[cyberpanther]

I wouldn't take it too hard. I had the same thing happen to me for both Google and Amazon. With both they called me back later several times for other positions to interview for. I thought I did well on the interviews and still couldn't make it in. On one Google interview where I had the most expertise and thought I could get the job no problem, I didn't make it past the first interview.

I really couldn't figure out the problem but found a video from a former Google engineer who was on a hiring committee for years. If I can find the talk, I'll post the link. At one point during his time at Google, the committee got 10 candidates to decide on. They decided to not hire any of them. After the decision, they were told that the 10 candidates were actually everyone on the committee. So they had just decided not to hire themselves.

The point is a lot of times it is totally random and if one interviewer or committee member has a bad day, they may not hire you. So while skill is definitely required, a lot of luck is also required.

If you did well at all, they will probably call you back in the near future for another position. So stay positive and keep practicing till you get in.

For me, I eventually got a job with a smaller company and now I'm kind of tired of trying to get in. Maybe next year.

[turnip1979]

I've gotten to the final round twice with no offers from Google. They called me a few time since then and I've said no. I'm not sure how many older engineers are in the same boat but I too am "tired of trying to get in". I know they have plenty of candidates to choose from so it is my loss by not interviewing. But the whole "high false negative rate" crap annoys me. This isn't limited to Google but all the companies that don't look at my resume (what I've done to date), and use the interview as the sole criteria to decide if I work there ... at this point, I don't think I want to work at those places. Maybe I'm just old .... and tired :)

[1nothired]

I too am annoyed with the "high false-negative rate". I have some impressive professional achievements as an engineer, and I also am a graduate of a top CS program. I recently did a set of onsite interviews at least competently: It's hard to judge how they saw it but I definitely didn't bomb out. In the end, I got rejected. I guess the reality of my excellence as an engineer doesn't matter, what matters is that I didn't appear like an algo-puzzle genius that day in front of a whiteboard. Based on this and other experiences, I conclude that:

1. The whole "developer shortage" talk from top companies is self-inflicted at best. I know it can be hard to find the right hire, but the top tech companies have loads of solid applicants and turn away great people every day. If they were truly desperate, there are so many great people they could snap up.

2. Making the interviews entirely about algorithmic questions biases towards new graduates and academics. To be honest, working as an engineer does not develop the "algo" part of my brain much. They might as well challenge me to a chess match to "prove my intelligence". (I don't play chess)

Personally I'd rather see interviews focus more on real things related to professional practice, at least for experienced hires. If they really are interested in testing my ability on the spot, would it be so hard to set up a computer and have me perform tasks that developers actually do? Like write code that is challenging in some way, but doesn't hinge on a level of on-the-spot cleverness that is almost never exercised in real professional work?