[handbanana]

Well they can't possibly have the same hiring bar they used to, due to the amount of hires they need. When you're a smaller company, or a rapidly growing one, you can't really afford a bad egg. At google's current size, they can. To be clear, I think their hiring standard has dropped. But that doesn't mean they don't still have very talented people. Or that their average competence level isn't high compared to other companies

[flavio81]

It seems they want cheap code monkeys. At least from Pike's quote.

[hinkley]

I don't know if it means code monkeys, although I agree you could interpret Pike that way. When you look at root cause analysis you're going to see everybody's bad days, and your bad days can be pretty mediocre.

I've lost count of the number of engineers I've pissed off by implying that they or their coworkers might in fact be human beings and thus prone to errors.

White knuckling (as the term is applied - as a pejorative - in Alcoholics Anonymous) is rampant in software. If you make a mistake it's because you're bad and you should TRY HARDER LOSER. Not because our architecture or tools are error prone/obtuse.

You could say the pressure cooker interviewer process is looking for people who don't cave under pressure, but I don't think that just because you don't crumble doesn't mean you aren't incapacitated. I suspect it ends up selecting for people who think working under intense pressure is normal and there's no point in trying to relieve that pressure, ie working smarter.