Live data from Hacker News

My Google Internship

goldsborough.me

11–20 of 270 posts

Re: My Google Internship

#11
post #9

Really well written...an interesting read. On this though: "On my last day, my team got me some cake and gave me some very sweet farewell gifts, such as the potato below." What's with the potato? Is that some inside joke at Google?

I think potatoes are just a joke in general. They're just... there.

Re: My Google Internship

#12

Kind of ridiculous IMO that Google does not extend offers before leaving the internship. In cases like this, it really does not make sense.

I believe the OP is a first year CS student, so a full time offer probably didn't make sense.

Re: My Google Internship

#13

Kind of ridiculous IMO that Google does not extend offers before leaving the internship. In cases like this, it really does not make sense.

It does. All interns that receive good evaluation feedback are offered to transition into full-time employees and this transition may not even require interview loop.

Re: My Google Internship

#14

Kind of ridiculous IMO that Google does not extend offers before leaving the internship. In cases like this, it really does not make sense.

In that midpoint form I mention there's a box you can tick if you want to do "conversion" interviews at the end of your internship. Since I still have two more years of uni I didn't tick that box.

Re: My Google Internship

#15

I'm curious about the negative on work/life balance. Did they really talk about how to improve it, or was it tongue-in-cheek?

Well, they did mean it for real. They didn't directly give me feedback on how to improve it, other than "go home, man". It's a personal choice in the end :)

Re: My Google Internship

#16
post #9

Really well written...an interesting read. On this though: "On my last day, my team got me some cake and gave me some very sweet farewell gifts, such as the potato below." What's with the potato? Is that some inside joke at Google?

No it was more a joke between me and a colleague, because even though we got gourmet food three times a day he would just eat potatoes and eggs all the time

Re: My Google Internship

#17

I love reading accounts like this. It's fun and well written and I enjoy the photos too. I work in a cube farm of grey cubes on boring LoB applications. I know I'll never be skilled enough (or, more correctly, I'll never be ambitious enough to become skilled enough) to work at Google et al but it's really fun to sample the experience from the outside. :)

I really hate reading people believe they aren't skilled enough or won't be good enough to work at Google. When you realize all of the toys are part of an extremely successful strategy to keep you at the office as long as possible, and that Google is a huge company that has to hire thousands of people every year, you realize that this view that Google is "the best place to work" or that everyone who works there is a…

Not sure why this is downvoted, it's mostly true. At this point, getting an offer from Google has nothing to do with engineer skill. Only one thing matters, spending time studying algorithms/data structures and being able to quickly pattern match it to random problems. It's just like cramming for a final exam in college. Massive amount of info pushed into short-term memory and then after finals week, flushed out. Has nothing to do with your skill or experience as an engineer.

If I saw a resume and it had Google on it, it doesn't really tell me much other than they played the tech interview game well. It would actually be a signal that I should not interview them like the way Google and others do because they know how to do optimized studying for it. Instead, some other interview method should be used to find out if they're actually a good engineer instead of just good at studying.

Re: My Google Internship

#18

I love reading accounts like this. It's fun and well written and I enjoy the photos too. I work in a cube farm of grey cubes on boring LoB applications. I know I'll never be skilled enough (or, more correctly, I'll never be ambitious enough to become skilled enough) to work at Google et al but it's really fun to sample the experience from the outside. :)

I really hate reading people believe they aren't skilled enough or won't be good enough to work at Google. When you realize all of the toys are part of an extremely successful strategy to keep you at the office as long as possible, and that Google is a huge company that has to hire thousands of people every year, you realize that this view that Google is "the best place to work" or that everyone who works there is a…

The pay, company reputation (as a good employer AND top place technically), appearance on a resume, possibility of working on something cool, and actually managing to get through their interview is always going to appeal to people.

I'd work at google if I got an offer, because why not. I know it's a big company and everything, oh well.

I'd settle for passing the interview though. Don't like failing. :P

Re: My Google Internship

#19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I really hate reading people believe they aren't skilled enough or won't be good enough to work at Google. When you realize all of the toys are part of an extremely successful strategy to keep you at the office as long as possible, and that Google is a huge company that has to hire thousands of people every year, you realize that this view that Google is "the best place to work" or that everyone who works there is a…

Not sure why this is downvoted, it's mostly true. At this point, getting an offer from Google has nothing to do with engineer skill. Only one thing matters, spending time studying algorithms/data structures and being able to quickly pattern match it to random problems. It's just like cramming for a final exam in college. Massive amount of info pushed into short-term memory and then after finals week, flushed out. Has…

Yes and no. Interviewing is definitely something you can become good at by practice (I can confirm). But I can tell you that studying algorithms and data structures for interviews (which I would not have done otherwise) has made me a much better engineer and I've taken a huge amount of knowledge from it that I use very often. So it's more like one of those exams that taught you a lot, even if you don't remember everything after a year :)

Re: My Google Internship

#20

I love reading accounts like this. It's fun and well written and I enjoy the photos too. I work in a cube farm of grey cubes on boring LoB applications. I know I'll never be skilled enough (or, more correctly, I'll never be ambitious enough to become skilled enough) to work at Google et al but it's really fun to sample the experience from the outside. :)

What are LoB applications?

I think you suffer from an extreme case of imposter syndrome. Looking through your comment history, I conclude you are more than capable of working there. Whether it would fit with your location/work-life-balance/life goals, I am not sure. Google gets an inflated reputation as do many other prestigious firms. The interview process contains a large element of chance.

1. I would suspect that anyone who has a passion for including more high-level thinking in the classes they teach has the right approach to technology. Let alone that you actually teach a programming course to begin with.

2. Many of your comments show insights into computing and algorithms that I would say are of the same caliber of those of my friends who work at Google.

Post reply on HN