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“You can pass every interview with A grades and still not get a job, because a senior Googler decides that you're the wrong person to be hired.” Google doesn’t

“You can pass every interview with A grades and still not get a job, because a senior Googler decides that you're the wrong person to be hired.” Google doesn’t need you. They probably already have a clone of you. They have gobs of rank-and-file SWE effort on reserve should one of their key products fail. The process is designed to entertain the hiring manager and certain key employees. They don’t want you for your productivity. They want you for the chance that you help surround one of their favorites with things they like so that this other guy doesn’t bounce elsewhere. This other Googler likely already has a competing offer— that’s how he got promoted last year. At this stage, if Google hires you, you are almost certainly being used to aid in the retention of somebody else. You’re going straight for the bench. Don’t prepare for months for just Google; prepare for your own future. Don’t let Google hijack your capacity for critical thinking.

rifung 7y ago
> This other Googler likely already has a competing offer— that’s how he got promoted last year. Source? I'm very skeptical this is true. I am not a huge fan of Google's promotion process but it isn't that bad.
- DireStrait 7y ago
  It's just an example, and not very far fetched. Ultimately, the reason folks get formally promoted is to retain them.
- choppaface 7y ago
  I have two friends who told me they were trying to get competing offers so that they could use it in their promo packet. One was in the ads team, extremely sharp guy, trying to make Staff level in his 3rd year there. Joe Beda, one of the creators of Kubernetes, had a giant competing offering from Facebook. Turned it down to stay at Google, got some more freedom, and now we have Kubernetes (!). If you look on Blind, there is plenty of discussion of using counter offers to force the promo process to work.
  - joshuamorton 7y ago
    I've literally never seen mention of this on blind. I see jokes about leaving and then returning at L+1, but never "forcing promo" via a competing offer.
    - aikinai 7y ago
      I know someone who did it, but that was a few years ago during the peak of talent competition with Facebook. And the person was clearly qualified for the promo anyway.
      - esprehn 7y ago
        It's unlikely the promo was because of the competing offer. During that time with Facebook they gave generous retention grants though. The promo process is fairly opaque, so there's no way someone would know if the committee or manager took a competing offer into account or if they "forced it". It seems more likely they were qualified and the timing was coincidental with the competing offer.
  - ceras 7y ago
    I worked at Google for nearly a decade, and as a manager for most of it, and I strongly believe there's a misunderstanding here. Google does negotiate pay of high L5+ performers against outside offers, but promos are simply off the table. Google is really conservative about diluting it's leveling bar, and would much rather give well-above-band counter offers than a promotion. Moreover, promo decisions are made by a committee of engineers who don't work with you -- they have no incentive to even care about your outside offer.
  - deadmutex 7y ago
    > Joe Beda, one of the creators of Kubernetes, had a giant competing offering from Facebook. Turned it down to stay at Google, got some more freedom, and now we have Kubernetes (!). Is this public knowledge? Otherwise, I think it is uncool to talk about other people's situations on a public forum without their approval.
nikanj 7y ago
They hire people they don’t need, to build products they’ll kill in a few quarters. Must be weird working in a company with one well-identified money fountain, and then endless side projects that don’t really matter at all
- meowface 7y ago
  If you had one solid money fountain, isn't that what you'd also do, though? Throw a lot of other things at the wall which you expect would have a high chance of failure but high reward if they succeed. (Though Amazon seems to have managed something similar without randomly shutting down AWS services and such.)
  - zitterbewegung 7y ago
    They have been doing this since before Alphabet. Now the future of that strategy seems uncertain and it doesn’t seem like it will be in their future strategy.
  - what_ever 7y ago
    Disc: Googler Since you are comparing to AWS, do you have any source for apparently lots of products that were killed in Google Cloud?
    - meowface 7y ago
      True, my analogy wasn't great. But when comparing Amazon as a whole and Google as a whole, the only thing Amazon killed that comes to mind is the Fire Phone (maybe there's more I'm not aware of), while there's a laundry list of things that come to mind for Google. Also not totally fair because Google has provided a ton of free web apps and Amazon hasn't, but I think it feels more personal when Google removes something that provides a daily quality of life improvement for many people.
      - what_ever 7y ago
        How many Amazon apps do you use other than Amazon.com, Kindle, Echo? How is it still a fair comparison?
9nGQluzmnq3M 7y ago
> The process is designed to entertain the hiring manager Hahaha no. Please talk to a hiring manager at Google, especially if they're trying to fill an even slightly niche role, about how tough it is to get anybody through the hiring process. Also, for "generic" roles like SWE, the hiring manager has literally no input into the process: the hiring takes place first, and team allocation only happens afterwards.
tyrankh 7y ago
This is ludicrously false and not at _all_ why Google hires people. They hire people because - big surprise - there are projects that need staffing. "At this stage, if Google hires you, you are almost certainly being used to aid in the retention of somebody else. You’re going straight for the bench." I mean, just wow. Do you really believe this? This is fantasy to an incredible degree.
- simonkafan 7y ago
  Of course this is sarcasm. But after all, most of the newer Google products really seem to be there just to entertain their own people and give them something to do. No one can tell me, for example, that there was a serious business case behind Google Allo.
  - what_ever 7y ago
    I don't think GP is being sarcastic. Disc: Googler.
  - choppaface 7y ago
    Oy vey. Based on the voting and comments here, my post seems to be a bit of a rorschach test, with perhaps some correlation between readers who work at Google and those who don't. But definitely an interesting time-based correlation with voting. No matter how you see the ink blot, everybody should be exercising their critical thinking skills, especially when it comes to the hiring process. Don't take things at face value; and don't take things too seriously. Don't let the brand or hype of any company disarm you of your ability to question the process, nor of your ability to invest yourself in your own passions.
- choppaface 7y ago
  What's ludicrous is the assertion of fantasy here. Some context: * Google's current hiring process lag from first contact to start date is 4-6 months. That's based on reports in Blind and a couple of recent hires I know. That lag is double that of large competitors. Google wants to make candidates wait in order to appear more exclusive. "Projects need staffing"-- clearly not as much as Google needs to maintain its brand. * "You're going straight to the bench." This is based on a variety of comments, some posted here, some from former Google PMs and SWEs I know. It takes more than a year to get a project that most people consider meaningful. Some have different expectations upon joining, though. * "you are almost certainly being used to aid in the retention of somebody else." I used to work with an ex-Googler who had a large role in Google's Ads team. He couldn't code very well, and routinely struggled to have accurate assessment of senior engineers. It's questionable how he passed the SWE interview bar at Google. But he was "good looking" and "affable" (he once appeared in a vanity magazine in a shirtless photo shoot). He routinely claimed that his female Google superiors hit on him. Other ex-Googlers told me there where many people in the office who seemed to be "fluff" for everybody else. The bottom line: Google prides itself (excessively) on having a uniform brand, yet is large enough today that the long tail of "out-of-brand people" is quite large. When you submit your resume to Google, you're feeding their index and ranking of all-of-SWE humanity (literally-- they heavily apply ML to their resume pool). Don't get brainwashed with the brand, and think critically before letting a _company_ have this sort of power over people.
toephu2 7y ago
Sounds like you're bitter cause you got rejected by Google. Google interviews tens of thousands of people yearly, you think your one anecdotal experience or that of a few friends allows you to generalize the entire interview experience for every single person interviewing at Google?
- lazyasciiart 7y ago
  Sounds like an unnecessary personal attack.
thatiscool 7y ago
you nailed it: "They don’t want you for your productivity. They want you for the chance that you help surround one of their favorites with things they like"

