It's a very specific niche that I fall in: experience with managing OSS, lots of build systems, CI/CD, managing reliable systems (N+1, monitoring, latency management), C++ & assembly for x86, etc.
Essentially they want someone they can plop into a dysfunctional team who can help bring things back to a steady state regardless of the issues that are there while keeping everyone happy which is something I've done two or three times.
Rather then butting heads you make demos, convince people, lead by consensus, help put people in charge of sub projects that they can execute on, etc.
I started getting them at ~2 months at Google. I was no more qualified for those jobs then than I was before I joined Google. I got the seal of "he's a Googler, he's super smart" which currently exists. I'm not saying it's true. I've worked with baby googlers who somehow find the best way to nose dive the quality and reliability of all software at a company. I've also worked with others that can turn entire companies around and get them on track with amazing tech knowledge and leadership. I aim to be the latter and so far, before Google, I have a pretty good track record of doing that. The Xoogler mark just makes it easy for recruiting people to find me.
Essentially they want someone they can plop into a dysfunctional team who can help bring things back to a steady state regardless of the issues that are there while keeping everyone happy which is something I've done two or three times.
Rather then butting heads you make demos, convince people, lead by consensus, help put people in charge of sub projects that they can execute on, etc.