6 ms·

Get that job at Google

90 points by comatose_kid 19y ago

cperciva 19y ago
Everyone else who came to Google was in the exact same position as you are, modulo a handful of famous people with beards that put Gandalf's to shame, but they're a very tiny minority. Everyone who applied had the same reasons for not applying as you do. And everyone here says: "GOSH, I SURE AM HAPPY I CAME HERE!" So just apply already. And here, my friends, we have a wonderful example of something which statisticians call a "biased sample". Of course the people who (a) were offered a job by Google, (b) accepted said offer from Google, and (c) haven't quit, are happy about having interviewed at Google. If Steve Yegge had (a) gone to Facebook and interviewed ex-googlers, (b) phoned people who were offered jobs but decided not to accept them (yes, we do exist), or (c) talked to people who flew across the country to interview at Google but weren't offered jobs, he would probably hear a rather more complicated story.
- gruseom 19y ago
  people who were offered jobs but decided not to accept them (yes, we do exist) I'll bite. Did you refuse a job offer from Google? If so, would you tell us why?
  - rglullis 19y ago
    Easy. Google uses Linux. cperciva is a FreeBSD guy.
  - Hexstream 19y ago
    Angry because some random person (as in, you don't know him) on the net alludes to refusing an offer from Google?... Regardless of the truth or otherwise of his allusion, I think your interjection is déplacée (misplaced).
    - gruseom 19y ago
      Angry? What on earth gave you that impression? I'm curious. Edit: I'm specifically curious because I can think of a few reasons not to want to work at Google and I'd like to know if others share them.
      - Hexstream 19y ago
        I didn't know it was possible to bite without being angry... or maybe I don't quite grasp this idiom?
        cperciva 19y ago
        I didn't know it was possible to bite without being angry... It's a reference to fishing -- gruseom was suggesting that my parenthetical comment of "yes, we do exist" was bait (which he was going to take).
        Hexstream 19y ago
        Oh, I thought it referenced a dog biting someone in the arse. :| Thanks for the clarification!
  - elq 19y ago
    And there are people like me, who get pinged via some channel (linkedin, email, phone, etc) by google recruiters ad nauseam. And every time, tell them no thank you. In the beginning you'll be polite, after three years you'll ask them politely to go pound sand. Why? I have many friends that work there. I have many friends that work there only because they hope it'll get better once they make it into the "inner circle". These are not people who work on podunk projects, think indexing, crawling, gmail. Further, these same friends are hyper paranoid that they'll let something slip in good ol technical banter that we used to do; because google is soo damn secretive and the penalties range from simple hazing to termination if their slip of the lip was known (and I'm not talking about it showing up on techcrunch or vallywag or even a personal blog).
    - cperciva 19y ago
      And there are people like me, who get pinged via some channel (linkedin, email, phone, etc) by google recruiters ad nauseam. And every time, tell them no thank you. A year after I turned down Google's offer, I started getting poked repeatedly by Google recruiters (I'm guessing that after a year, the new employee referral bonus is up for grabs again). I complained to a friend of mine who works at Google, and he had someone put "DO NOT CONTACT" on my file -- and I haven't had a single email from their recruiters since. I don't know if you can get the same thing added to your file, but it might be worth asking.
      - elq 19y ago
        hrm. I've never tried that. but you know, google's mission is to "organize all of the world's information". I assume this includes HR info as well. With all of that data and all of the high-end machine learning talent that works there, you'd figure that they would be able to learn when someone has no interest working there.
        cperciva 19y ago
        I think you vastly overestimate the organizational abilities of Google recruiters. I have friends who, while working at Google, had recruiters contact them to ask if they were interested in working for Google. I'd say listening to what someone is saying and assessing whether they might be more interested six months later requires far more sophisticated thought processes than looking up whether someone already works at Google before trying to recruit them -- so making sure that you're very explicit about what you want them to do (mark your file as 'do not contact') is probably a good idea.
  - cperciva 19y ago
    Did you refuse a job offer from Google? Yes. If so, would you tell us why? Several reasons, in no particular order: 1. The interview process was completely and utterly broken; among other things, Google changed their mind about which position I was applying for 3 times without consulting me. 2. The job offer (for a position which would have required that I move from Canada to the US) arrived shortly after the US Senate voted away the right of Habeas Corpus. 3. I was interested in developing a system for online encrypted backups, and I was talking to someone who told me that his boss would be interested in licensing some of my work (the licensing didn't end up happening -- a draft MOU ended up arriving two months late which was completely different to what had been discussed in person -- but I decided to go ahead with my work anyway). 4. While I was told that my suggested choice of research projects "would be ok" (I was offered a research position), there was a clear lack of enthusiasm for it; and similarly I had no enthusiasm for the fields of research Google's director of research mentioned. In short, they screwed up the recruiting process; the job location wasn't ideal; I had another interesting option; and our interests didn't fit very well.
