Google Student Blog: January 2020

Solve a Google engineering challenge in Hash Code 2020

January 21, 2020

Want to solve a Google-inspired engineering problem? Want to meet other developers? Want a chance to visit a Google office? Well good news! Hash Code, Google’s team programming competition, is back for 2020!

This is the 7th edition of Hash Code, and while the competition has grown over the years, one thing has stayed the same: its focus on real-world problems that can be solved with technology. In the past, developers have put their heads together to tackle challenges focused on YouTube, self-driving cars, compiling code at Google scale, and more! We asked one of the founding Hash Code engineers, Przemek Pietrzkiewicz, to share his favorite past challenges :

Przemek on stage at a Hash Code world finals.

1. Routing Street View cars, Hash Code 2014

"One of my favorites has to be the first ever Hash Code problem. In this challenge, teams were given a description of a city (the actual data set was an approximate representation of Paris) and asked to schedule itineraries for a fleet of Street View’s image-capturing cars.The objective was to photograph every street in the city as quickly as possible. Since this was the first Hash Code problem, it set the example for those to follow: it was open-ended, challenging, and inspired by Google software engineering — some of my colleagues at Google France worked on this very problem around the same time!"

2. Directing Loon balloons, Final Round, Hash Code 2015

"In this problem, teams had to route Google’s connectivity-providing balloons in order to provide internet coverage to users around the world. This is tricky because these balloons can’t move on their own. While they can control their altitude, they are actually moved by winds in different layers of the atmosphere. I loved this problem because it was fun to generate the data sets — we had to learn about wind and weather, as well as find software libraries that would let us generate pseudo-random, realistic-looking wind maps."

3. Creating a photo slideshow, Online Qualification Round, Hash Code 2019

"This problem tasked teams with arranging a set of photos into an engaging photo slideshow. The Google Home Hub is a “smart display” — among its many features, it serves as a photo frame, displaying photos from your personal collection in a never-ending slideshow. In addition to showing landscape (horizontal) photos, the device can also find interesting pairs of portrait (vertical) photos and combine them together on a single slide. I’m an avid user of this product and thought it was a neat idea for a Hash Code challenge. I’m really happy we used it!"

Hash Code participants during the finals.

Interested in tackling a challenge like these? Then head over to g.co/hashcode now to register for the Online Qualification Round on February 20. For this round, your team can participate from wherever you’d like, including from a Hash Code hub near you (remember our hub post from last month?). Top teams from the Online Qualification Round will be invited to the World Finals at Google Ireland in April. And if you don’t have a team yet, don’t worry! You can register today and find a team later using our Facebook group. We hope this year’s challenge will be one of your favorites!

My Path to Google - Nada Elawad, Software Engineer

January 15, 2020

Welcome to the 42nd installment of our blog series “My Path to Google.” These are real stories from Googlers, interns, and alumni highlighting how they got to Google, what their roles are like, and even some tips on how to prepare for interviews.

Today’s post is all about Nada Elawad. Read on!

What’s your role at Google?
I am a Software Engineer at YouTube Knowledge, which is the part of YouTube that focuses on building a platform for classifiers and features that increase satisfaction and support our responsibility to viewers, creators and society.

I am also part of the engineering team for Hash Code, which is the biggest team programming competition organized by Google!

Editors note: Hash Code 2020 is coming up on Feb 20! Solve a Google engineering challenge in our annual team coding competition -- learn more and register by Feb 17 at g.co/hashcode.

What I like most about it is how I can see the impact we are making on the world in actual measurable numbers. Also, at YouTube, we get to be in touch with creators (who have thousands and millions of subscribers). These creators have some of the loudest voices in our society today.

Nada at Google Zürich shortly after joining Google.

Can you tell us a bit about yourself?
I was born and raised in Cairo, Egypt. I received a Bachelor's degree in Computer Science from Ain Shams University. During college and before joining Google, I developed a passion for competitive programming that really made my years in college much more interesting. That passion I owe to the ACM (Association for Computing Machinery) community at my university, which was very challenging, yet fun, and pushed me forward.

On the leisure side, I love 3D Puzzles, video games, boats, and electric micromobility vehicles. I am also a huge fan of F.R.I.E.N.D.S and Tarantino movies.

What inspires you to come in every day?
What I like most about Google is how much they care about diversity and inclusion, and how much they care about their employees in general, from providing resources for them to learn and grow to making sure they are having fun and are happy at work.

From a user perspective, what I like most is how they keep all kinds of users from all places and backgrounds in mind when designing or launching a new product, and the way they always act on a global scale, so that everyone can use their products.

Nada conducts a fireside chat with Google Senior Fellow Jeff Dean at the opening of our new Engineering office in Paris.

Can you tell us about your decision to enter the process?
During college, Google was always that magical place that everyone talked about. It was very famous for being the coolest place to work and also the hardest to get into, which made it seem like the recruiting process would be very difficult.

I had applied for every intern position during my first two years at college, and I was not at all confident I'd get a chance—I didn't at first. My first successful step towards Google was when I applied to attend Inside Look in Zürich, an event that gives university students an inside view at working as a Software Engineer at Google. My application was accepted, but unfortunately my visa was rejected a week before the event.

Nada at the Googleplex in Mountain View, CA.

How did the recruitment process go for you?
As I was about to start my senior year of college, I was contacted by a Google recruiter following my previous visa rejection, to ask if I would be interested in applying for a full-time position this time — I definitely would!

Due to travel issues, my recruiter worked with me to conduct the interviews online, for which I was very grateful, and yet worried it might not go as well as if it was onsite. However, my recruiter was amazingly reassuring. I decided to go ahead with my interviews online during final exams of my last semester. A week later I received the most incredible news—and two things got marked off my to-do list: (1) Travel and (2) Get a job at Google.

Nada relocated from Cairo to Google Paris!

What do you wish you’d known when you started the process?
I wish I had known that Google is not just looking for code-geniuses. Interviewers don’t expect you to go in and solve everything optimally in the first few minutes because that’s not how real problems are solved, but they do care about your thought process, how you approach a problem with a simple solution and move to a better, more optimal solution. This would have made me worry much less about getting everything right during the interviews and increased my confidence during the process.

Can you tell us about the resources you used to prepare for your interview or role?
I mainly used online judges, like CodeForces and TopCoder, on a daily basis to keep a problem-solving mindset. I refreshed my knowledge of data structures and algorithms using various blogs and online resources about getting hired at Google. These helped me get an overview of what I should focus on and not get overwhelmed by all the things I didn’t know.

Since I had to do my interviews online I mainly used Pramp to practice more effective communication. Also, I remember reading almost every question about working at Google and their recruitment process on Quora, which gave me a sufficiently comprehensive idea of every step along the way.

Nada at the FIFA World Cup semi finals, which she attended after working on a project related to the World Cup.

Do you have any tips you’d like to share with aspiring Googlers?
Take your time honing your problem-solving skills. Keep an open mind, as Google is a fast-growing, changing, and flexible place, where you can definitely find something to work on that interests you. Don't get discouraged if you don’t make it at first; many great Googlers didn’t get the job on their first few tries.

Student Blog

Solve a Google engineering challenge in Hash Code 2020

My Path to Google - Nada Elawad, Software Engineer

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