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YUP! This happened to me and a good friend of mine who is an Eng Manager at Netflix now... But we both went through a three month long panel interview and I w

YUP! This happened to me and a good friend of mine who is an Eng Manager at Netflix now... But we both went through a three month long panel interview and I was told I did "very well" on all my interviews and to expect an offer letter in the morning. The next day they called and told me that they wouldnt be making me an offer. The issue was that Brin was still the final sign off... The school that i went to in the early-mid 90s was "Mesmer Animation Labs" in seattle... one of only five animation schools at the time (because of the cost of all the SGIs) It was later bought and merged with UW to basically become the animation dept at UW the year after I graduated... and Mesmer no longer existed... so I put down UW on my resume because there was no Mesmer to confirm that I had gone there any longer... So because I called Mesmer "UW" I got kicked in the financial balls by Brin/Goog as I had opened my mouth any was told I got an offer to my then employer, Lockheed... Yeah - never tell anyone about a verbal offer.

ghaff 4y ago
A couple of things there. 1. A Verbal Contract Isn’t Worth the Paper It’s Written On -- attributed to Samuel Goldwyn, the G of MGM. I don't agree with all the advice to work 2 jobs simultaneously but definitely wait for a written offer. No sensible HR person is going to have an issue with that. 2. In the case of acquisitions/mergers/etc. make it crystal clear that you're not trying to claim a school/employer with maybe more cachet/recognition but where you actually went to/worked at is part of someone else now (or defunct) so if they want to confirm past attendance/employment that's where they need to go. I'm not going to say I worked for Dell even though a string of 2 past employers are "Dell" now via a string of acquisitions. (I might say, these employers, now part of Dell Technologies though the companies are well enough known that I could probably skip the Dell reference which is irrelevant other than they'll pay me a pension someday.)
- samstave 4y ago
  To put icing on the cake, Google recruiters kept calling me for FIVE FUCKING YEARS for the same job... I had to finally tell them I had gone through three months of panel interviews, Ive designed parts of your data centers, video studio and have built every salesforce office in the US at that point, and designed shit for other FAAN companies so give me the damn job or lose my damn number. They stopped calling me for the job after that. (it was for a network PM under Raligh Mann, who was the ILM CIO before he went on to google... after I designed the DC for Lucas' Presidio campus. Also fun fact, I found out Goog was designing their own motherboards at the time - and I happened to see one when visiting a friend on-site, and saw one under his desk and said hey whats this? and he said "uh, you werent supposed to see that - lets go!" - This was before it was public that both Goog and FB were designing their own DC hardware... Some dope engineering though.
  - samstave 4y ago
    Oh, and I have posted this here before, when I was a design eng for ILM/Lucas/Lucas Arts... I was asked "when will you be able to deliver 'Power Over Fiber' (This was a mtg with all of the top execs at Cisco, and All tops at ILM.. and I murdered this this guy (in a polite way) but I pissed my pants on the drive back from Bigrock about how funny that was... Yes, that was me sitting in a design mtg with Cisco CTO and the CTO of Lucas Arts asked me to provide that... Ill leave it there... (Just for context, the design req was "fiber to every desktop such that the workstations will be render nodes when workers leave... but they wanted Power Over Fiber" So, if you know how, there is a dude with 15 billion dollars waiting for your call,.... and he has the best property in the US.
    - jmalicki 4y ago
      It is a thing! https://www.fiberopticlink.com/product/fiber-optic-isolation-systems/power-solutions-for-fiber-optic-isolation-systems/power-over-fiber-system-pof/ https://www.fiberopticlink.com/product/fiber-optic-isolation... (I mean, solar panels are a thing, so turning light into power is definitely possible, and these things do exist.. I just doubt they have the economics the people in that room desired)

ghaff 4y ago

A couple of things there. 1. A Verbal Contract Isn’t Worth the Paper It’s Written On -- attributed to Samuel Goldwyn, the G of MGM. I don't agree with all the advice to work 2 jobs simultaneously but definitely wait for a written offer. No sensible HR person is going to have an issue with that. 2. In the case of acquisitions/mergers/etc. make it crystal clear that you're not trying to claim a school/employer with maybe more cachet/recognition but where you actually went to/worked at is part of someone else now (or defunct) so if they want to confirm past attendance/employment that's where they need to go. I'm not going to say I worked for Dell even though a string of 2 past employers are "Dell" now via a string of acquisitions. (I might say, these employers, now part of Dell Technologies though the companies are well enough known that I could probably skip the Dell reference which is irrelevant other than they'll pay me a pension someday.)

samstave 4y ago
To put icing on the cake, Google recruiters kept calling me for FIVE FUCKING YEARS for the same job... I had to finally tell them I had gone through three months of panel interviews, Ive designed parts of your data centers, video studio and have built every salesforce office in the US at that point, and designed shit for other FAAN companies so give me the damn job or lose my damn number. They stopped calling me for the job after that. (it was for a network PM under Raligh Mann, who was the ILM CIO before he went on to google... after I designed the DC for Lucas' Presidio campus. Also fun fact, I found out Goog was designing their own motherboards at the time - and I happened to see one when visiting a friend on-site, and saw one under his desk and said hey whats this? and he said "uh, you werent supposed to see that - lets go!" - This was before it was public that both Goog and FB were designing their own DC hardware... Some dope engineering though.
- samstave 4y ago
  Oh, and I have posted this here before, when I was a design eng for ILM/Lucas/Lucas Arts... I was asked "when will you be able to deliver 'Power Over Fiber' (This was a mtg with all of the top execs at Cisco, and All tops at ILM.. and I murdered this this guy (in a polite way) but I pissed my pants on the drive back from Bigrock about how funny that was... Yes, that was me sitting in a design mtg with Cisco CTO and the CTO of Lucas Arts asked me to provide that... Ill leave it there... (Just for context, the design req was "fiber to every desktop such that the workstations will be render nodes when workers leave... but they wanted Power Over Fiber" So, if you know how, there is a dude with 15 billion dollars waiting for your call,.... and he has the best property in the US.
  - jmalicki 4y ago
    It is a thing! https://www.fiberopticlink.com/product/fiber-optic-isolation-systems/power-solutions-for-fiber-optic-isolation-systems/power-over-fiber-system-pof/ https://www.fiberopticlink.com/product/fiber-optic-isolation... (I mean, solar panels are a thing, so turning light into power is definitely possible, and these things do exist.. I just doubt they have the economics the people in that room desired)