    - mynameishere 19y ago
      The job offer (for a position which would have required that I move from Canada to the US) arrived shortly after the US Senate voted away the right of Habeas Corpus. Well, that you would blame this on google suggests a very strong inability on your part to think coherently. That you think the Senate has "voted away the right of Habeas Corpus" suggests a very, very basic ignorance of legal matters. Well, enjoy the land of freedom: http://volokh.com/posts/1197260709.shtml http://volokh.com/posts/1197260709.shtml
      - logjam 19y ago
        He didn't blame it on Google, which suggests a very strong inability on your part to read. And the fact that you ignore the squeeze on basic freedoms in the U.S. over the last eight years suggests either woeful ignorance on your part, or typical Republican jingoism. Not cool. Unfortunately, Google seems to be going the way of America: descent into mediocrity, if not lower.
- tokipin 19y ago
  that part you quoted was totally tongue-in-cheek
aswanson 19y ago
Who cares about a gig there? You think in 95 the founders there were reading "Get that Job At Microsoft"? I think Yegge has written some decent stuff in the past (in -v mode, of course) but I doubt most of HN is interested in joining the cult. Anybody that says "GOSH, I SURE AM HAPPY" while reporting to a cube has something wrong with them. Build something new.
- rglullis 19y ago
  Build something new Easier said than done, no? Not to mention that if you think that no one is able to produce interesting work in a company like Google, than I'd say that you'd need to get out of the HN groupthink.
  - aswanson 19y ago
    Easier said than done, no? What isn't? than I'd say that you'd need to get out of the HN groupthink I'd say that my thoughts are mine and mine alone, and you are free to get out and apply to the big G if it suits you.
  - deleted 19y ago
    [deleted]
  - iamelgringo 19y ago
    Ummm.... This is News.ycombinator. The general geshtalt of the site is all about starting startups. I wouldn't necessarily say that's groupthink. At least I wouldn't say that to loud here. ;)
- ed 19y ago
  It's pretty naive to think that every employee must either be a) unhappy or, b), screwed up
  - aswanson 19y ago
    Right. I should have said "something wrong with them in terms of the way I see things". But I took that as implied.
henning 19y ago
I've heard that Google has really mixed, often shitty interviewing and this just confirms the hearsay.
- ojbyrne 19y ago
  My experience confirms that. I didn't get the job, which could be an argument that I'm bitter or something, but I told the first, second, and third recruiter I talked to that I probably wasn't interested in the position offered. Anyway beyond the "I'm not interested/come in anyway" the interview process was pretty broken. The first two interviewers somehow were given the resume of someone who had the same name as me but wasn't me (or something, it was never clear how they ended up with the wrong resume).
- cperciva 19y ago
  I've heard that Google has really mixed, often shitty interviewing and this just confirms the hearsay. My experience doesn't match that. I decided against accepting Google's offer, but I can't find any fault with my interviewers; while there were a few instances of "I know this is a lame question, but I'm supposed to ask it", most of the questions I was asked were quite interesting -- and my interviewers were clearly ready and eager to learn when I presented them with solutions which were better than the "official" solutions they expected.
  - aston 19y ago
    That would be the positive half of the "mixed." I thought my interview process was not so hot, personally. Not horrible, but not at all as good as yours.
  - whacked_new 19y ago
    I don't know Google's hiring process, but your experience is probably very atypical -- they came to you, and not you them, correct?
henning 19y ago
Counterpoint from a bitter ex-Googler: http://valleywag.com/366983/ex+googler-vents-google-recruiters-are-out-of-touch http://valleywag.com/366983/ex+googler-vents-google-recruite... However, he's clearly suggesting that classic, relatively timeless material on data structures and algorithms along with a little bit of theory of computation is at the heart of computer science, which is important if you want to do software development, and you'll get no argument from me there.
Emmjaykay 19y ago
I never ever get past the first phone interview with them. I usually stumble because I forgot some command-line switch or something. The last time they called I said I didn't want to interview since the interviewers often are kind of mean. :`(
sah 19y ago
