[Matt_Cutts]

Thanks for asking! On the interview process, there's a resume review stage, then a technical interview. If the technical interview goes well, then there's one more technical interview plus a resilience/emotional intelligence/EQ interview. We do typically ask one coding question when we're talking to engineers, but you're right that we're more concerned about large-scale systems, diagnosing bottlenecks, and asking the right questions compared to (say) focusing on algorithms. We care less about minimum spanning trees and more about practical aspects of making real-world systems perform well.

On the transition between administrations, we've been fortunate to have solid support in both administrations. It's been a non-partisan issue to make the government more effective and efficient using technology. No one wants archaic computer systems that could break and risk delivering services to the public. I feel very good about our ability to prioritize projects based on their impact, and we've been able to continue to work on vital services.