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But why go through that? Google is just another place to work. If I got rejected from a job at HoneyWell or G&E I wouldn't be thinking to myself well in one mor

But why go through that? Google is just another place to work. If I got rejected from a job at HoneyWell or G&E I wouldn't be thinking to myself well in one more year I can try again. I'd be thinking about the next place to apply and never go back. The guy was obviously qualified for the job and they still rejected him because he got nervous. He had done well except for one and they said no. I guess if you have so many people interviewing where you have some that did better it makes sense, but it's silly and personally I don't plan at working at companies that interview this way. Google isn't special. They're just a well known consumer brand, and all that marketing is what's got into people's brains. Coke is just sugar water, it doesn't make you cool. It just puts fructose corn syrup into your stomach. You wanna be the person that has to obey Larry Page's whims and integrate Google+ into more places users don't want it?

toomuchtodo 13y ago
> Google isn't special. They're just a well known consumer brand, and all that marketing is what's got into people's brains. Coke is just sugar water, it doesn't make you cool. It just puts fructose corn syrup into your stomach. It takes you a while to get to this mindset as a technology worker. Everyone's motivation is different though. I'm 31, have 13 years of experience, and keep getting rejected by SpaceX for a Linux Admin job at launch operations Cape Canaveral. Yes, I'm overqualified. Yes, I'd be taking an enormous paycut. But I want to help send rockets to Mars damn it. It's not always about the money, nor about the work. Sometimes, you're simply irrational about it.
- shaneofalltrad 13y ago
  I believe they want to create this atmosphere if Google being hard to get in, and hopefully it will make the smart people feel prestigious if they do get in. Psychology 101. I would not be surprised if they targeted him because he was an active blogger, and would get this out to the world. Just think about it, our community is doing well because we are an open community working together online and what better way to control this group than injecting persuasion into the community. Don't get me wrong, I would likely work for Google if I had the opportunity, but I would go anti-google if they did this to me.
- nawitus 13y ago
  There's nothing irrational about that. Rationality is about maximizing your utility function. If you care about sending rockets to Mars, then it can indeed be rational to take a paycut.
  - toomuchtodo 13y ago
    Thank you!
    - noir_lord 13y ago
      If I was financially independent I'd work for SpaceX for free. They build rockets!. I'm not remotely in their league though as a programmer. I build web apps.
      - deleted 13y ago
        [deleted]
greenrice 13y ago
You're kidding yourself if you think Google is "just a well known consumer brand"...
- mitochondrion 13y ago
  How is Google anything more than a well-known consumer brand?
  - bane 13y ago
    Because Google is probably the most well-known advertising agency on the planet? They're not much of a consumer brand tbh, but they pull in tens of billions a year creating virtual properties to sell advertising space on.
    - d4mi3n 13y ago
      One could make a similar argument for just about any large financial, real-estate, or holdings company. Bank of America, General Mills, and General Electric to name a few.
    - w1ntermute 13y ago
      By that logic, you could also say that McDonald's isn't a restaurant chain, but a real estate company: http://seekingalpha.com/article/73533-mcdonalds-is-a-real-estate-company http://seekingalpha.com/article/73533-mcdonalds-is-a-real-es...
      - bane 13y ago
        Well, who's Google's customers? People who buy ads, or free search users? (an aside) One of the startups I worked for years ago, rented a huge office near San Jose, but decided to change directions and hire out of cheaper locales for a while. So we sublet the space out. For a good 2 years this space generated more revenue than the rest of the company and we joked that perhaps we should get into the real estate business. We even had two employees with real estate licenses in 3 states.
asdfologist 13y ago
Right, being a company filled with some of the best and brightest engineers in the industry working on technical challenges of massive scale makes Google just like any other company.
- bane 13y ago
  Well, let's not blow this out of proportion. Google is basically a big advertising agency. The principle problem they're working on is click through rates. If that's what floats the boats of the best and brightest, I feel kind of sorry for the direction of the species. Sure they have lots of cool feeder technologies to support this singular goal, but getting people to click paid links is not exactly the same as colonizing Mars.
  - minwcnt5 13y ago
