I don't know anything about this specific applicant. Often, an applicant to a top school meets with a volunteer alumni/ae interviewer from the applicant's local area. They might get a competent interviewer with a dev background. There normally won't be a quiz on software development but there will be a conversation about a project. If the applicant asserts they did 95% of a project's work with 5% help from a parent or other contributor, but the applicant's responses give the interviewer a much different perception of the percentage, this can be flagged as an embellished claim. And that can sometimes be much, much worse than not mentioning the project at all.
Hired by Google as L4 but rejected by top colleges
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Re: Hired by Google as L4 but rejected by top colleges
#52Kid’s making bank, congrats! But as an ex-L4 Googler I need to say, I’m sure he’s similarly frustrated as I was. I don’t live to maximize income - I want to maximize learning and fun. Compared to successfully launching a startup fixing bugs and launching minor features as an L4 is depressing as hell. Not everyone will have it that bad. Hopefully he’s having a better time than I did.
Can confirm - L4 is super depressing for ambitious engineer.
Quit! I did it and now I’m interviewing for roles where I could build the team from 1 to 5 engineers. Lots of good proven founders out there that want an ex-Googler.
Re: Hired by Google as L4 but rejected by top colleges
#53It's true that unis and corporations care about different things.
However, I am surprised that he would only be accepted at two of those universities, given the grades, SAT, and competitive coding. Most of those schools are solid but non-name branded.
Re: Hired by Google as L4 but rejected by top colleges
#54There's some incongruity here: college admissions are by no means fair, but they also don't evaluate for nearly the same things as Google's hiring process does. Put another way: colleges aren't qualified or equipped to make the kinds of determinations that Google does when hiring engineers, and being hired as a Google engineer prior to going to college isn't any particularly strong signal that you're prepared to go t…
It is the 1590 SAT, 4.42 GPA, individual achievements, and Asian last name that make the College rejections notable, not that Google hired him.
Re: Hired by Google as L4 but rejected by top colleges
#55Kid’s making bank, congrats! But as an ex-L4 Googler I need to say, I’m sure he’s similarly frustrated as I was. I don’t live to maximize income - I want to maximize learning and fun. Compared to successfully launching a startup fixing bugs and launching minor features as an L4 is depressing as hell. Not everyone will have it that bad. Hopefully he’s having a better time than I did.
Not a bad place if they make the most of it. They'll learn pretty good SDLC best practices and get exposed to Google's internal tooling. All of these are useful for running a technical team at some point.
Yes. Doing commits the Google way was a positive learning experience. Not applicable to really small early companies but a good tool for most other situations.
Re: Hired by Google as L4 but rejected by top colleges
#56> Shortly after he turned 18, Google hired him as an L4 software engineer, a position typically offered to candidates with multiple years of professional experience as well as a college degree. L4 is the entry level for Google's SWE position, and Google absolutely hires SWEs straight out of college (no professional experience). A Google SWE without a college degree is more rare but I know a few. I'd never heard of an…
Googler here. L4 requires experience. New grad hires are L3.
Oh, you're right, I spaced. I've been away from Google for a few years now, and I remembered the titles and Lx being off from each other but had it mixed up. Thanks for speaking up; I was wondering what the deal was with the downvotes.
* L3 = Software Engineer II, entry level. (There's no Software Engineer I.)
* L4 = Software Engineer III.
* L5 = Senior Software Engineer.
* L6 = Staff Software Engineer.
* ...Re: Hired by Google as L4 but rejected by top colleges
#57There's some incongruity here: college admissions are by no means fair, but they also don't evaluate for nearly the same things as Google's hiring process does. Put another way: colleges aren't qualified or equipped to make the kinds of determinations that Google does when hiring engineers, and being hired as a Google engineer prior to going to college isn't any particularly strong signal that you're prepared to go t…
idk, that is partly true. Then there's all the college signaling that academics are not enough. To be admitted in a top school you need to show extra curricular experience and generally be extraordinary, but now that's not enough. Well, I'd like to see the applications.
Re: Hired by Google as L4 but rejected by top colleges
#58I went to a small rural high school in the 1980s. Taught myself to code, started a business writing software, entered and won the regional science fair and placed second in the CS division of the International Science and Engineering Fair in 1987. Won a prestigious NASA internship, got glowing letters of recommendation from my NASA mentors. Took every AP class available to me (all both of them). Graduated third in my…
Prestigious schools are ranked in part based on how selective they are which incentivizes rejecting people rather than having some standard and growing to accommodate everyone who meets it. This incentivizes them to make admissions seem somewhat random so people that are unlikely to make the cut also apply. Even less selective schools want to reject some applicants simply to maintain a consistent number of students year to year.
Which isn’t to say things are random internally, just that they don’t want most people to be able to know if they would get rejected.
Re: Hired by Google as L4 but rejected by top colleges
#59There's some incongruity here: college admissions are by no means fair, but they also don't evaluate for nearly the same things as Google's hiring process does. Put another way: colleges aren't qualified or equipped to make the kinds of determinations that Google does when hiring engineers, and being hired as a Google engineer prior to going to college isn't any particularly strong signal that you're prepared to go t…
> I think treating college acceptances as a foregone conclusion based on demonstrated engineering prowess is an error.
While the demonstrated engineering prowess in high school does not guarantee an acceptance into a good college, I view it as the problem with the acceptance process.
Any college acceptance is somewhat random, but the fact that the vast majority of the listed 16 computer science programs rejected him does not show the US college acceptance process in good light. My 2c.
Re: Hired by Google as L4 but rejected by top colleges
#60I went to a small rural high school in the 1980s. Taught myself to code, started a business writing software, entered and won the regional science fair and placed second in the CS division of the International Science and Engineering Fair in 1987. Won a prestigious NASA internship, got glowing letters of recommendation from my NASA mentors. Took every AP class available to me (all both of them). Graduated third in my…
I've always wondered if they ever turn down people because the people applying appear that they will become intelligent and successful without said college? So why not accept someone who is doing great but not quite living up to their potential?