Everything else I've mentioned you should know cold [...] You have a lot of warming up to do. Real-world work makes you rusty. Those quotes make it sound like Google's interview process is biased toward people who know a lot of basic-CS trivia. If real-world work makes you rusty, doesn't that imply that the interview is favoring people who have studied up on certain things such that they know them better than they actually need to? I would agree that a good candidate should have been familiar with the details of everything Yegge mentions at some point. But is there really much value in knowing these things "cold", rather than merely knowing them "warm"?
- utnick 19y ago
  yea I don't really see the point of memorizing CS trivia when A) I can google it if I ever need to know B) Most languages today have support for graphs, trees, and sorts, and other cs trivia things built in or via stable libraries It seems like a potential employee's ability to 'get things done' would be more important
  - menloparkbum 19y ago
    It isn't trivia. You can "get things done" a lot faster when you don't have to A) google all week for the answer or B) try out multiple half-baked implementations. I don't have an issue with Gooogle's requirement to know what you are doing, but unfortunately I think the interesting jobs at Google are becoming few and far between.
    - sah 19y ago
      I feel like there is a focus on what I would call trivial details built into the assumption that a good candidate should be able to explain how all of these things work in an interview. There's a huge difference between not knowing why you might want to keep a binary tree balanced and not knowing how red/black trees work off the top of your head. If you've heard of them and know what they're good for, you can look them up in a few seconds when you need them. Of course, a talented hacker will know the details of some data structures and algorithms. I'd be far more impressed with a candidate who could tell me in detail about recent uses of a couple more unusual data structures and algorithms than with a candidate who knew all the classics in detail but nothing unusual.
nickb 19y ago
If you really wanna work at Google, why not build something cool and possibly get bought out by Google instead? Better than trying to join through this (broken?) interview process. Personally, I'd rather not have 10 different bosses above me... but that's just me.
- rms 19y ago
  Anything that puts me that low on an organizational chart is incredibly unappealing to me. The conventional corporate path of becoming a director after working really hard seems crazy to me. And forget about becoming an executive.
  - copenja 19y ago
    I agree with you about joining low in the "org" chart being unappealing. But the comment about having to "work really hard" to become a director confuses me... It seems all paths to extreme success involve hard work..
    - rms 19y ago
      Working really hard to become a couple steps down on an org chart is much less appealing to me than working really hard and having a self-sustaining or acquired business.
anupamkapoor 19y ago
this blog should come with an option to turn verbosity off.
- jcl 19y ago
  A couple months ago, he wrote an article about how he thinks that the ideal blog length is something that takes between 10 and 50 minutes to read, because then more of it gets stored in your long-term memory. Not surprisingly, that article is also quite lengthy: http://steve-yegge.blogspot.com/2008/01/blogging-theory-201-size-does-matter.html http://steve-yegge.blogspot.com/2008/01/blogging-theory-201-...
prakash 19y ago
The "Programming Interviews Exposed" book covers most of what Steve talks about. http://www.amazon.com/dp/047012167X/ http://www.amazon.com/dp/047012167X/
wallflower 19y ago
Once you get hired by Google your expectations might not be met... There were stories a while back of Ph.D's hired by Google expecting to work on cool infrastructure/system architecture who find themselves instead working on writing Javascript.
menloparkbum 19y ago
Google is now a great place to go if you have a communications or marketing degree from a 2nd tier school. Every other woman I meet in the Bay Area is a Google account PM with a master's in marketing from some place like Maryland State university. I would say if you aren't an engineer google is AWESOME: free food, gym, haircuts, massage, shuttle buses, personal laptop, off-site retreats to disneyland every other month, etc. The other employment options for people in those positions usually resemble "the office." If you are an engineer you will be working 3 people to a cube on maintenance tools that maintain the tools for maintaining another tool. I also turned down Google's offer. And as others have mentioned, various Google recruiters still send me email at least three times a month.
0xdefec8 19y ago
"For God's sake, don't try sorting a linked list during the interview." Could someone explain that one to me? It's probably a sign I need to hit the books.
billroberts 19y ago
I don't think I could pass Steve's interview - that's why I had to start my own company :-) Hmm, I wonder if I should sack myself...
vlad 19y ago
I am reading this on my iPhone. I scrolled through 10 "pages" and didn't see any tips. All I learned was that google must hate apple.
tac-tics 19y ago
What the fuck is with you people? 60 responses and most of theme seem to be arguing about Steve's content instead of his average blog length. After all, it's Yegge we're talking about folks! =-P

