[gaius]

just like most engineers I applied to Google multiple times

Is this really like "most" engineers? My own experience is the opposite, I have been contacted multiple times by Google recruiters trawling LinkedIn or whatever, none of whom were aware of any of the others. I know a few Googlers and as far as I am aware none of them "applied", they were all contacted.

[akhilcacharya]

Personally, I'm more surprised it takes most people multiple times and months of prep when you hear is Stanford freshmen getting internships with no additional effort save for reading CTCI.

[gaius]

Well the tests are all optimized to filter for early 20s from a handful of CS programmes.

[akhilcacharya]

Hmm, can you expound on this?

[slevin063]

My mistake. It should be "just like most engineers I know at Google, I ...", which includes my friends, interviewers and people in Google interview process videos.