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Why I Don’t Talk to Google Recruiters

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Re: Why I Don’t Talk to Google Recruiters

#391

Post by DonHopkins »

ceronman wrote: post #376
roguecoder wrote: post #230

The reason I won't work at Google is because Google is incapable of hiring the engineers I want to work with. It's not a matter of whether I could pass that interview; it is whether I want to work with the code of people who can pass that interview. Whether I want to get code reviews from people who can pass that interview. Whether I want to rely on the code of people who can pass the interview not to break down in i…

How many Google Engineers do you know? I know quite a few of them. All of them, without exception, are incredibly brilliant engineers. You might think this is just anecdotal evidence, that's correct. But also think that Google Engineers are responsible for many top quality, world class software projects. How could that be possible without really good engineers? Yes the interview process is tedious and can be frustrat…

Q: How many Google engineers does it take to screw in a lightbulb?

A: Build great content.

https://twitter.com/dr_pete/status/623981710003187712

Re: Why I Don’t Talk to Google Recruiters

#392

Post by noir_lord »

ethbro wrote: post #343
perfmode wrote: post #324

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Third party apps wouldn't fail if they were correct in the first place. Failing gracefully on unexpected input is the way a competent engineer would structure their program.

Is there a functional difference between "my production code suddenly stopped processing work because it rejected a newly nullable input value" vs "my production code suddenly stopped processing work because it crashed on a newly nullable input value"?

production code that rejects a suddenly nullable input value is more deterministic than "something crashed" and can be handled better (triggering a watchkeeper, notification) rather than relying on someone paying attention to the crash logs.

Re: Why I Don’t Talk to Google Recruiters

#393

Post by rfrey »

michaelhoffman wrote: post #137
city41 wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I make it a point to reply to recruiters. But there's many different types of recruiting email. I completely ignore (and sometimes even filter straight to the trash) blatantly shotgunned form emails. If the email shows any effort whatsoever, mentioning a project I worked on, mentioning my current job, pointing out the role in question would fit my skills and it actually does, basically anything at all that suggests i…

A CEO of a small company once sent me what might have been a really interesting opportunity and I was going to reply but then I noticed the tracking links and realized it was just a very-well-crafted form letter. I stopped considering it then.

Tracking pixels on emails aren't always an indication of a form letter. Marketing folks use lots of services that add tracking to all their outgoing email. (Whether that's OK or not for you is a different matter, I'm just pointing out that it could have still been an individual email.)

Re: Why I Don’t Talk to Google Recruiters

#394

Post by blazespin »

ryandrake wrote: post #31

Unlike most of HN (it seems), I like hearing from recruiters, because despite the very low signal-to-noise ratio, there's always that remote chance that one of them could be able to set me up with a "dream job". It's zero cost to me to politely reply to a recruiter and ask for more info, and I try to at least respond to everyone. What I've found is that they must have a lot of candidates they're juggling because fall…

Agreed, this makes perfect sense. I'll even go further and let them put me up in a hotel / buy my plane ticket even if I'm not particularly interested. Going to interviews is a lot of fun.

Re: Why I Don’t Talk to Google Recruiters

#395

Post by cableshaft »

iainmerrick wrote: post #330
cableshaft wrote: post #216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is each company will ask you a different set of algorithms, and you're not sure which they'll ask, so you effectively have to memorize a LOT more than 10 if you want to be prepared for whatever they throw at you (not literally 1000, but maybe 40 or 50, which will take considerable time to prepare for, in addition to all the other preparation or unrelated questions they could end up asking you (architectur…

The other downside of that is: in 18 months they're going to hassle you for an interview again, whether you want one or not. I have a friend who was interviewed at Google, rejected, then interviewed again a year later, rejected again, and then a year later a Google recruiter got in touch to see if they'd like another interview. They said it started to feel like a cruel joke.

Oh yeah, recruiters from Google have contacted me three times since then. Actually the most recent recruiter said I could contact her whenever I felt like having another interview.

I might eventually try going through the gauntlet again, but I wasn't quite willing to move to the west coast during that time (new relationship, new home, new puppy, work was going well, I didn't really need more big life changes at that point).

I'm starting to consider a job change but I'm still not sure I want to move to the west coast. I'd probably have to downshift my home quite a bit out there.

Re: Why I Don’t Talk to Google Recruiters

#396

Post by squeaky-clean »

lettersdigits wrote: post #310
roguecoder wrote: post #230

The reason I won't work at Google is because Google is incapable of hiring the engineers I want to work with. It's not a matter of whether I could pass that interview; it is whether I want to work with the code of people who can pass that interview. Whether I want to get code reviews from people who can pass that interview. Whether I want to rely on the code of people who can pass the interview not to break down in i…

> The reason I won't work at Google is because Google is incapable of hiring the engineers I want to work with That's a very bold (even arrogant, sorry) statement about 57,000+ (googled it) employees. So 57,000 are worse devs then you ? This is what i hear from your statement, correct me if I am wrong .. Many extremely talented people want to work for Google. They will take the tests, even if they don't agree with th…

57,000 employees does not equal 57,000 engineers, by the way. Google has a lot of people that do things other than code.

> So 57,000 are worse devs then you ? This is what i hear from your statement, correct me if I am wrong ..

The idea that you can be objectively better or not better at programming, and that it's decidable through one or two simple factors is kinda wrong and goes with OP's point.

Re: Why I Don’t Talk to Google Recruiters

#397

Post by nkassis »

paulus_magnus2 wrote: post #311

If working for Google is such a Valhalla, why do people leave after 1.1y https://www.quora.com/Why-do-Google-employees-have-such-a-lo...

Read some of the response and it's what I expected, fast hiring rate make tenure number artificially low. That's true at most large tech companies right now, they've grown massively in the past 5 years.

Re: Why I Don’t Talk to Google Recruiters

#400

Post by alaskamiller »

biztos wrote: post #378
roguecoder wrote: post #230

The reason I won't work at Google is because Google is incapable of hiring the engineers I want to work with. It's not a matter of whether I could pass that interview; it is whether I want to work with the code of people who can pass that interview. Whether I want to get code reviews from people who can pass that interview. Whether I want to rely on the code of people who can pass the interview not to break down in i…

What are these "agencies" you speak of, and how do you tell the good ones from the bad? (This is a serious, non-ironic question: I don't know what you mean, but it sounds interesting.) Edit: I guess you mean recruitment agencies? How does one find the "good ones," other than through bitter experience and/or luck?

He means dev agencies that contract for projects. Agencies act as general contractors, augment your staffing, or provide consulting services. Agencies build whole or partial products, often times for stuff that you use on a daily basis. For example, there's an agency with relationships with many YCombinator companies and builds most of their mobile app or web apps.
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