90 points by comatose_kid 19y ago

Everyone else who came to Google was in the exact same position as you are, modulo a handful of famous people with beards that put Gandalf's to shame, but they're a very tiny minority. Everyone who applied had the same reasons for not applying as you do. And everyone here says: "GOSH, I SURE AM HAPPY I CAME HERE!" So just apply already. And here, my friends, we have a wonderful example of something which statisticians call a "biased sample". Of course the people who (a) were offered a job by Google, (b) accepted said offer from Google, and (c) haven't quit, are happy about having interviewed at Google. If Steve Yegge had (a) gone to Facebook and interviewed ex-googlers, (b) phoned people who were offered jobs but decided not to accept them (yes, we do exist), or (c) talked to people who flew across the country to interview at Google but weren't offered jobs, he would probably hear a rather more complicated story.

gruseom 19y ago
people who were offered jobs but decided not to accept them (yes, we do exist) I'll bite. Did you refuse a job offer from Google? If so, would you tell us why?
- rglullis 19y ago
  Easy. Google uses Linux. cperciva is a FreeBSD guy.
- Hexstream 19y ago
  Angry because some random person (as in, you don't know him) on the net alludes to refusing an offer from Google?... Regardless of the truth or otherwise of his allusion, I think your interjection is déplacée (misplaced).
  - gruseom 19y ago
    Angry? What on earth gave you that impression? I'm curious. Edit: I'm specifically curious because I can think of a few reasons not to want to work at Google and I'd like to know if others share them.
    - Hexstream 19y ago
      I didn't know it was possible to bite without being angry... or maybe I don't quite grasp this idiom?
      - cperciva 19y ago
        I didn't know it was possible to bite without being angry... It's a reference to fishing -- gruseom was suggesting that my parenthetical comment of "yes, we do exist" was bait (which he was going to take).
        Hexstream 19y ago
        Oh, I thought it referenced a dog biting someone in the arse. :| Thanks for the clarification!
- elq 19y ago
  And there are people like me, who get pinged via some channel (linkedin, email, phone, etc) by google recruiters ad nauseam. And every time, tell them no thank you. In the beginning you'll be polite, after three years you'll ask them politely to go pound sand. Why? I have many friends that work there. I have many friends that work there only because they hope it'll get better once they make it into the "inner circle". These are not people who work on podunk projects, think indexing, crawling, gmail. Further, these same friends are hyper paranoid that they'll let something slip in good ol technical banter that we used to do; because google is soo damn secretive and the penalties range from simple hazing to termination if their slip of the lip was known (and I'm not talking about it showing up on techcrunch or vallywag or even a personal blog).
  - cperciva 19y ago
    And there are people like me, who get pinged via some channel (linkedin, email, phone, etc) by google recruiters ad nauseam. And every time, tell them no thank you. A year after I turned down Google's offer, I started getting poked repeatedly by Google recruiters (I'm guessing that after a year, the new employee referral bonus is up for grabs again). I complained to a friend of mine who works at Google, and he had someone put "DO NOT CONTACT" on my file -- and I haven't had a single email from their recruiters since. I don't know if you can get the same thing added to your file, but it might be worth asking.
    - elq 19y ago
      hrm. I've never tried that. but you know, google's mission is to "organize all of the world's information". I assume this includes HR info as well. With all of that data and all of the high-end machine learning talent that works there, you'd figure that they would be able to learn when someone has no interest working there.
      - cperciva 19y ago
        I think you vastly overestimate the organizational abilities of Google recruiters. I have friends who, while working at Google, had recruiters contact them to ask if they were interested in working for Google. I'd say listening to what someone is saying and assessing whether they might be more interested six months later requires far more sophisticated thought processes than looking up whether someone already works at Google before trying to recruit them -- so making sure that you're very explicit about what you want them to do (mark your file as 'do not contact') is probably a good idea.
- cperciva 19y ago
  Did you refuse a job offer from Google? Yes. If so, would you tell us why? Several reasons, in no particular order: 1. The interview process was completely and utterly broken; among other things, Google changed their mind about which position I was applying for 3 times without consulting me. 2. The job offer (for a position which would have required that I move from Canada to the US) arrived shortly after the US Senate voted away the right of Habeas Corpus. 3. I was interested in developing a system for online encrypted backups, and I was talking to someone who told me that his boss would be interested in licensing some of my work (the licensing didn't end up happening -- a draft MOU ended up arriving two months late which was completely different to what had been discussed in person -- but I decided to go ahead with my work anyway). 4. While I was told that my suggested choice of research projects "would be ok" (I was offered a research position), there was a clear lack of enthusiasm for it; and similarly I had no enthusiasm for the fields of research Google's director of research mentioned. In short, they screwed up the recruiting process; the job location wasn't ideal; I had another interesting option; and our interests didn't fit very well.
  - mynameishere 19y ago
    The job offer (for a position which would have required that I move from Canada to the US) arrived shortly after the US Senate voted away the right of Habeas Corpus. Well, that you would blame this on google suggests a very strong inability on your part to think coherently. That you think the Senate has "voted away the right of Habeas Corpus" suggests a very, very basic ignorance of legal matters. Well, enjoy the land of freedom: http://volokh.com/posts/1197260709.shtml http://volokh.com/posts/1197260709.shtml
    - logjam 19y ago
      He didn't blame it on Google, which suggests a very strong inability on your part to read. And the fact that you ignore the squeeze on basic freedoms in the U.S. over the last eight years suggests either woeful ignorance on your part, or typical Republican jingoism. Not cool. Unfortunately, Google seems to be going the way of America: descent into mediocrity, if not lower.
tokipin 19y ago
that part you quoted was totally tongue-in-cheek

