[geofft]

I attended a Google interview coaching session yesterday (if you get in touch with a recruiter, they'll send you an link to RSVP for one in session, and I think they're all recorded). It was led by, if I remember correctly, a fairly senior manager whose team was working on machine learning for recruiting, so he had some fairly specific experience with this.

Two things he mentioned that stand out for your question: first, Google attempts to hire generalists, or at least "fungible specialists". Three of your five SE interviews will be general CS algorithms questions; the other two are likely to be specialized if you're interviewing for a specialized role. I don't think that it's likely to be different from the other "Software Engineer, Foo" interviews (e.g., "Software Engineer, Front End" or "Software Engineer, Mobile"), where at least one of the remaining two interviews will probably be specific to Foo.

Second, he specifically complained about people who show up and say "I want to do machine learning" and then say they have no machine learning experience / background. There are apparently a very small number of teams who will train a bright person how to do ML, but in general you're expected to have some background with it.

This seems like the sort of thing you should ask your recruiter (after getting in touch with one) and perhaps ask at a coaching session, if there's one in your city. I am a little genuinely confused that they seem to think their interviews need a coaching session, but hey, at least it's progress.

[Impossible]

I was told by my recruiter that because I have interest in ML but no practical experience, I could work on an ML project during 20% time.

[adjkant]

That's related to the engineering practices at Google (3.1 below)

> "Engineers are permitted to spend up to 20% of their time working on any project of their choice, without needing approval from their manager or anyone else"

https://arxiv.org/pdf/1702.01715.pdf

[seanmcdirmid]

I wonder why if Google aims to hire generalists, then why do they go after so many PhDs, who, by definition, are specialists?

[dragonwriter]

Ph.D.'s are not, by definition, specialists; they have, of course, demonstrated depth in at least one narrow specialty, but that is not inconsistent with also having breadth (and I think Google's​ preference isn't​ for breadth instead of depth, but for both together.)

[zeroxfe]

Just because you specialize in a field doesn't mean that you can't be a good generalist.

[seanmcdirmid]

But it usually means you don't want to be a generalist. Otherwise, why waste 8 years going deep on something?

[geofft]

I've heard it said that the point of a Ph.D. is less about the specific thesis topic than the fact that you can spend 8 years going deep on some arbitrary thing and come out successful. If someone needs a problem solved that takes 8 years of focus to do, a Ph.D. is a pretty good indicator that you can do it reliably. If you're the sort of person who enjoys taking (up to) 8 years to make a contribution to the world, a Ph.D. is a good way to do it, and also to prove to others you can do it.

Most of my college professors, I believe, had thesis topics that are only loosely related to their current field of research. To pick a random example, Ron Rivest's thesis was on searching large files or something, which is somewhat related to one of his most famous publications (the algorithms textbook), completely unrelated to the other (the RSA algorithm), and mostly, I think, unrelated to his current research (secure electronic voting).

[seanmcdirmid]

I disagree that is the point of a PhD is some kind of struggle to get through, I honestly enjoyed mine and don't think the topics are so interchangeable.

Research topics drift over time, but the starting point is still significant.

[scandox]

So you have letters after your name and people take you seriously and no-one can say you wasted your life exhuming lifeless ideas and padding them out into a massive document that no-one will ever read. Or something.

[seanmcdirmid]

That is very cynical. But there might be an element of truth behind it.

[s_ngularity]

Generalist and specialist are not mutually exclusive. Someone can simultaneously have some knowledge of many different areas, and deep knowledge of one particular area. This is in contrast to someone who has no deep knowledge in any area ("knows something about everything") or someone who only has extremely deep knowledge of only one area ("knows everything about nothing").