[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.

[rubberstamp]

that is an entirely natural thing to ask. thanks for taking time to reply. i like the way you replied with right amount of info and good clarity

[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.