    Ah, the old "Google is just an advertising company" cliche. This is just a small step from the Reddit hipster memes that say things like "oh, self driving cars are not that interesting, they're just a way to get your attention off the road and onto their ads". The vast majority of engineers at Google have never worked on click through rates in their lives. Downplay it as a "feeder technology" all you want, but I'm pretty sure Google search, for instance, has had a huge impact on humanity. One that some people might consider just as important as sending a robot to Mars.
    - deleted 13y ago
      [deleted]
    - S4M 13y ago
      > I'm pretty sure Google search, for instance, has had a huge impact on humanity. Actually, I am not so sure about this. Sure, it's convenient and saves time, but I wouldn't call it "a huge impact on humanity". It has been more than ten years since it has been around, and I haven't noticed a massive change. I would say, it appears to me that people are more connected, and slightly more aware of the news, which is due to a conjunction of the massive penetration of Internet, the social networks, and the improvement of the search. Google has an important part for sure, but again, for me it's not "a huge impact on humanity", like would be, say, the colonization of Mars or the end of the poverty (where Google search may or may not play a role).
tmhedberg 13y ago
If you don't think it's worth your time to interview twice at the same company, then simply don't. That's a completely reasonable point of view, and I didn't mean to imply otherwise. For what it's worth, Google has a public reputation as a great place to work and as a company that hires "high quality" engineers. Both of these things mean that some people are willing to put more effort into getting a position there. My post wasn't meant to say that he must keep trying at all costs, but just to let him know not to be discouraged if he happened to really want that job. In many places, you're dead in the water if you don't make it the first time, but Google is not like that. Personally, I didn't see my interview process as "something I had to go through", i.e. a laborious means to an end. I enjoyed the challenge and the opportunity to get a glimpse of a company like Google from the inside. Even when I was turned down the first time, I came away feeling glad that I had done it. It's not like I had anything to lose from trying. > You wanna be the person that has to obey Larry Page's whims and integrate Google+ into more places users don't want it? Not in the least, nor do I feel that I am doing that. I don't work on Google+ or anything related to it. However it may look from the outside, Google is not Google+. It's a big, multifaceted organization with opportunities to work on all sorts of interesting things. Much of our work is driven directly by the engineers themselves and not by management whims. And there's plenty of mobility to change roles if you decide you don't like what you're doing. SRE specifically has proved to be a truly interesting and unique position. There are engineering challenges that we face which quite simply don't exist anywhere else. Beyond the much-touted perks, that's what makes Google special, in my opinion, and well worth the comparatively small effort I put into getting there.
- gritzko 13y ago
  TYLER You're too young. Sorry. JACK Wait a minute... Tyler comes back inside, shuts the door. JACK "Too young?" TYLER If the applicant is young, we tell him he's too young. Old, too old. Fat, too fat. JACK "Applicant?" TYLER If the applicant waits at the door for three days without food, shelter or encouragement, then he can enter and begin training. JACK "Training?" Tyler...
yuhong 13y ago
On Google+: http://www.businessinsider.com/sex-and-politics-at-google-its-a-game-of-thrones-in-mountain-view-2013-9 http://www.businessinsider.com/sex-and-politics-at-google-it...
mcintyre1994 13y ago
It seems from the parent like a recruiter just following up when they could. That seems smart - there was a level of interest so why not see if it's still there? A lot could happen in a year to make someone more (or equally, less) likely to decide to give it a go again.
dc2447 13y ago
I have been approached a few times to interview for "Director, Site Reliability Engineering", which as far as I could tell was leading up the SRE team in Europe. I had a few conversations but did not take it further. My reasoning was not going further was not the nature of the interview process, although I found it a little strange that they expected a director level position to know how many bits were in a mac address or nature of google as a business but the description of what the engineering team did for the majority of the time. Rather than building 'stuff' the team seemed to be involved in very low level debugging on the Google infra and apps. I know somebody has to do that stuff but it's not something I was very sold on when it was described to me. Incidentally the role is still being advertised so maybe finding engineering directors that know how many bits in a mac address or what the default signal sent with a kill command :) http://www.linkedin.com/jobs2/view/10632280 http://www.linkedin.com/jobs2/view/10632280
- philsnow 13y ago
  > I found it a little strange that they expected a director level position to know how many bits were in a mac address All (or the overwhelming majority) of the engineering directors I know of at google are very technical. Maybe it's silly, but I think it increases their credibility with their transitive reports.

