[delroth]

Which is not something that happened, even according to Max Howell himself: https://www.quora.com/Whats-the-logic-behind-Google-rejectin...

> I feel bad about my tweet, I don’t feel it was fair, and it fed the current era of outragism-driven-reading that is the modern Internet, and thus went viral, and for that I am truly sorry.

[IncreasePosts]

Building popular software doesn't mean you're a good programmer, especially since at that point Google was looking heavily at CS concepts and he admittedly wasn't good at that.

It's also possible he would have been hired if he applied for L-1. A lot of people get an ego check applying to Google where they're a senior staff engineer or a CTO at a small company and get an L5 offer.

[smsm42]

True but surprisingly grinding leetcode puzzles also doesn't mean you're a good programmer. In fact, in my decades-long now programming career, I've had to take many more decisions of the homebrew kind (e.g. how the thing is going to work, how the API is going to look like, will the users love or hate that feature, etc.) than the leetcode kind. And now I am thinking the former is even more important. If you get the leetcode part wrong, worst thing your code would be slow. Not a good thing but also not a complete disaster - you can come back and optimize later. If you screw up the design and interface part, nobody would be using it - or worse, they'd be using it in ways it wasn't supposed to be used - and then it doesn't matter how fast it is.

[OnlineGladiator]

> True but surprisingly grinding leetcode puzzles also doesn't mean you're a good programmer.

I don't think anybody with a modicum of experience finds this surprising at all.

[zahlman]

Are people who don't work for Google supposed to understand what these levels mean?

[outlore]

it kind of happened, he went through seven interviews. from the same post:

> But ultimately, should Google have hired me? Yes, absolutely yes. I am often a dick, I am often difficult, I often don’t know computer science, but. BUT. I make really good things, maybe they aren't perfect, but people really like them. Surely, surely Google could have used that.

[kelnos]

> I am often a dick

It make things really nice and easy when someone tells me enough about themselves in just a few words to make me not want to work with them.

Maybe that's why he didn't get hired? His dickishness came through in the interviews?

[scotty79]

I don't think most people who behave in this manner have enough self-reflection to write something like that. They would rather write that they are opinionated, principled or decisive or some other bs.

[forrestthewoods]

The #1 way to not get hired is to be a dick. The brilliant asshole is the most toxic person you can have on your team. Don’t be an asshole.

[itsalotoffun]

Exactly this. No amount of cred, smarts, and genius that ends with "and I'm a bit of dick" will save you from my automatic red-line veto when hiring. I'm far from alone in this.

[wiseowise]

> will save you from my automatic red-line veto when hiring

You're literally a power tripping dick hiding behind "I'm not letting other dicks in" facade.

[itsalotoffun]

You've got it backwards friend

[skeezyboy]

umm, linus torvalds, richard stallman, elon musk to name a few

[petcat]

None of those people ever applied for a job at Big Corp where one of the most important aspects is to be able to work well with other people and tactfully navigate the social structure of the company.

[skeezyboy]

being a dick has not hindered there prospects. id argue dickheads are more prevalent in tech due to the prevalence of autism

[UK-AL]

Founders of a lot of companies also tend to be dicks. But seems to do alright. Seems to be a double standard there

[wiseowise]

> I make really good things, maybe they aren't perfect, but people really like them. Surely, surely Google could have used that.

This line could apply to millions of people around the globe.

[stephenr]

I mean, he's also the same guy who apparently thought "Unix ideas that have worked for literally decades, nah fuck that. I know better".

It took over a decade before the project made some improvement on how the default install path is handled.

To my knowledge it still has absolutely atrocious dependency resolution relative to things like DPKG.

Not hiring this guy is honestly like a fancy restaurant not hiring the guy who comes up with the new McDonalds obesity burger special menu. What he created is popular, it's not good.

[smsm42]

Google is not a fancy restaurant. Five-guys private consultancy is a fancy restaurant. Google is the McDonalds of all McDonaldses, it makes software that is used by everybody, whether they want it or not, and you can't turn a corner without hitting something they control.