Greg Jordan on the Google Interview

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Greg Jordan, one of my three (!) older brothers, recently had his first ever programming interview—at Google!

In this take-no-prisoners, violate-no-NDAs podcast interview, Greg talks about:

• The one topic Brian told him to study the day before his interview that paid off
• Building PaperPile, an academic paper management tool
• Making the transition from majoring in biology in undergrad to software engineering
• The “oh crap” moment when he realized he had his first ever programming interview coming up
• How getting a PhD was totally worth it
• How he spent his time preparing for his Google interview:
  • Preparing for behavioral questions using the CTCI prep grid
  • Using the CFI book list and working through:
    • Cracking the Coding Interview
    • Elements of Programming Interviews
    • The Algorithm Design Manual
• What it will be like to start his first software engineering job

This is the episode I wish I had back when I did my first interviews.

Thanks Greg!

EDIT: Reader Hao asked a great question about some resources for Javascript “gotchas”. Two of my favorites are JS scope, JS pass-by-*, and Hao suggests JS Gotchas