toomuchtodo 13y ago

> Google isn't special. They're just a well known consumer brand, and all that marketing is what's got into people's brains. Coke is just sugar water, it doesn't make you cool. It just puts fructose corn syrup into your stomach. It takes you a while to get to this mindset as a technology worker. Everyone's motivation is different though. I'm 31, have 13 years of experience, and keep getting rejected by SpaceX for a Linux Admin job at launch operations Cape Canaveral. Yes, I'm overqualified. Yes, I'd be taking an enormous paycut. But I want to help send rockets to Mars damn it. It's not always about the money, nor about the work. Sometimes, you're simply irrational about it.

shaneofalltrad 13y ago
I believe they want to create this atmosphere if Google being hard to get in, and hopefully it will make the smart people feel prestigious if they do get in. Psychology 101. I would not be surprised if they targeted him because he was an active blogger, and would get this out to the world. Just think about it, our community is doing well because we are an open community working together online and what better way to control this group than injecting persuasion into the community. Don't get me wrong, I would likely work for Google if I had the opportunity, but I would go anti-google if they did this to me.
nawitus 13y ago
There's nothing irrational about that. Rationality is about maximizing your utility function. If you care about sending rockets to Mars, then it can indeed be rational to take a paycut.
- toomuchtodo 13y ago
  Thank you!
  - noir_lord 13y ago
    If I was financially independent I'd work for SpaceX for free. They build rockets!. I'm not remotely in their league though as a programmer. I build web apps.
    - deleted 13y ago
      [deleted]

greenrice 13y ago

You're kidding yourself if you think Google is "just a well known consumer brand"...

mitochondrion 13y ago
How is Google anything more than a well-known consumer brand?
- bane 13y ago
  Because Google is probably the most well-known advertising agency on the planet? They're not much of a consumer brand tbh, but they pull in tens of billions a year creating virtual properties to sell advertising space on.
  - d4mi3n 13y ago
    One could make a similar argument for just about any large financial, real-estate, or holdings company. Bank of America, General Mills, and General Electric to name a few.
  - w1ntermute 13y ago
    By that logic, you could also say that McDonald's isn't a restaurant chain, but a real estate company: http://seekingalpha.com/article/73533-mcdonalds-is-a-real-estate-company http://seekingalpha.com/article/73533-mcdonalds-is-a-real-es...
    - bane 13y ago
      Well, who's Google's customers? People who buy ads, or free search users? (an aside) One of the startups I worked for years ago, rented a huge office near San Jose, but decided to change directions and hire out of cheaper locales for a while. So we sublet the space out. For a good 2 years this space generated more revenue than the rest of the company and we joked that perhaps we should get into the real estate business. We even had two employees with real estate licenses in 3 states.

asdfologist 13y ago

Right, being a company filled with some of the best and brightest engineers in the industry working on technical challenges of massive scale makes Google just like any other company.

bane 13y ago
Well, let's not blow this out of proportion. Google is basically a big advertising agency. The principle problem they're working on is click through rates. If that's what floats the boats of the best and brightest, I feel kind of sorry for the direction of the species. Sure they have lots of cool feeder technologies to support this singular goal, but getting people to click paid links is not exactly the same as colonizing Mars.
- minwcnt5 13y ago
  Ah, the old "Google is just an advertising company" cliche. This is just a small step from the Reddit hipster memes that say things like "oh, self driving cars are not that interesting, they're just a way to get your attention off the road and onto their ads". The vast majority of engineers at Google have never worked on click through rates in their lives. Downplay it as a "feeder technology" all you want, but I'm pretty sure Google search, for instance, has had a huge impact on humanity. One that some people might consider just as important as sending a robot to Mars.
  - deleted 13y ago
    [deleted]
  - S4M 13y ago
    > I'm pretty sure Google search, for instance, has had a huge impact on humanity. Actually, I am not so sure about this. Sure, it's convenient and saves time, but I wouldn't call it "a huge impact on humanity". It has been more than ten years since it has been around, and I haven't noticed a massive change. I would say, it appears to me that people are more connected, and slightly more aware of the news, which is due to a conjunction of the massive penetration of Internet, the social networks, and the improvement of the search. Google has an important part for sure, but again, for me it's not "a huge impact on humanity", like would be, say, the colonization of Mars or the end of the poverty (where Google search may or may not play a role).

