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Sounds pretty much like my experience with Google. I'm an embedded programmer with a EE degree, not a CS degree, and they hammered me with a bunch of algorithm

Sounds pretty much like my experience with Google. I'm an embedded programmer with a EE degree, not a CS degree, and they hammered me with a bunch of algorithm questions like you said. I'm not even interested in (nor qualified for) heavy-CS type work; I thought maybe they'd want me for more low-level stuff or doing some kind of work with hardware, custom OS or driver development, etc. But as I said above, don't paint all big companies with the same brush. Google's interviews are not at all like the interviews I've done with a bunch of other big companies. In many big companies, the different groups work entirely differently anyway; when I interviewed at Freescale, it wasn't any different than interviewing at some small company really, and the small workgroup I ended up working in was a great team to work with, and again didn't deal that much with the rest of the company anyway. It was a great experience except for upper management screwing it all up after a couple of years.

coldpie 10y ago
Haha, yeah, I do systems development, not far from your area of work, I imagine. I have a CS degree, but I hated doing it. Google seemed to be aiming for CS experts, and I just want to make computers do cool/useful stuff. Of course, there's other disadvantages to working for big companies. Lots of dead weight (see: that recruiter I worked with), lots of rules, a lack of trust, lots of bureaucracy... I'd do it if I have to, but the small company vibe works way better for me.
- Grishnakh 10y ago
  There's advantages to big companies too: better pay usually, better benefits, more structure, and in my experience more professionalism. Also the ability to move laterally is useful. If you're a female or minority you'll probably do better in a big company too because they're very intolerant of harassment and discrimination because they can get in legal trouble for it, so they're very proactive about addressing these things early on, providing training for it, etc., whereas some small companies I've been at seem to have a "good-ole boy" culture still hanging around. If you can get into the right workgroup, a big company can be a good experience, but different groups and departments can be run very differently from each other within the same company.

coldpie 10y ago

Haha, yeah, I do systems development, not far from your area of work, I imagine. I have a CS degree, but I hated doing it. Google seemed to be aiming for CS experts, and I just want to make computers do cool/useful stuff. Of course, there's other disadvantages to working for big companies. Lots of dead weight (see: that recruiter I worked with), lots of rules, a lack of trust, lots of bureaucracy... I'd do it if I have to, but the small company vibe works way better for me.

Grishnakh 10y ago
There's advantages to big companies too: better pay usually, better benefits, more structure, and in my experience more professionalism. Also the ability to move laterally is useful. If you're a female or minority you'll probably do better in a big company too because they're very intolerant of harassment and discrimination because they can get in legal trouble for it, so they're very proactive about addressing these things early on, providing training for it, etc., whereas some small companies I've been at seem to have a "good-ole boy" culture still hanging around. If you can get into the right workgroup, a big company can be a good experience, but different groups and departments can be run very differently from each other within the same company.