I've never worked at Google, so if anyone at Google responds with an answer, feel free to ignore what I've written. However, I know a bit about how Google works

I've never worked at Google, so if anyone at Google responds with an answer, feel free to ignore what I've written. However, I know a bit about how Google works from research and talking to people that have worked there. It's very unlikely that you'll land into Maps or Search. Google has a, mostly, blind allocation policy designed to fill in the gaps for teams that no one wants to work at internally. That is where a vast majority of external recruits get placed. There are some exceptions, like if you're a domain expert of some kind, or quite senior in some other regard, but it doesn't sound like that's the position your in. I don't want to rain on your parade, but you're likely to be doing work that you are overqualified for. Also, see Michael O. Church's Quora answer below, but it takes a lot of work to finally get on a team worth putting on your resume. I don't want to be a downer, but these days just having Google or Facebook, et al. on your resume isn't all that impressive to hiring managers at companies/teams doing interesting work. If I ever interview anyone who started working at Google/Amazon/Microsoft/Facebook after a certain year, respective of the company, I'm actually going to dig into what team they were on. If they were on an internal tools team, or [insert job they were overqualified for] I am not going to be that impressed that they choose to work at Google, etc. So, if you're doing this to resume build then I would highly suggest you decline the offer. However, if you think you have the chops to actually climb the ladder at Google, then you should definitely accept the offer. Just be prepared to do a lot of work. sources: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4712230 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4712230 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4712230 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4712230 https://www.quora.com/What-happens-when-Google-decide-to-make-you-an-offer https://www.quora.com/What-happens-when-Google-decide-to-mak... (scroll down to see Michael O. Church's answer)