I never applied because they don't have a Portland office.
applied and got hired.
Not quite Portland, but if you're willing to move to Hood River or The Dalles...
http://www.google.com/intl/en/jobs/uslocations/the-dalles/sw...
Poll: Have you ever applied to work at Google?
81–90 of 103 posts
Re: Poll: Have you ever applied to work at Google?
#82I looked at the google facilities and met the google people. They are great people. Not the place for me tho; no privacy and too much groupthink.
Re: Poll: Have you ever applied to work at Google?
#83Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don't think Google (or really any large company) is a good place to work for autodidacts.
For the record, I now work for ClearChannel (a pretty big company), and it is by far the best place I've ever worked. You do feel the size of the company when it takes 5 separate IT guys to set up your workstation (hardware, software, email, phone, VPN), but as far as the actual day to day operations, I couldn't ask for a better environment. I am the only non-CS dev on the team, but I can hold my own.
Sure, all generalization break down upon examination, but I think any company that uses five people to set up a basic cubicle is pretty much a direct opposite of Google in corporate structure and culture. There are indeed companies, and large ones, where the autodidact can find a home, but it requires the kind of organizational looseness that an overwrought bureaucracy brings. In Google terms, this would be a lowering of the bar.
Re: Poll: Have you ever applied to work at Google?
#84I checked 3 boxes (hired, rejected, rejected offer). Can anyone do better? :)
Re: Poll: Have you ever applied to work at Google?
#85Never applied because I didn't want to live in the US. I'm sure Google is very nice and all, but I like decent health care. ;)
I imagine as a Googler you'd have access to some of the best healthcare in the world for a very modest price.
Re: Poll: Have you ever applied to work at Google?
#86Never applied because I didn't want to live in the US. I'm sure Google is very nice and all, but I like decent health care. ;)
Do you understand how the health care system works in the US? If you have insurance (as all Google employees presumably do) you'll get extremely good health care. The US system is only a problem if you happen to be uninsured.
Re: Poll: Have you ever applied to work at Google?
#87 I applied to YouTube and got past the phone screen but decided to focus on my own entrepreneurial efforts instead.
Re: Poll: Have you ever applied to work at Google?
#88I applied to Google and got rejected. Its a pretty interesting story so I thought I'd share: I applied through the traditional on-campus recruiting at UC Berkeley. Got past the first round of interviews on Berkeley's campus and then was taken to the Mountain View campus for 4 interviews and a bunch of events. That night, I got a call saying that the interviewers really liked me and recommended that I be hired. At mos…
Google's apparent academic focus is what puts me off. That and the doubt about whether interesting work is done outside of their main campus.
I'm self-taught and have been programming and making software from scratch for 15 years and have been pretty successful at it. Recently I did an MSc in CompSci in my spare time and was pleased with a merit (natch, only scored 69% and missed the distinction). This was the first time I've ever done exams or written anything (I was sleeping rough on streets when the peers I have now were being educated) and I feel good with the merit even though I kick myself at not finding that extra 1% somewhere.
What puts me off is a multi-faceted thing though:
1) That a late entry into academic and failing to get a distinction is going to count against me.
2) That my self-learning and lack of a strict appliance of a common vocabulary will sound bad in an interview (I felt in the exams that my struggle for the 'correct' term even though I knew what I wanted to express was not helping me get every point that I could).
3) That if 1) and 2) count against me, that a rejection will count against me in future (that Google collect and never forget data and that it would hurt a future chance when I might try again)
4) And then there's a deep concern with being in London... are the London engineers working on the same level of problem as the engineers in the US?
This last one is the real gnawing doubt... assuming I got through the interview, I'm not particularly interested in working in a body shop. I have ideas, I have creative solutions, I have dedication and I want to create world-changing product, and to improve life on this blue sphere. I want to invest my life's work into that... so I really really don't want to go through what appears to be a protracted process to arrive somewhere I didn't want to be.
Recently the work on Places is changing my view on Google back to a strong positive. It's making me consider applying again whereas before I didn't know why I would apply beyond the challenge of doing so. But the deep doubt remains... do people who work in the London office get the opportunity to work on the core of these problems?
To that, I've just not seen a strongly affirmative answer, and so I'll continue to delay any possible application because why would I risk a rejection unless I really know that I want to be there.
Re: Poll: Have you ever applied to work at Google?
#89Earlier quoted context omitted.
For the record, I now work for ClearChannel (a pretty big company), and it is by far the best place I've ever worked. You do feel the size of the company when it takes 5 separate IT guys to set up your workstation (hardware, software, email, phone, VPN), but as far as the actual day to day operations, I couldn't ask for a better environment. I am the only non-CS dev on the team, but I can hold my own.
I worked in CCRI (Interactive) like 7 years ago. What group are you in?
PRN Interactive...where else can you work with Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, and Ryan Seacrest in the same week!
Re: Poll: Have you ever applied to work at Google?
#90Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don't think Google (or really any large company) is a good place to work for autodidacts.
FWIW, I'm mostly autodidactic (have a CS degree but got it mostly in my last semester, after learning all the CS stuff while blowing off my physics major) and don't consider myself particularly social, and I've found Google to be a pretty good fit so far.
There are a lot of dominant social and professional conventions that derive from university experience, and I was using autodidact with the intent of excluding college graduates (or at least technical ones) in favor of the more archetypal bedroom geek.