rifung 7y ago

> This other Googler likely already has a competing offer— that’s how he got promoted last year. Source? I'm very skeptical this is true. I am not a huge fan of Google's promotion process but it isn't that bad.

DireStrait 7y ago
It's just an example, and not very far fetched. Ultimately, the reason folks get formally promoted is to retain them.
choppaface 7y ago
I have two friends who told me they were trying to get competing offers so that they could use it in their promo packet. One was in the ads team, extremely sharp guy, trying to make Staff level in his 3rd year there. Joe Beda, one of the creators of Kubernetes, had a giant competing offering from Facebook. Turned it down to stay at Google, got some more freedom, and now we have Kubernetes (!). If you look on Blind, there is plenty of discussion of using counter offers to force the promo process to work.
- joshuamorton 7y ago
  I've literally never seen mention of this on blind. I see jokes about leaving and then returning at L+1, but never "forcing promo" via a competing offer.
  - aikinai 7y ago
    I know someone who did it, but that was a few years ago during the peak of talent competition with Facebook. And the person was clearly qualified for the promo anyway.
    - esprehn 7y ago
      It's unlikely the promo was because of the competing offer. During that time with Facebook they gave generous retention grants though. The promo process is fairly opaque, so there's no way someone would know if the committee or manager took a competing offer into account or if they "forced it". It seems more likely they were qualified and the timing was coincidental with the competing offer.
- ceras 7y ago
  I worked at Google for nearly a decade, and as a manager for most of it, and I strongly believe there's a misunderstanding here. Google does negotiate pay of high L5+ performers against outside offers, but promos are simply off the table. Google is really conservative about diluting it's leveling bar, and would much rather give well-above-band counter offers than a promotion. Moreover, promo decisions are made by a committee of engineers who don't work with you -- they have no incentive to even care about your outside offer.
- deadmutex 7y ago
  > Joe Beda, one of the creators of Kubernetes, had a giant competing offering from Facebook. Turned it down to stay at Google, got some more freedom, and now we have Kubernetes (!). Is this public knowledge? Otherwise, I think it is uncool to talk about other people's situations on a public forum without their approval.

