[tmhedberg]

I'm a Google SRE that had a very similar experience. My best advice would be not to sweat the rejection.

I was also contacted by a recruiter based on an open source project I had contributed to. I went through the same series of phone interviews, culminating in an on-site in NYC. I left there feeling largely positive about my chances, but a few days later, I was politely rejected. I was not that broken up about it, as I already had a job that I liked, so I just counted it as good interview practice and moved on.

A year later, almost to the day, the same recruiter called me up out of the blue and asked if I'd be willing to try again. I agreed, and after an abbreviated version of the phone interview process, went to Mountain View for another on-site. Soon after, I was hired!

It's actually very common for Google to reject candidates the first time around, as the interview process is deliberately tuned to produce a lot more false negatives than false positives. We have that luxury thanks to the volume of applicants we receive (there are still a surprising number of Nooglers starting each week despite the selectivity). The hiring committees recognize this tendency to reject qualified candidates and won't count you out after one try. If you got to the on-site stage, then rest assured that your interviewers took you seriously as a candidate. If you've decided that you would really like to work at Google, you will still have a good shot if you try again in a year or so. And if not, then hopefully it was at least a fun challenge and a free trip to London.

[yukichan]

But why go through that? Google is just another place to work. If I got rejected from a job at HoneyWell or G&E I wouldn't be thinking to myself well in one more year I can try again. I'd be thinking about the next place to apply and never go back.

The guy was obviously qualified for the job and they still rejected him because he got nervous. He had done well except for one and they said no. I guess if you have so many people interviewing where you have some that did better it makes sense, but it's silly and personally I don't plan at working at companies that interview this way.

Google isn't special. They're just a well known consumer brand, and all that marketing is what's got into people's brains. Coke is just sugar water, it doesn't make you cool. It just puts fructose corn syrup into your stomach. You wanna be the person that has to obey Larry Page's whims and integrate Google+ into more places users don't want it?

[tmhedberg]

If you don't think it's worth your time to interview twice at the same company, then simply don't. That's a completely reasonable point of view, and I didn't mean to imply otherwise.

For what it's worth, Google has a public reputation as a great place to work and as a company that hires "high quality" engineers. Both of these things mean that some people are willing to put more effort into getting a position there. My post wasn't meant to say that he must keep trying at all costs, but just to let him know not to be discouraged if he happened to really want that job. In many places, you're dead in the water if you don't make it the first time, but Google is not like that.

Personally, I didn't see my interview process as "something I had to go through", i.e. a laborious means to an end. I enjoyed the challenge and the opportunity to get a glimpse of a company like Google from the inside. Even when I was turned down the first time, I came away feeling glad that I had done it. It's not like I had anything to lose from trying.

> You wanna be the person that has to obey Larry Page's whims and integrate Google+ into more places users don't want it?

Not in the least, nor do I feel that I am doing that. I don't work on Google+ or anything related to it. However it may look from the outside, Google is not Google+. It's a big, multifaceted organization with opportunities to work on all sorts of interesting things. Much of our work is driven directly by the engineers themselves and not by management whims. And there's plenty of mobility to change roles if you decide you don't like what you're doing.

SRE specifically has proved to be a truly interesting and unique position. There are engineering challenges that we face which quite simply don't exist anywhere else. Beyond the much-touted perks, that's what makes Google special, in my opinion, and well worth the comparatively small effort I put into getting there.

[aosmith]

I couldn't agree more. If you aren't good enough to grow with the company the company isn't good enough for you.

[gritzko]

           TYLER
                 You're too young.  Sorry.


                             JACK
                 Wait a minute...


     Tyler comes back inside, shuts the door.


                             JACK
                 "Too young?"


                             TYLER
                 If the applicant is young, we tell
                 him he's too young.  Old, too old.
                 Fat, too fat.


                             JACK
                 "Applicant?"


                             TYLER
                 If the applicant waits at the door
                 for three days without food, shelter
                 or encouragement, then he can enter
                 and begin training.


                             JACK
                 "Training?"  Tyler...

[oh_sigh]

Nice!! What's your reddit username so I can read more of your high quality posts?

[toomuchtodo]

> Google isn't special. They're just a well known consumer brand, and all that marketing is what's got into people's brains. Coke is just sugar water, it doesn't make you cool. It just puts fructose corn syrup into your stomach.

It takes you a while to get to this mindset as a technology worker. Everyone's motivation is different though.

I'm 31, have 13 years of experience, and keep getting rejected by SpaceX for a Linux Admin job at launch operations Cape Canaveral. Yes, I'm overqualified. Yes, I'd be taking an enormous paycut. But I want to help send rockets to Mars damn it.

