[Periodic]

If the problem is that you can't get a job if you're not in the club, why not join the club?

I used to work at Google and I did a lot of interviews. I loved when we finally got an experienced engineer in to interview. I could stop asking the toy algorithms questions and actually talk about design.

But maybe they only want to hire fresh college grads? The company is sorely lacking in experience. I wouldn't be surprised if the reason they can't find experienced engineers to interview is that everyone with experience who is qualified to work at Google either works there already or doesn't want to.

Maybe you're in that camp of not wanting to work at Google. That's fine. I enjoyed it for a while but it wasn't for me. Just having it on my resume has opened a lot of doors.

[gedy]

Interviewing at Google a few years ago (with some experience) was not positive - the interviewer actively avoided talking anything about design or systems, and insisted on asking me brain teasers about weighing boxes of pennies, etc. Was a stupid waste of time for me and turned me off from Google totally.

[gohrt]

How many years ago? Google famously publicly renounced those ~5 years ago.

[gedy]

True, was about 5-6 years ago.

[ruste]

I think I'd actually prefer that...

[gedy]

It wasn't just the type of questions, was the whole experience - I did answer, then then interviewer insisted I could do it in one fewer step, and would not proceed or assist until I came up with a better answer. Then time was up, and he answered no questions of mine. Emailing the recruiter to ask if this was expected or if there was another role and received no replies back. Sorry, but to hell with working for Google after that...

Bear in mind at the time I had 8 years experience in non-trivial roles, including some mgmt and architecture, and they were the ones who reached out to me.

[mgkimsal]

> and they were the ones who reached out to me.

I had a google recruiter call, we spoke, then set up a longer interview. I asked about pay, and was told they don't talk about it until after an interview, which meant travel and time away from current projects. It's not that I couldn't do it at all, but it meant some schedule shuffling and I wanted a ballpark - just a ballpark or ...minimum floor. She wouldn't give me any info.

I then asked another question which she didn't know the answer to ("no one's ever asked that before!") and told me she'd have an answer in a couple days. That was ... Aug 2013? I'm still waiting.

I told the story before and someone said "well, that's no way to get a job!" as I described my questioning the recruiter. "I didn't apply for a job - they called me - they can answer a couple of my questions if they want me to take time out to come visit them".

[rubberstamp]

can you please share what that question was? just curious. I've read many other articles about candidates having had similar experiences. Its one of the reasons i dont like Google as a company

[mgkimsal]

role was developer evangelist. she mentioned bonuses were based on performance review, and I asked what the metrics were. how did they measure the 'success' of a developer evangelist? number of presentations? blog posts? conferences? miles traveled? She didn't know, and apparently no one has ever asked that question (at least at that stage of the process) before.

[bpchaps]

Interviewing at google was the absolute worst experience I've ever had over two weeks:

First interview was a cold call from a bored sounding engineer-turned-recruiter. The guy asked me some questions and some I didn't know at the time, but since my experience was pretty solid, they scheduled an interview anyway.

They forgot the first interview. No call, no email, no answer from emails, etc. It's not a first, so I took it as, "shit happens".

They forgot the second interview.

The third interview finally happened, but the engineer on the other end of the phone was ~extremely~ uninterested from the beginning of the call. How in the hell am I supposed to be excited for the interview or even working with someone like that?

To make matters worse, all three interviews required me to leave work early. Because that's obviously not suspicious. Never got a call or email or apology after that ordeal.

"Welcome to Google, we hate our lives, want to hate yours, too?".

[ruste]

That does sound pretty miserable. I'd be upset too.

[quantumhobbit]

If the problem is that you can't get a job if you're not in the club, why not join the club?

Problem is the club doesn't seem to want any new members above a certain age.

[SomeCallMeTim]

"A certain age"? I "joined" the club by getting a gig at Amazon at 46. Before that I'd never worked at any of the big tech companies. I also get interest from startups all the time, but from what I can tell they don't want employees above a certain salary, not a certain age.

I don't think it's age but attitude and skills that distinguish people who can get "in the club." If the attitude is "SHOW ME THE MONEY" when Google is well known for paying way above market rates, or if the attitude is "WHY SHOULD I KNOW THESE CS PROBLEMS!?", when it's well known that Google cares about those problems...well, then no, you can't join the club.

At this point I've interviewed at Google but turned them down when they could only offer me what sounded like a glorified accounting programming position (in the Boulder office, which doesn't have as many teams as in Mountain View). I might have fun working at Google on the right team, but I have other options (including Amazon) that also pay well and are very attractive for other reasons, so why not?

[mgkimsal]

> Problem is the club doesn't seem to want any new members above a certain age.

Which is precisely the problem that was being pointed out earlier - how meta! :)

[vonmoltke]

Despite my shitty experience last time, I would be willing to give Google another chance (as long as it isn't in California). They've decided to ignore me.

[kmonsen]

pm or email me if you want some help [e-mail]

Also I have worked for Google in NYC and London so feel free to ask any questions.

[linkregister]

Since when does Google fail to ask toy algorithms question of senior engineers?

I'm not being snarky; everything I've ever read, heard, and experienced with Google interviews is that these trivia algorithms questions compose the majority of the on-site interviews. [1] [2]

You appear to be different, but please don't claim your interviewing style as representative of even 1/4 of Google interviewers.

> [maybe] everyone with experience who is qualified to work at Google either works there already or doesn't want to.

If memorizing algorithms is a necessary condition of a senior engineer being qualified to work at Google, that is fine. But it is disingenuous to claim otherwise, since clearly many have found it is algorithm memorization that has been the gatekeeper from getting an offer at Google, not non-abstract large systems design, linux systems internals knowledge, concurrent and asynchronous programming, etc.

[1] http://www.nakov.com/blog/2007/12/27/overqualified-to-work-i... "Trust me, a 15 years old schoolboy who is a good programming contestant (e.g. some of the Bulgarian National champions) can pass these questions without having any experience in commercial software engineering. I expected more software engineering questions about software design and architecture, large-scale databases and information systems, Internet applications, information security, parallel programming, threads, synchronization, development process, software quality, testing, life-cycle, software project management, agile development, etc. but the interviewers didn’t even mention any of these topics. I applied for senior position and it was normal to expect serious software engineering and technical questions, but this didn’t happen."

[2] https://www.glassdoor.com/Interview/Google-Senior-Software-E... (the typical response is some variation of "they asked me a question that was similar to a problem in Cracking the Coding Interview while not offering a single question about my previous accomplishments or potential culture fit."