nikanj 7y ago

They hire people they don’t need, to build products they’ll kill in a few quarters. Must be weird working in a company with one well-identified money fountain, and then endless side projects that don’t really matter at all

meowface 7y ago
If you had one solid money fountain, isn't that what you'd also do, though? Throw a lot of other things at the wall which you expect would have a high chance of failure but high reward if they succeed. (Though Amazon seems to have managed something similar without randomly shutting down AWS services and such.)
- zitterbewegung 7y ago
  They have been doing this since before Alphabet. Now the future of that strategy seems uncertain and it doesn’t seem like it will be in their future strategy.
- what_ever 7y ago
  Disc: Googler Since you are comparing to AWS, do you have any source for apparently lots of products that were killed in Google Cloud?
  - meowface 7y ago
    True, my analogy wasn't great. But when comparing Amazon as a whole and Google as a whole, the only thing Amazon killed that comes to mind is the Fire Phone (maybe there's more I'm not aware of), while there's a laundry list of things that come to mind for Google. Also not totally fair because Google has provided a ton of free web apps and Amazon hasn't, but I think it feels more personal when Google removes something that provides a daily quality of life improvement for many people.
    - what_ever 7y ago
      How many Amazon apps do you use other than Amazon.com, Kindle, Echo? How is it still a fair comparison?

9nGQluzmnq3M 7y ago

> The process is designed to entertain the hiring manager Hahaha no. Please talk to a hiring manager at Google, especially if they're trying to fill an even slightly niche role, about how tough it is to get anybody through the hiring process. Also, for "generic" roles like SWE, the hiring manager has literally no input into the process: the hiring takes place first, and team allocation only happens afterwards.

tyrankh 7y ago

This is ludicrously false and not at _all_ why Google hires people. They hire people because - big surprise - there are projects that need staffing. "At this stage, if Google hires you, you are almost certainly being used to aid in the retention of somebody else. You’re going straight for the bench." I mean, just wow. Do you really believe this? This is fantasy to an incredible degree.

simonkafan 7y ago
Of course this is sarcasm. But after all, most of the newer Google products really seem to be there just to entertain their own people and give them something to do. No one can tell me, for example, that there was a serious business case behind Google Allo.
- what_ever 7y ago
  I don't think GP is being sarcastic. Disc: Googler.
- choppaface 7y ago
  Oy vey. Based on the voting and comments here, my post seems to be a bit of a rorschach test, with perhaps some correlation between readers who work at Google and those who don't. But definitely an interesting time-based correlation with voting. No matter how you see the ink blot, everybody should be exercising their critical thinking skills, especially when it comes to the hiring process. Don't take things at face value; and don't take things too seriously. Don't let the brand or hype of any company disarm you of your ability to question the process, nor of your ability to invest yourself in your own passions.
choppaface 7y ago
What's ludicrous is the assertion of fantasy here. Some context: * Google's current hiring process lag from first contact to start date is 4-6 months. That's based on reports in Blind and a couple of recent hires I know. That lag is double that of large competitors. Google wants to make candidates wait in order to appear more exclusive. "Projects need staffing"-- clearly not as much as Google needs to maintain its brand. * "You're going straight to the bench." This is based on a variety of comments, some posted here, some from former Google PMs and SWEs I know. It takes more than a year to get a project that most people consider meaningful. Some have different expectations upon joining, though. * "you are almost certainly being used to aid in the retention of somebody else." I used to work with an ex-Googler who had a large role in Google's Ads team. He couldn't code very well, and routinely struggled to have accurate assessment of senior engineers. It's questionable how he passed the SWE interview bar at Google. But he was "good looking" and "affable" (he once appeared in a vanity magazine in a shirtless photo shoot). He routinely claimed that his female Google superiors hit on him. Other ex-Googlers told me there where many people in the office who seemed to be "fluff" for everybody else. The bottom line: Google prides itself (excessively) on having a uniform brand, yet is large enough today that the long tail of "out-of-brand people" is quite large. When you submit your resume to Google, you're feeding their index and ranking of all-of-SWE humanity (literally-- they heavily apply ML to their resume pool). Don't get brainwashed with the brand, and think critically before letting a _company_ have this sort of power over people.

toephu2 7y ago

Sounds like you're bitter cause you got rejected by Google. Google interviews tens of thousands of people yearly, you think your one anecdotal experience or that of a few friends allows you to generalize the entire interview experience for every single person interviewing at Google?

lazyasciiart 7y ago
Sounds like an unnecessary personal attack.

thatiscool 7y ago

you nailed it: "They don’t want you for your productivity. They want you for the chance that you help surround one of their favorites with things they like"