It's not always about the money, nor about the work. Sometimes, you're simply irrational about it.

[shaneofalltrad]

I believe they want to create this atmosphere if Google being hard to get in, and hopefully it will make the smart people feel prestigious if they do get in. Psychology 101. I would not be surprised if they targeted him because he was an active blogger, and would get this out to the world. Just think about it, our community is doing well because we are an open community working together online and what better way to control this group than injecting persuasion into the community.

Don't get me wrong, I would likely work for Google if I had the opportunity, but I would go anti-google if they did this to me.

[nawitus]

There's nothing irrational about that. Rationality is about maximizing your utility function. If you care about sending rockets to Mars, then it can indeed be rational to take a paycut.

[toomuchtodo]

Thank you!

[noir_lord]

If I was financially independent I'd work for SpaceX for free.

They build rockets!.

I'm not remotely in their league though as a programmer.

I build web apps.

[dc2447]

I have been approached a few times to interview for "Director, Site Reliability Engineering", which as far as I could tell was leading up the SRE team in Europe.

I had a few conversations but did not take it further. My reasoning was not going further was not the nature of the interview process, although I found it a little strange that they expected a director level position to know how many bits were in a mac address or nature of google as a business but the description of what the engineering team did for the majority of the time. Rather than building 'stuff' the team seemed to be involved in very low level debugging on the Google infra and apps.

I know somebody has to do that stuff but it's not something I was very sold on when it was described to me.

Incidentally the role is still being advertised so maybe finding engineering directors that know how many bits in a mac address or what the default signal sent with a kill command :)

http://www.linkedin.com/jobs2/view/10632280

[philsnow]

> I found it a little strange that they expected a director level position to know how many bits were in a mac address

All (or the overwhelming majority) of the engineering directors I know of at google are very technical. Maybe it's silly, but I think it increases their credibility with their transitive reports.

[mcintyre1994]

It seems from the parent like a recruiter just following up when they could. That seems smart - there was a level of interest so why not see if it's still there? A lot could happen in a year to make someone more (or equally, less) likely to decide to give it a go again.

[asdfologist]

Right, being a company filled with some of the best and brightest engineers in the industry working on technical challenges of massive scale makes Google just like any other company.

[bane]

Well, let's not blow this out of proportion. Google is basically a big advertising agency. The principle problem they're working on is click through rates.

If that's what floats the boats of the best and brightest, I feel kind of sorry for the direction of the species.

Sure they have lots of cool feeder technologies to support this singular goal, but getting people to click paid links is not exactly the same as colonizing Mars.

[minwcnt5]

Ah, the old "Google is just an advertising company" cliche. This is just a small step from the Reddit hipster memes that say things like "oh, self driving cars are not that interesting, they're just a way to get your attention off the road and onto their ads".

The vast majority of engineers at Google have never worked on click through rates in their lives. Downplay it as a "feeder technology" all you want, but I'm pretty sure Google search, for instance, has had a huge impact on humanity. One that some people might consider just as important as sending a robot to Mars.

[bane]

People have a habit of assigning altruism to things to they like that they don't pay for -- and without connecting those things to the costs.

SV and the greater Startup ecosystem has taken this to heart and turned it around, trying to "change the world" with photo sharing apps or weather reporting toasters or whatever. The fact of the matter is, this messaging is a hack to get people to feel good about using the service or buying the device. It's psychological slight of hand because people don't like it when a nameless gray haired white man in a suit says he's looking to maximize revenue growth the next 3 quarters.

Why is Google in search? To deliver ads. They can deliver better ads by having better search, no? They can deliver better ads by providing locational service. They can deliver better ads by getting your face stick to a mobile screen playing matching games that serve up ads. They can deliver better ads by...<insert method>.

Let's say google develops and licenses technology for self driving cars to all the automakers in the world. What do you think people are going to be doing in those vehicles? Surfing the internet and probably looking at ads.

Do you think Sergey Brin, when he's travelling to his private vacation island, bought with ad revenue, in his private jet, paid for with ad revenue, going over the quarterly report, about ad revenue, is thinking to himself, "I'm really satisfied with how many people found trivial information about pop stars with our technology" or is he thinking, "how can I get even more people to click the top-most served ads?"

It's great that I can get global turn by turn directions on my phone, it's improved my life, but google hasn't provided that to me because they think I'm a nice person and want to make my life better. I could have just kept buying Garmins after all. They want me to search for "restaurant" and have a top paid advertisement for "Bob's Pancake House" show up in the list and have me click that so Bob transfers a little money to Google's bank account.

Helping humanity is simply a fortunate side effect of Google's work. But it's not the focus.