tmhedberg 13y ago

If you don't think it's worth your time to interview twice at the same company, then simply don't. That's a completely reasonable point of view, and I didn't mean to imply otherwise. For what it's worth, Google has a public reputation as a great place to work and as a company that hires "high quality" engineers. Both of these things mean that some people are willing to put more effort into getting a position there. My post wasn't meant to say that he must keep trying at all costs, but just to let him know not to be discouraged if he happened to really want that job. In many places, you're dead in the water if you don't make it the first time, but Google is not like that. Personally, I didn't see my interview process as "something I had to go through", i.e. a laborious means to an end. I enjoyed the challenge and the opportunity to get a glimpse of a company like Google from the inside. Even when I was turned down the first time, I came away feeling glad that I had done it. It's not like I had anything to lose from trying. > You wanna be the person that has to obey Larry Page's whims and integrate Google+ into more places users don't want it? Not in the least, nor do I feel that I am doing that. I don't work on Google+ or anything related to it. However it may look from the outside, Google is not Google+. It's a big, multifaceted organization with opportunities to work on all sorts of interesting things. Much of our work is driven directly by the engineers themselves and not by management whims. And there's plenty of mobility to change roles if you decide you don't like what you're doing. SRE specifically has proved to be a truly interesting and unique position. There are engineering challenges that we face which quite simply don't exist anywhere else. Beyond the much-touted perks, that's what makes Google special, in my opinion, and well worth the comparatively small effort I put into getting there.

gritzko 13y ago
TYLER You're too young. Sorry. JACK Wait a minute... Tyler comes back inside, shuts the door. JACK "Too young?" TYLER If the applicant is young, we tell him he's too young. Old, too old. Fat, too fat. JACK "Applicant?" TYLER If the applicant waits at the door for three days without food, shelter or encouragement, then he can enter and begin training. JACK "Training?" Tyler...

yuhong 13y ago

On Google+: http://www.businessinsider.com/sex-and-politics-at-google-its-a-game-of-thrones-in-mountain-view-2013-9 http://www.businessinsider.com/sex-and-politics-at-google-it...

mcintyre1994 13y ago

It seems from the parent like a recruiter just following up when they could. That seems smart - there was a level of interest so why not see if it's still there? A lot could happen in a year to make someone more (or equally, less) likely to decide to give it a go again.

dc2447 13y ago

I have been approached a few times to interview for "Director, Site Reliability Engineering", which as far as I could tell was leading up the SRE team in Europe. I had a few conversations but did not take it further. My reasoning was not going further was not the nature of the interview process, although I found it a little strange that they expected a director level position to know how many bits were in a mac address or nature of google as a business but the description of what the engineering team did for the majority of the time. Rather than building 'stuff' the team seemed to be involved in very low level debugging on the Google infra and apps. I know somebody has to do that stuff but it's not something I was very sold on when it was described to me. Incidentally the role is still being advertised so maybe finding engineering directors that know how many bits in a mac address or what the default signal sent with a kill command :) http://www.linkedin.com/jobs2/view/10632280 http://www.linkedin.com/jobs2/view/10632280

philsnow 13y ago
> I found it a little strange that they expected a director level position to know how many bits were in a mac address All (or the overwhelming majority) of the engineering directors I know of at google are very technical. Maybe it's silly, but I think it increases their credibility with their transitive reports.