aswanson 19y ago

Who cares about a gig there? You think in 95 the founders there were reading "Get that Job At Microsoft"? I think Yegge has written some decent stuff in the past (in -v mode, of course) but I doubt most of HN is interested in joining the cult. Anybody that says "GOSH, I SURE AM HAPPY" while reporting to a cube has something wrong with them. Build something new.

rglullis 19y ago
Build something new Easier said than done, no? Not to mention that if you think that no one is able to produce interesting work in a company like Google, than I'd say that you'd need to get out of the HN groupthink.
- aswanson 19y ago
  Easier said than done, no? What isn't? than I'd say that you'd need to get out of the HN groupthink I'd say that my thoughts are mine and mine alone, and you are free to get out and apply to the big G if it suits you.
- deleted 19y ago
  [deleted]
- iamelgringo 19y ago
  Ummm.... This is News.ycombinator. The general geshtalt of the site is all about starting startups. I wouldn't necessarily say that's groupthink. At least I wouldn't say that to loud here. ;)
ed 19y ago
It's pretty naive to think that every employee must either be a) unhappy or, b), screwed up
- aswanson 19y ago
  Right. I should have said "something wrong with them in terms of the way I see things". But I took that as implied.

henning 19y ago

I've heard that Google has really mixed, often shitty interviewing and this just confirms the hearsay.

ojbyrne 19y ago
My experience confirms that. I didn't get the job, which could be an argument that I'm bitter or something, but I told the first, second, and third recruiter I talked to that I probably wasn't interested in the position offered. Anyway beyond the "I'm not interested/come in anyway" the interview process was pretty broken. The first two interviewers somehow were given the resume of someone who had the same name as me but wasn't me (or something, it was never clear how they ended up with the wrong resume).
cperciva 19y ago
I've heard that Google has really mixed, often shitty interviewing and this just confirms the hearsay. My experience doesn't match that. I decided against accepting Google's offer, but I can't find any fault with my interviewers; while there were a few instances of "I know this is a lame question, but I'm supposed to ask it", most of the questions I was asked were quite interesting -- and my interviewers were clearly ready and eager to learn when I presented them with solutions which were better than the "official" solutions they expected.
- aston 19y ago
  That would be the positive half of the "mixed." I thought my interview process was not so hot, personally. Not horrible, but not at all as good as yours.
- whacked_new 19y ago
  I don't know Google's hiring process, but your experience is probably very atypical -- they came to you, and not you them, correct?

henning 19y ago

Counterpoint from a bitter ex-Googler: http://valleywag.com/366983/ex+googler-vents-google-recruiters-are-out-of-touch http://valleywag.com/366983/ex+googler-vents-google-recruite... However, he's clearly suggesting that classic, relatively timeless material on data structures and algorithms along with a little bit of theory of computation is at the heart of computer science, which is important if you want to do software development, and you'll get no argument from me there.

