Emailing you now.

I think you take confidence for arrogance. The reason I say things are easy, or that I’ve done them, or that I figured it out, or that I could figure it out is simply the truth. I think if you re-read what I posted I never once said that I don’t want to know the answer. In fact, you’ll find that I re-enforce the fact that I really did want to know the answer and had to actually ask for it.

Now, my summary is obviously what keeps throwing you off. It is just a guess my friend. Nothing more. I’m not stating that Google are a bunch of jokers, bad engineers, or anything of that nature. My point is to try and draw out some conclusions. Like you said, it could be personality. Or it could be bad interviewers. Who knows.

As for your theory about questioning the questions, every time I’ve interviewed candidates and they argue with me, I’m delighted. This shows that they are willing to debate and work through solutions. The world isn’t going to move forward without people who are willing to argue. Arguing isn’t arrogance or being stubborn, it’s about being pragmatic. I think the issue I had, and this is where the go comes in, when you argue with folks who have active egos you’ll usually run into brick walls instead of insightful dialogs.

Also, I’m fairly certain I have no chip on my shoulder. I could offer you hundreds of folks I’ve worked with who would back that up. I do know that I’m quite obviously confident, perhaps to a flaw. But I feel like that’s a good thing.

Lastly, if you refuse to use your real identity, I’ll probably stop accepting your comments. You must at least be willing to stamp your name on your thoughts, or who will take them seriously.

What I meant by ‘hubris’ is simply the tone of the article. There’s an extreme confidence in each of your question descriptions that borders on arrogance (”this is easy”, “this one is simple”, “I didn’t know this. Not because I couldn’t learn it, but because I don’t want to know it”). This is all well and good, but when you close the article with commentary on Google’s “ego and dominance” issues your editorial comments take an entirely different light. Is this and article about Google interview questions or about how they’re pigheaded, ego-maniacs for not hiring you?

In any given interview I’d guess that technical know-how is only half what the company is looking for. The other half is personality, compatibility, etc. When you argue with an interviewer over the details of a contrived problem don’t you think that sends them a message that you’re stubborn or, worse, arrogant?

You’re obviously an intelligent, well-qualified engineer, but the giant chip on your shoulder isn’t doing you any good.

This is about your previous article on Dr. Dobb’s. (http://www.ddj.com/java/184406242)
I was just curious if you still had the source available for this. I’m trying to learn Java NIO, and in the article it mentions to look under the “resources section” for the source, but there is not resources section, at least none that I could see.
If you could make it available, I would be very grateful. It was a great read by the way!

Thanks.