Why I Studied Full-Time for 8 Months for a Google Interview

It fascinates me the extent to which he regrets not getting a Computer Science degree, and says it impacts how hireable he is. Obviously, data point of one here, but I don't have one and it hasn't come up once in my career.

You may not see web development and software engineering as different positions. Both involve programming and craftsmanship, but software engineering adds to it knowledge of data structures and algorithms, compiled languages, memory considerations, and understanding the impact of coding and architecture decisions on the machines where they reside.

I think that's a simplistic view of what "web developer" is these days. I work in the web for most of the time and I absolutely have to do deal with memory considerations as well as code and architecture choices. And if you're a full-stack developer you're likely dealing with some kind of compiled language on the backend.

In brief, Google is a company that hires smart, creative people, and treats them well. Google rewards merit, encourages big ideas, and gives employees the freedom to make good decisions for the user.

I very much question that, in 2016.

> I’ve spent thousands of hours reading books, writing code, and watching computer science lectures, all to prepare for the Google software engineer interview.

Shouldn't you just be doing this anyway if you want to be a good computer scientist? That's how you learn. You constantly take in new information and attempt to apply it and Computer Science is one of the most enabling fields of this form of learning since 1) we all love to churn out an "Experiment" every once and a while and have it fall into being a small side project that makes us a few k and 2) almost EVERYTHING is free! All the info is made by basement-dwelling nerds who sit at home and build cool ass shit and as such they put it all on the internet! Being one of these basement dwelling nerds, it's frigin amazing to have a wealth of all of the fields best research at my fingertips just a google away and I love learning this stuff not for an inevitable goal of "Being a Googler (tm)" but instead of furthering what I know about the world.

If the author is reading this, good on you for learning but don't worry about being a googler if you can do this then you're better then the average googler because you're in the top 1 maybe 2% of all computer scientists if you continually want to learn more. Google even thinks that way, look at their higher level employees like Rob Pike, people who think programmers must be limited because they aren't able to think as well as him about abstractions. Don't waste your time at google. Start a company, build something amazing for yourself or do contract work for others, write these blog posts to get more clients, and make the world a better place. If you're this smart you don't need to run a hamsterwheel for a huge Google-sized corporation.

How are these people that study for what ever company so certain they'll even get an interview? I'm still waiting for Google to acknowledge my application from last year lol.

>Shouldn't you just be doing this anyway if you want to be a good computer scientist?

Rather depends on the material. Writing code to learn something new, yes. Writing the same linked list inversion routine over and over, so that you can do it flawlessly on a white board during an interview not so much.

That's maybe a bit harsh, but I'm pretty much with you. It's passed the tipping point where it's inevitable it takes on the mold of a soulless megacorp. its really obvious that so many people just "need" to get into Google because it's validation for their ego. "I told you I'm a special snowflake genius!" Google is awesome, and I'm at Google, so you know I'm awesome...yada, yada. The inauthenticity is palpable; you just know these same people wouldn't be busting their ass to work on the cutting edge in No-Name software shop because they wouldn't have that big shiny feather in their cap.