[ohstopitu]

Knowledge - yes it can be gained in a year.

Experience - nope nope nope nope nope!

I'm sure everyone here can relate too - What you learnt in university was not as useful as real life experience (even when working on your own side projects).

While he spent his time (a lot of it too) on learning how to game Google's interview process, he didn't seem to consider experience at all :S (I mean, 8 months learning algorithms but not even a month working on some kind of portfolio showing off your work?)

I am not saying EVERY dev out there needs a portfolio, but he said he didn't have CS background/experience and this was his way of getting into Google, but without actual experience (note: NOT work experience, just experience in general), how does Google know he's up for it?

[Spoom]

Google optimizes for new grads. To a certain extent, experience can actually make the interview process harder (because they will expect more of an experience candidate than a new grad).