Emmjaykay 19y ago

I never ever get past the first phone interview with them. I usually stumble because I forgot some command-line switch or something. The last time they called I said I didn't want to interview since the interviewers often are kind of mean. :`(

sah 19y ago

Everything else I've mentioned you should know cold [...] You have a lot of warming up to do. Real-world work makes you rusty. Those quotes make it sound like Google's interview process is biased toward people who know a lot of basic-CS trivia. If real-world work makes you rusty, doesn't that imply that the interview is favoring people who have studied up on certain things such that they know them better than they actually need to? I would agree that a good candidate should have been familiar with the details of everything Yegge mentions at some point. But is there really much value in knowing these things "cold", rather than merely knowing them "warm"?

utnick 19y ago
yea I don't really see the point of memorizing CS trivia when A) I can google it if I ever need to know B) Most languages today have support for graphs, trees, and sorts, and other cs trivia things built in or via stable libraries It seems like a potential employee's ability to 'get things done' would be more important
- menloparkbum 19y ago
  It isn't trivia. You can "get things done" a lot faster when you don't have to A) google all week for the answer or B) try out multiple half-baked implementations. I don't have an issue with Gooogle's requirement to know what you are doing, but unfortunately I think the interesting jobs at Google are becoming few and far between.
  - sah 19y ago
    I feel like there is a focus on what I would call trivial details built into the assumption that a good candidate should be able to explain how all of these things work in an interview. There's a huge difference between not knowing why you might want to keep a binary tree balanced and not knowing how red/black trees work off the top of your head. If you've heard of them and know what they're good for, you can look them up in a few seconds when you need them. Of course, a talented hacker will know the details of some data structures and algorithms. I'd be far more impressed with a candidate who could tell me in detail about recent uses of a couple more unusual data structures and algorithms than with a candidate who knew all the classics in detail but nothing unusual.

nickb 19y ago

If you really wanna work at Google, why not build something cool and possibly get bought out by Google instead? Better than trying to join through this (broken?) interview process. Personally, I'd rather not have 10 different bosses above me... but that's just me.

rms 19y ago
Anything that puts me that low on an organizational chart is incredibly unappealing to me. The conventional corporate path of becoming a director after working really hard seems crazy to me. And forget about becoming an executive.
- copenja 19y ago
  I agree with you about joining low in the "org" chart being unappealing. But the comment about having to "work really hard" to become a director confuses me... It seems all paths to extreme success involve hard work..
  - rms 19y ago
    Working really hard to become a couple steps down on an org chart is much less appealing to me than working really hard and having a self-sustaining or acquired business.

anupamkapoor 19y ago

this blog should come with an option to turn verbosity off.

jcl 19y ago
A couple months ago, he wrote an article about how he thinks that the ideal blog length is something that takes between 10 and 50 minutes to read, because then more of it gets stored in your long-term memory. Not surprisingly, that article is also quite lengthy: http://steve-yegge.blogspot.com/2008/01/blogging-theory-201-size-does-matter.html http://steve-yegge.blogspot.com/2008/01/blogging-theory-201-...

prakash 19y ago

The "Programming Interviews Exposed" book covers most of what Steve talks about. http://www.amazon.com/dp/047012167X/ http://www.amazon.com/dp/047012167X/

wallflower 19y ago

Once you get hired by Google your expectations might not be met... There were stories a while back of Ph.D's hired by Google expecting to work on cool infrastructure/system architecture who find themselves instead working on writing Javascript.

menloparkbum 19y ago

Google is now a great place to go if you have a communications or marketing degree from a 2nd tier school. Every other woman I meet in the Bay Area is a Google account PM with a master's in marketing from some place like Maryland State university. I would say if you aren't an engineer google is AWESOME: free food, gym, haircuts, massage, shuttle buses, personal laptop, off-site retreats to disneyland every other month, etc. The other employment options for people in those positions usually resemble "the office." If you are an engineer you will be working 3 people to a cube on maintenance tools that maintain the tools for maintaining another tool. I also turned down Google's offer. And as others have mentioned, various Google recruiters still send me email at least three times a month.

0xdefec8 19y ago

"For God's sake, don't try sorting a linked list during the interview." Could someone explain that one to me? It's probably a sign I need to hit the books.

billroberts 19y ago

I don't think I could pass Steve's interview - that's why I had to start my own company :-) Hmm, I wonder if I should sack myself...

vlad 19y ago

I am reading this on my iPhone. I scrolled through 10 "pages" and didn't see any tips. All I learned was that google must hate apple.

tac-tics 19y ago

What the fuck is with you people? 60 responses and most of theme seem to be arguing about Steve's content instead of his average blog length. After all, it's Yegge we're talking about folks! =-P