4 ms·

I'm not a comp-sci grad and I worked at Google for a bit after a startup I was at was acquired. I didn't proceed far after that 2 years due to the need to commu

I'm not a comp-sci grad and I worked at Google for a bit after a startup I was at was acquired. I didn't proceed far after that 2 years due to the need to commute and/or relocate but I had a clear path into full time work without much else. Although I was granted a bit of a pass, I believe anyone can work at Google given they are 1) slightly above average and have learned every base that they run into in reasonable depth 2) motivated enough to try to interview at least a couple times including extensive "refreshing." Not many people pass the interview the first time so it's a +6 month play. Maybe longer. They look at progress from one interview to the next. Google is a big organization full of lots of people and not many of them are strictly that far above average. Maybe the Dunning Kruger effect may be shifting what I think of myself and the average developer there a bit but it's not unrealistic for any developer to think they can work there. It just takes interest and effort.

TheMagicHorsey 9y ago
One should also ask the question: would you want to work at Google today. This is not the Google of 2002 ... or even the Google of 2010. 2017 Google is like 1999 Microsoft. Lots of brilliant people working on heavily resourced projects ... but also significant bureaucracy and many political animals in what was formerly a pristine engineering "garden of eden". You can see a lot of Google projects struggling now, and many startups in the same space as Google projects doing much better than more resourced teams doing the same thing at Google. Nobody ever got fired at Google for spending all day brilliantly arguing on Google's internal newsgroups and not doing any real work. And it shows in Google's work culture. Imagine a person doing that at a startup ... or Amazon for that matter. They would not survive very long. If you are young, and have many years of productive/earning years ahead of you, it might make sense to turn down a Google offer to try something a bit more "bloody" and hectic for a few years before you settle down in a comfy Google job. There are many brilliant people you can learn from at Google ... but very few work very hard. And hard, productive work is a skill to learn too.
- jacquesm 9y ago
  > Nobody ever got fired at Google for spending all day brilliantly arguing on Google's internal newsgroups There was a pretty high profile example of this not all that long ago.
  - DanBC 9y ago
    That was decidedly not "brilliant" arguing.
  - dx034 9y ago
    For spending all day in internal newsgroups or for posting one article that went viral?
  - Sommersonn 9y ago
    Was that because he posted his article _outside_ of Google?

TheMagicHorsey 9y ago

One should also ask the question: would you want to work at Google today. This is not the Google of 2002 ... or even the Google of 2010. 2017 Google is like 1999 Microsoft. Lots of brilliant people working on heavily resourced projects ... but also significant bureaucracy and many political animals in what was formerly a pristine engineering "garden of eden". You can see a lot of Google projects struggling now, and many startups in the same space as Google projects doing much better than more resourced teams doing the same thing at Google. Nobody ever got fired at Google for spending all day brilliantly arguing on Google's internal newsgroups and not doing any real work. And it shows in Google's work culture. Imagine a person doing that at a startup ... or Amazon for that matter. They would not survive very long. If you are young, and have many years of productive/earning years ahead of you, it might make sense to turn down a Google offer to try something a bit more "bloody" and hectic for a few years before you settle down in a comfy Google job. There are many brilliant people you can learn from at Google ... but very few work very hard. And hard, productive work is a skill to learn too.

jacquesm 9y ago
> Nobody ever got fired at Google for spending all day brilliantly arguing on Google's internal newsgroups There was a pretty high profile example of this not all that long ago.
- DanBC 9y ago
  That was decidedly not "brilliant" arguing.
- dx034 9y ago
  For spending all day in internal newsgroups or for posting one article that went viral?
- Sommersonn 9y ago
  Was that because he posted his article _outside_ of Google?