[pwnguin]

> Do you think Sergey Brin ... is thinking to himself, "I'm really satisfied with how many people found trivial information about pop stars with our technology" or is he thinking, "how can I get even more people to click the top-most served ads?"

He's probably scared shitless that he has exactly one revenue stream worth talking about, and has no idea how to supplement it.

[S4M]

> I'm pretty sure Google search, for instance, has had a huge impact on humanity.

Actually, I am not so sure about this. Sure, it's convenient and saves time, but I wouldn't call it "a huge impact on humanity". It has been more than ten years since it has been around, and I haven't noticed a massive change. I would say, it appears to me that people are more connected, and slightly more aware of the news, which is due to a conjunction of the massive penetration of Internet, the social networks, and the improvement of the search. Google has an important part for sure, but again, for me it's not "a huge impact on humanity", like would be, say, the colonization of Mars or the end of the poverty (where Google search may or may not play a role).

[gaius]

Its "impact on humanity" may not be positive http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2008/07/is-googl...

[waterlesscloud]

Someone's certainly bought into the marketing.

[namelezz]

I disagree that Google filled with the best and brightest engineers in the industry. Google just turns into a "hype" engine that makes you think so.

[greenrice]

You're kidding yourself if you think Google is "just a well known consumer brand"...

[yukichan]

I use several Google products, daily. I also eat food Kraft's foods daily. I also use Comcast every hour of every day of the week. I'm not pining over a job at any of these companies.

[mitochondrion]

How is Google anything more than a well-known consumer brand?

[bane]

Because Google is probably the most well-known advertising agency on the planet?

They're not much of a consumer brand tbh, but they pull in tens of billions a year creating virtual properties to sell advertising space on.

[w1ntermute]

By that logic, you could also say that McDonald's isn't a restaurant chain, but a real estate company: http://seekingalpha.com/article/73533-mcdonalds-is-a-real-es...

[bane]

Well, who's Google's customers? People who buy ads, or free search users?

(an aside) One of the startups I worked for years ago, rented a huge office near San Jose, but decided to change directions and hire out of cheaper locales for a while. So we sublet the space out. For a good 2 years this space generated more revenue than the rest of the company and we joked that perhaps we should get into the real estate business. We even had two employees with real estate licenses in 3 states.

[d4mi3n]

One could make a similar argument for just about any large financial, real-estate, or holdings company. Bank of America, General Mills, and General Electric to name a few.

[001sky]

"They're not much of a consumer brand tbh"

People google stuff on bing, tho. So, if you're brand is a verb, in widespread common usage, I'd say it's doing ok. Kinda like Kleenex.

[eadlam]

Well, for one they just acquired eight of the worlds best robotics/AI teams. You don't see Kraft trying to bring the singularity nearer.

[yuhong]

On Google+: http://www.businessinsider.com/sex-and-politics-at-google-it...

[nerfhammer]

The fact that the same person going through the same process twice gets a completely different result strongly suggests that luck and randomness is a large factor, despite the apparent thoroughness and time investment.

I've advised people on a job search that the way it works with tech hiring is they ask you a few questions and either you'll happen to be able to get the answer quickly or you won't, and if you go on enough interviews eventually you'll get one where you get all the answers quickly and you will look really smart as a result. Consequently, you can't pin your hopes on or predict whether you would be able get hired by any particular company.

[aiiane]

Randomness is a factor whenever you have social interaction; as it turns out, people are subjective to the core. Trying to gauge someone's ability to deliver results is educated guesswork at best. You can only be so objective about it; there's going to be some measure of variance.

Google errs on the side of rejection because one bad hire has a much bigger impact than one good hire.

[gaius]

Yes, I've said it before, Google is what you get if you hire essentially at random and then tell all those people that the process that hired them is infallible.

[Cookingboy]

I work for Google, and no, we do not think our process is infallible since we understand there is a large chance for false negatives and even a small chance for false positives.

We do not hire at random, each hiring goes through multiple interviews and the results of each of those interviews are also reviewed by multiple people (interviewers are required to record all notes/code produced during the interview). Then a decision is made. If we feel not super certain we err on the cautious side and turn down the candidate, even though we know there is a good chance for false negatives.

As far as I can tell, our false positives rates are very low, and everyone I've worked with here at Google are incredibly qualified at their job. Are there people who don't perform? For a company this size that's an obvious yes, but I think if you judge interview's goal of eliminating false positives at the expense of producing false negatives, then we've been pretty successful.

