of edge cases and coming up with ideas that might those handle edge cases, etc.

I also had a chance to ask a question about Google. I asked about the 20% projects, as it’s something I find really unique about the company. I also gave the interviewer a feature request for Gmail, though she wasn’t directly working on that project.

Overall, I think the interview had its desired effect. Google learned more about my thought process and critical thinking skills. I probably won’t hear from the recruiter again until Monday at the soonest, since it’s the weekend now. Hopefully they’ll have another phone interview or even an onsite interview lined up for me shortly.