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by sethammons 2748 days ago
I think you answered it yourself. His skill set (running, managing, community, etc) are not what Google needs (as they see it). They need someone who "will contribute to a small portion of software that will be run by a large fraction of the planet's computers, but owning the architecture, project management, testing, community support, and coding? No."
2 comments

Your "etc" includes writing the damn thing in the first place, which indicates he is more than qualified for "will contribute to a small portion of software that will be run by a large fraction of the planet's computers".

Furthermore, for L5 and up Google is most certainly looking for systems design and engineering leadership skills.

> he is more than qualified for "will contribute to a small portion of software that will be run by a large fraction of the planet's computers".

Maybe, but for that part he was in competition with people that were simply better to "contribute to a small portion of software that will be run by a large fraction of the planet's computers".

That's where we come to my second point.

Additionally, the public perception of the Google hiring process (a perception cultivated by Google themselves) is that candidates are not in competition with anybody. It's just "do you clear the bar or not".

Companies rarely hire people in a vacuum; almost always, it's because they are looking for someone to fill a certain role (be it "we need another competent engineer who we can assign arbitrary work to"), and there are always other people that can do the same job.
If you take the tweet at face value, being dinged for a whiteboard exercise is pretty silly. But people do get hired for specific roles and just having demonstrated you're great at X doesn't mean you should clearly get hired for an only somewhat related Y.

I like to think I'm pretty good at certain things but that doesn't mean I'm a good candidate, especially at a senior level, for lots and lots of roles that, while somewhat related to my skills, aren't really in my wheelhouse.

Max Howell was applying for the binary tree reversal team?