[iDemonix]

I'm asking this question of all SRE's in this thread: How did you develop the necessary skills required for an SRE role? It's my dream job but I feel I'll never be intelligent enough. My current job in an ISP NOC doesn't give me tons of room to develop the skills required for an SRE role, I script/code and create small projects outside of work, but the entry level for SRE just looks so high compared to what I feel I could ever achieve.

[aiiane]

Reading is a good place to start. Find places where people describe their system architecture, and work your way through it, trying to understand why they make the choices they do. If you come across concepts you're not familiar with, look them up on Wikipedia or Google and keep digging until you do understand them. Ask questions if you need to - StackOverflow and ServerFault are good for this.

[omegote]

Lots of comments already here, but anyway I'll try.

I interviewed for a SRE position in Dublin half a year ago, I made it to the on-site interviews but after that I didn't get hired. I agree with pretty much everything the article says, specially the concerns about the interview about Large Scale Design. That one is pretty weird, it's the only one I couldn't really prepare. The only thing I don't agree with are the ending conclusions.

First, I wasn't told anything about where I had failed. It'd have been great to know it, so I could prepare better for the (unlikely) next time.

Second, maybe I'm a pessimist, but I don't feel like _I can compete on this very top level of computer engineering_. I feel more like I was quite lucky to get where I got. Maybe (in fact, I hope) it has something to do with the Dunning-Kruger effect...

[23david]

Google's SRE team will continue to get people coming straight out of college, but for people with startup industry experience I don't see how it's an awesome opportunity. Most of the interesting SRE work and innovation that I see today is happening at startups.

If Larry or Sergei call up personally and give you a blank check to start your own team/project, (and let you open-source your work...) maybe that'd be a different story.

But otherwise, seems like working elsewhere will be the better option if you care about experience/skills over climbing the corporate ladder and having an easy paycheck.

[philsnow]

> Most of the interesting SRE work and innovation that I see today is happening at startups.

Can you give some examples of some pieces of interesting SRE work that is happening at startups ? I'm curious.

I think the SRE role is still misunderstood a bit outside Google. Few startups that I'm aware of (there are a few, mind) care enough about "Reliability" to make a dedicated reliability engineer among the first 50 employees.

[bostik]

I was contacted right after the Elopcalypse, when all Nokia engineers and subcontractors were fair game and easy pickings.

Had one recruiter phone screen with some easy questions, a technical phone interview and then was informed they decided to skip the second phone interview. Got called on-site in Dublin directly instead.

My experience from there pretty much resembles what the author describes. First interview was about my knowledge of C, memory mappings and the related security implications. Let's just say that it helped I had experience from both little-endian and big-endian architectures. The second one was the fairly well known python interview. The problem is devious but really interesting. I botched that one, because I failed to follow my instinct and sketch a visualisation out first. That caused my attempts to derail pretty badly and by the time I realised I would need to rethink and simplify much of the logic, we were out of time.

Third one was a fascinating trouble-shooting problem. It was not just about the technical problem or the symptoms, but also about how to deal with people who may have these kinds of problems due to being frightfully clever at getting themselves set up with the problems in the first place. I think I nailed that one. We had a nice chat about the history of the problem with the interviewer because we had some time to spare.

Fourth one was a system design problem, and it was a true pleasure. The interviewer wasn't as much asking me questions, as he was more laying out the problem and the proposed architecture. We went through the requirements, limitations and he even showed me one neat trick which I hadn't ever thought before. (The actual architecture in question was effectively a DHT with an interesting twist. I thought it was brilliant.)

The fifth one was basically about how well I understood the system internals of unix and linux. However, the approach chosen was not the off-the-shelf one I've seen elsewhere - the dive into internals started with task_struct. Yes, the one which nobody is supposed to understand completely. (At least according to Robert Love in Linux Kernel Development.) I got it right, evevntually.

I was, of course, rejected due to "not good enough at coding". I don't hold that against the interviewers or the process. I know I'm a slow starter with any code - and I seem to suck at whiteboard coding. Whiteboard is great for doing visualisations and writing down short snippets where they are relevant, but for actual programming it just doesn't work for me. My most important design tools to this day are a large paper pad and a good pencil. After that it comes down to debug logs...

What may sound strange, is that the on-site day remains one of the most enjoyable experiences of my life. The interviews were designed to keep my brain spinning at overdrive, and the interviewers themselves were good enough not to actively mislead (they did keep me asking questions and stating the reasons for my approaches, which was crucial). Loved it.

I've told all this to my hacker-type friends and still remain convinced that any engineer worth his title should experience the Google on-site day. It's a challenging, but also extremely satisfying experience. Some of them have tried, and at least one has been actively courted. I'm convinced he would ace the interviews without a hitch. The requirement to move is the one thing keeping him away.