I stopped reading at "My first job out of college was at Microsoft."
You are willing to give Microsoft a chance but not Google?
Why I Don’t Work At Google
61–70 of 76 posts
Re: Why I Don’t Work At Google
#62Earlier quoted context omitted.
Just curious, was this a sarcastic remark?
Nope - I've read before that to move teams at Google, all you need do is say so, and you can move to whichever other project you want to - no questions asked. Not sure how any of the less interesting projects get done, but that's just what I've heard.
this is not true. if a team is "hiring" you can transfer in, but the popular ones are full up, and getting in is very competitive. plus many teams are only in a particular office and if are not willing to move to it, then you are out of luck.
that said, transfers are supported by management and there's a nice internal web app for browsing which teams have reqs and for requesting a transfer.
Re: Why I Don’t Work At Google
#63I stopped reading at "My first job out of college was at Microsoft." You are willing to give Microsoft a chance but not Google?
She is saying that she shuns the idea of working for Google based on the lessons learned working at Microsoft.
Re: Why I Don’t Work At Google
#64"Just %#~*^{}! Finish It" is really just a vaguer "You Ain't Gonna Need It" or "The Simplest Thing That Could Possibly Work."
Re: Why I Don’t Work At Google
#65She does have a good point; I've always found that people that like those mindgames are never really very good at programming. Something about wanting to find the right answer to a specific question seems to conflict to finding an answer to a vague set of requirements, programming. A better interview question might be "draw a picture of anything that comes to mind".
I interviewed with Google four years ago and have been working there since. None of my interview questions were of the puzzle variety. Many were coding and some interviews were completely open ended of the type "You seem to have done a lot of X" followed by a series of hard questions on X from someone who is clearly interested in learning more about X. I found the interviews quite enjoyable. YMMV.
Re: Why I Don’t Work At Google
#66I won't work for Google via recruitment neither. The only case if Google buys my company.
Re: Why I Don’t Work At Google
#67Earlier quoted context omitted.
There is a way to test to see if someone can get stuff done, but that usually entails hiring someone for a predetermined time (6 mos, a year, 2 years) and then evaluating whether they meet your standards at the end of that time period. If they do, they stay on. If someone really wants to work for your organization, I can guarantee that they'll do everything in their power to get stuff done during this time period.
Oh, sure, but some of the best people won't work on a contract basis.
Yes, I totally agree, but I was assuming we were talking about evaluating people who were for the most part unproven in the work world. Many investment banks and consulting firms hire fresh undergrads on contract.
Re: Why I Don’t Work At Google
#68This seems to paint the world in overly broad brush strokes. There are good teams, and there are bad teams, and there's bound to be a bunch of both in any organization. You have the same problem with startups: there are good ones and bad ones, and it's usually not possible to tell one from the other until you join them. Why not just try, see what you get, and then you can transfer or quit if you end up on a bad team?…
I agree. It seems as if she's taking whatever she's experienced in Microsoft (which is one company) and applying that to any other company with multidisciplinary teams and a large bureaucratic layer. She should, at least, give working in Google a chance (maybe a couple years or so?) before writing something like this.
I am struggling with the decision to accept a job offer at the moment, and I keep hearing this: "why don't you just try it (for a couple of years)". And I don't understand it.
Granted, I could quit after 3 months, but it would probably invoke bad feelings. So I assume for employment I would be looking into at least one year. That is HUGE investment of time. It is 3% of my officially remaining time in the work force (provided I stay healthy, until the official retiring age). Is that really an investment you are supposed to make "just to try things"???
Re: Why I Don’t Work At Google
#69Earlier quoted context omitted.
I disagree on the less signal part of your comment. To me, it looks like more and more signal. Since search, we've seen maps, mail, reader, chrome, android, app engine, big table, google docs, wave, google voice, a google branded phone, google fibre to the home for those lucky enough, prediction api, charts, dns services, @font-face directory, google home page, and others many others. Sure, some of those have been bu…
Some? Only one or two things in that entire list originated at G.
Really? Just one or two things? Which ones?
Re: Why I Don’t Work At Google
#70Earlier quoted context omitted.
I believe because the publicly available reports of their interview process don't seem to emphasize "getting stuff done" as much as she prefers, but instead emphasize other attributes. She believes that if it's not emphasized in the interview process, it's likely to be underemphasized in the organization as a whole. Since she believes that attribute to be more important than its proportion of apparent emphasis, the p…
I would say that interviewing for engineering knowledge (coding, algorithms, software engineering) is pretty straight forward, but interviewing to figure out if a candiate can get 'real' work done is very difficult. I don't know of any magic way of testing for that. There are some good signals, of course, such as: 1) pre-interview open source reputation and release. 2) References from people you trust and respect. 3)…
>and am also waiting for the part about Google in the OP)
One good reason not to work for already big companies like Google and Microsoft, is that your growth potential is limited. Case in point, video.google.com and www.youtubue.com. Nobody needs to wonder about which of the two developers among these projects struck it rich.
Why shovel for someone else's palace when you can build your own?