4 ms·

A close friend of mine starting learning to program in the mailroom of a software company. He was the one in charge of boxing software and sending it out. The

by sanj 17y ago

A close friend of mine starting learning to program in the mailroom of a software company. He was the one in charge of boxing software and sending it out. The job offered a lot of downtime, so he taught himself enough to program. He became one of their developers and the lead developer at multiple other firms, including two he co-founded with me. I should add that while he hasn't finished his "top tier" undergrad degree, he's very close. He got hired at Google relatively recently (~2 years back) and is rising through the ranks.

SwellJoe 17y ago
He got hired at Google relatively recently (~2 years back) and is rising through the ranks. It's my understanding that that's about the point in time when the hiring bar started rising, and the focus on top-tier schools became prominent, at Google. My information could be colored by the people I talk to (who are mostly on the OSO side of Google rather than engineering), but as far as I know, it's been a definite trend. I also know several people who left Google over the past two years, either to go back to school or to pursue other interests, but now very likely wouldn't get a job there due to the changing hiring policies.
- rdouble 17y ago
  It's my understanding that that's about the point in time when the hiring bar started rising I thought it was the opposite. Google always emphasized GPA and where you went to school. They loosened things up quite a bit during their great hiring sprees of 2006-2007. Maybe recently they've reverted to their old policies because they hired so many duds during that time period.
  - nostrademons 17y ago
    My Noogler class (Jan 09) was biased towards people with actual work experience. There were a couple of freshly-minted Ph.Ds, but most of us had been working for 4-10 years, and AFAIK the only fresh-out-of-undergrad had already done a couple internships with them. Very different from the demographics of the rest of company, where I occasionally get teased (lightheartedly) for having worked at a company other than Google.
- nostrademons 17y ago
  I think that the stories of Google's automatic GPA/school filter are a bit overblown. I got hired last December with a 3.0 GPA and November graduation date, which alone should've indicated that I was a complete fuckup in college (plus if they'd done the math, the 3.6ish GPA in my major meant that I must've been hovering around a 2.0 for courses not in my major). That was all on the top line of my resume, and they didn't care. I know folks here with degrees from Cal State or in rare cases no degree at all - they are a definite minority, but they did make it through the hiring process. The one thing we all had in common was prior work experience and a passion for computers. I don't think you can get hired at Google with neither the degree nor experience - but then, should you be able to?
  - durin42 17y ago
    Yes, they're highly overblown - I just made it through the hiring meatgrinder this week and I have a non-CS degree from a tiny liberal arts college. It was a nonissue. Plus, two years ago, they hired me as an intern after reading my resume and two phone screens. Now, that all said, I'm fairly active in OSS, but that's almost all of my "formal" training and/or experience in CS and SW Engineering. The fact of the matter is that if you can get through the interview questions and appear to "fit" the culture, you probably stand a decent chance. Top tier schools help, but that's probably more a fact of the school having a big name and the brand of the school being more prized. Otherwise, they never would have even looked at me as an intern, much less an actual hire.

by sanj 17y ago

SwellJoe 17y ago

He got hired at Google relatively recently (~2 years back) and is rising through the ranks. It's my understanding that that's about the point in time when the hiring bar started rising, and the focus on top-tier schools became prominent, at Google. My information could be colored by the people I talk to (who are mostly on the OSO side of Google rather than engineering), but as far as I know, it's been a definite trend. I also know several people who left Google over the past two years, either to go back to school or to pursue other interests, but now very likely wouldn't get a job there due to the changing hiring policies.

rdouble 17y ago
It's my understanding that that's about the point in time when the hiring bar started rising I thought it was the opposite. Google always emphasized GPA and where you went to school. They loosened things up quite a bit during their great hiring sprees of 2006-2007. Maybe recently they've reverted to their old policies because they hired so many duds during that time period.
- nostrademons 17y ago
  My Noogler class (Jan 09) was biased towards people with actual work experience. There were a couple of freshly-minted Ph.Ds, but most of us had been working for 4-10 years, and AFAIK the only fresh-out-of-undergrad had already done a couple internships with them. Very different from the demographics of the rest of company, where I occasionally get teased (lightheartedly) for having worked at a company other than Google.
nostrademons 17y ago
I think that the stories of Google's automatic GPA/school filter are a bit overblown. I got hired last December with a 3.0 GPA and November graduation date, which alone should've indicated that I was a complete fuckup in college (plus if they'd done the math, the 3.6ish GPA in my major meant that I must've been hovering around a 2.0 for courses not in my major). That was all on the top line of my resume, and they didn't care. I know folks here with degrees from Cal State or in rare cases no degree at all - they are a definite minority, but they did make it through the hiring process. The one thing we all had in common was prior work experience and a passion for computers. I don't think you can get hired at Google with neither the degree nor experience - but then, should you be able to?
- durin42 17y ago
  Yes, they're highly overblown - I just made it through the hiring meatgrinder this week and I have a non-CS degree from a tiny liberal arts college. It was a nonissue. Plus, two years ago, they hired me as an intern after reading my resume and two phone screens. Now, that all said, I'm fairly active in OSS, but that's almost all of my "formal" training and/or experience in CS and SW Engineering. The fact of the matter is that if you can get through the interview questions and appear to "fit" the culture, you probably stand a decent chance. Top tier schools help, but that's probably more a fact of the school having a big name and the brand of the school being more prized. Otherwise, they never would have even looked at me as an intern, much less an actual hire.