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Getting a job at Google as an engineer is ridiculously hard. The guy that wrote Homebrew couldn't even get hired even though 90% of their engineers use his soft

Getting a job at Google as an engineer is ridiculously hard. The guy that wrote Homebrew couldn't even get hired even though 90% of their engineers use his software. https://twitter.com/mxcl/status/608682016205344768 https://twitter.com/mxcl/status/608682016205344768 If you can get a job at Google, it's very different than getting a job "at a big company" and has historically actually increased your odds of success later on (via the propensity of investors to fund Xooglers). So I would definitely agree - taking a job at Google when you haven't had one before vs. starting a startup is a very legitimate choice to make. Taking a job at Microsoft vs. starting a startup, I would argue (and the X-Microsofters in my life) a very different one.

ilyanep 11y ago
You shouldn't confuse "getting a job there is hard" with "the interview process is random and skewed toward false negatives, with an especially bad job done with experienced candidates" --- "Second problem: every 'experienced' interviewer has a set of pet subjects and possibly specific questions that he or she feels is an accurate gauge of a candidate's abilities. The question sets for any two interviewers can be widely different and even entirely non-overlapping." -- http://steve-yegge.blogspot.com/2008/03/get-that-job-at-google.html http://steve-yegge.blogspot.com/2008/03/get-that-job-at-goog... "I have 25 years of software development under my belt, I published a book, spoke at various conferences in Europe, have a Github profile (admittedly not very lively), worked for well-established enterprises and have great references. Why shall I still prove myself?" -- https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10757186 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10757186
base698 11y ago
Keep in mind that's just one side of the story. The guy could have been a complete asshole and that was the reason for rejection. It makes everyone that's interviewed at Google and didn't get it feel better, which is why it is such a good story.
stijlist 11y ago
Attempting to get a job at 1 of the Google/Apple/Facebook/Amazon/Microsoft quintet of big companies that pay well, though, is quite doable, in spite of the noisiness of the process. mxcl got a job at Apple (working on Swift's package manager, no less[0]) a short while later. [0]: https://github.com/apple/swift-package-manager/graphs/contributors https://github.com/apple/swift-package-manager/graphs/contri...

ilyanep 11y ago

You shouldn't confuse "getting a job there is hard" with "the interview process is random and skewed toward false negatives, with an especially bad job done with experienced candidates" --- "Second problem: every 'experienced' interviewer has a set of pet subjects and possibly specific questions that he or she feels is an accurate gauge of a candidate's abilities. The question sets for any two interviewers can be widely different and even entirely non-overlapping." -- http://steve-yegge.blogspot.com/2008/03/get-that-job-at-google.html http://steve-yegge.blogspot.com/2008/03/get-that-job-at-goog... "I have 25 years of software development under my belt, I published a book, spoke at various conferences in Europe, have a Github profile (admittedly not very lively), worked for well-established enterprises and have great references. Why shall I still prove myself?" -- https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10757186 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10757186

base698 11y ago

Keep in mind that's just one side of the story. The guy could have been a complete asshole and that was the reason for rejection. It makes everyone that's interviewed at Google and didn't get it feel better, which is why it is such a good story.

stijlist 11y ago

Attempting to get a job at 1 of the Google/Apple/Facebook/Amazon/Microsoft quintet of big companies that pay well, though, is quite doable, in spite of the noisiness of the process. mxcl got a job at Apple (working on Swift's package manager, no less[0]) a short while later. [0]: https://github.com/apple/swift-package-manager/graphs/contributors https://github.com/apple/swift-package-manager/graphs/contri...