[onion2k]

This means that the interviewer is just as eager to find evidence for a positive score as a negative one -- there isn't an incentive to "getcha" with cheap or tricky questions.

This is only true if the interviewer is uninterested in what happens after the hiring process. If they want to make sure they're winning a reputation doing great interviews for more good hires than bad hires then there's an incentive to be cautious, and that caution could well manifest as trying to catch out anyone who might be 'gaming' the interview process. Those false positives reflect badly on the interviewer; the false negatives don't because they might have been real negatives.

[ender7]

Such a feedback loop -- of identifying which interviewers give the "most accurate" scores -- doesn't exist. Nor is it clear how you would build such a system (how do you quantify a "bad hire" or "good hire" in such a way that isn't lost in the noise?). Interviewers are trusted to do the best job they can.

Remember, interviewing is volunteer work, not something that will advance your career. The results of the interviews and committee deliberation are confidential, so there's no way to gain a reputation for being a "great interviewer".

[hueving]

Ah, but you are woefully naive if you think some interviewers don't slip in who enjoy having people struggle with problems so they can stroke their own ego. There are also the ones that have seen the quality of engineers significantly decline over the last 6 years of massive expansion and just want to gatekeep.

One of the major flaws in Google's process is assuming that the engineers are incentivized to find good hires.

[emmelaich]

I hope that at least engineers are given courses in "how to be a good interviewer".

It's not a natural skill, dare I say it, especially for an engineer.

[JustSomeNobody]

> Nor is it clear how you would build such a system (how do you quantify a "bad hire" or "good hire" in such a way that isn't lost in the noise?).

Sounds like a good interview question.

[jypepin]

Yes and No. You want to build your reputation as a good interviewer, but that doesn't only mean you are tough and let only amazing candidates pass. That also means that you are usually aligned with the interview committee, and if you constantly are a NO when 90% of the committee is a YES and the candidate ends up being hired, then you'll end up building this reputation of being too tough or just not getting the right signals.

I've done 300+ interviews at Uber where the process is somewhat similar to Google, and OP's points are true. As an interviewer all you really want is get good signals either good or bad. And yes, an interview is much nicer when the candidate is doing great.

[jpatokal]

It doesn't work that way. At Google, the only people who can see your ratings are the people directly involved in that candidate's hiring process. As a hiring manager, you do learn which of your reports/fellow interviewers take a tough line when scoring, but that doesn't make them great interviewers and doesn't factor at all at performance review time.

Source: I work & hire at Google. Opinions are my own.

[sdenton4]

I don't think that interviews really generate reputation in a large company... First, multiple people interview each candidate, so credit/blame is always distributed. Second, and more important, ain't nobody got time for that.