Going for a job in Google?

newestUser

I'm pretty sure I know who Valen is. When I was doing my undergrad course in DCU he was quite active in the Redbrick networking society. I didn't know him personally. It seems like a fair few ex-Redbrick people ended up working in Google. While I was in DCU (which was a while ago) certain people in Redbrick had a reputation for being a bit "weird" and cliquey. I'm not surprised that a lot of these people have ended up working in the same company, eulogising it on boards and elsewhere, leading to people accusing them of belonging to some kind of cult which delights in excluding people. Plus ca change, etc.

I'm painting with broad strokes here,but I think it is true that you have to be "one of the herd" to work in Google. I'm not sure I'd like working there, I don't think I'd fit into this culture, and it'd drive me nuts to be immersed in it. But if people want to work there, and enjoy working there, more power to them!

leeroybrown

I can imagine that anyone who was heavily involved in a netsoc/compsoc and had a strong interest in computing/technology would have been thought of as wierd and cliquey by someone who didn't understand the jokes, etc. I was involved in running a computer society in college and some people I know genuinely couldn't fathom what it was all about.

If Google are going out of their way to bring together people who are genuinely interested in what they do then more power to them. I'd rather be working with smart motivated people than disinterested drones. I've worked in places where the only common ground I had with my co-workers was that we all got paid by the same company. It makes a world of difference to have people around who actually share interests with you and can get on well with you.

I've worked for companies that have had a 'corporate culture' that I found quite negative and stifling. I certainly wouldn't like to work in that kind of environment again. By comparison Google sounds like their idea of 'corporate culture' is something different and positive.

eth0_

about redbrick..I think you have things a bit wrong there. I am a member and I aint a nerd, but I know people on it who work for google and they are *really* good at what they do. Redbrick would have taught them more real life stuff about unix and networking than CA, if they had been admins during their time in DCU!

Just because they happened to end up working in Google together doesn't really mean it's a 'jobs for the boys' thing. Correlation doesn't equal causation

valen

I'm painting with broad strokes here,but I think it is true that you have to be "one of the herd" to work in Google. I'm not sure I'd like working there, I don't think I'd fit into this culture, and it'd drive me nuts to be immersed in it. But if people want to work there, and enjoy working there, more power to them!

It is interesting that the type of engineers that Google Ireland seems to have hired are not the usual mix. Maybe 20% of them are Irish - we have polish, slovenian, austrailian, romanian, english, uruguaian, russian, welsh, american, canadian, french, italian, ukrainian etc. So I'd *strongly* suggest it's neither an old-boys-club or cliquish.

However, of the 20% engineers who are irish, the majority had some sort of connection to Redbrick or the Irish Linux User Group. There are a couple of TCD guys, a couple of UCD guys, and now one from UL. The main thing they have in common are strong problem solving skills, confidence, and a desire to help people. Something which I think Redbrick and the TCD netsoc fostered, so it's not surprising that redbrick/netsoc 'graduates' would be drawn there.

newestUser

Well, I'm in agreement with everything that the 3 posters following my last post said. Birds of a feather flock together; the people that were drawn together in various computer socs are drawing together out in the working world. I'm not for a *second* suggesting that these people did not get their jobs on merit; I know a lot of the people who are/were involved in Redbrick and Netsoc are extremely skilled.

To be honest, my opinion is extremely unbalanced. I'm basing it on a small number of people (you could count them on one hand) who work there. These are people who are religious about Linux, drink lots of coffee, are very bright, neglect their physical appearance etc., in other words, your archetypal techie clones. If you were to tell me that these people weren't trying, at least a little bit, to fit into a particular stereotype, I wouldn't believe you. There are superficial similarities, and not so superficial similarities. I'm not sneering at these people, their appearance, their personalities or any aspect of them. But I do think that there's a degree of uniformity of character in tech environments, and this leads to a certain culture being generated. It's not a culture based on nationality. It's not based on gender or age. It's not based on you turning up in a suit and tie. It *is*, however, based on the way you think and reason, ie being very logical, deterministic, valuing substance over style.

In sum, my observations would probably be more suited to a wildly generalised debate about working in tech in general, rather than working in Google, and I don't know enough people working in Google to have a proper opinion of the company.

KoopaTroopa

You have 18 YEARS of experience and they push you around for six months? Maybe we should boycott Google. *Setting Home Page to www.ask.com*.

I've heard they're slave drivers anyway.

newestUser

Boycott me arse. They've great products, even if I wouldn't like to work for them. Nobody's forcing you to work there.

KoopaTroopa wrote:

You have 18 YEARS of experience and they push you around for six months? Maybe we should boycott Google. *Setting Home Page to www.ask.com*.

jank

Very interesting thread.

I must say. I would like to do a bit of that in a few years. Learning tomorrow's technology. http://labs.google.com/papers/

Working in a Windows Server/Networking Envirnoment is all good but I couldnt see myself doing it forever. Im setting goals for myself to do my CCNP and slowly move into the more challenging network side of things but to also try to get into some type of teaching tech job where I could pursue some research, maybe a phd

When I did my MSc in DCU the one thing that struck me the most was the amount of knowledge there is in the world.

When someone puts their mind to something its amazing what they can achieve.
I never compiled a Java program in my life before that but in a matter of weeks i was compling programs that used a Root CA to encrpyt and decrpyt Mail through RSA, cracking DES and loads of other cryptographic algorithms.

I would love to get into research but Im not sure id have the confidence patience to do that. And most of all I dont know what part of Computer Science I like most!

Valen sounds like you have a great job!

Duffman

Don't be put off by the interview process. Google is a great place to work and I think the interview system has a lot to do with that.

I've heard some stories about people employed in the business side of things that might put you off but engineering is great

Some posters above suggested that it might not be like working "in the real world". This is certainly not the case. Hard work, long hours, office politics and such are as much a feature of the organisation as they are anywhere else.

But certain aspects of the Google environment seem to set it apart from other organisations and really make it an enjoyable place to work - the people, for example. In my experience there are lots of incredibly smart people at Google. But nobody ever seems to be too busy to help you out or too important to take time to teach you something useful.

Obviously you can't be told exactly what you need to do to get through the interviews but I think genuinely wanting the job, and communicating that interest are the best things you can do. There's no question of only hiring a certain kind of candidate. The workforce is pretty much as diverse as it gets.

Hope that encourages you a bit.

hobosoap

Hi All,

Very useful thread, thanks to all the contributors so far. For anyone thinking of applying to Google for a job, can you give some more abstract details about the recruitment process? I think what has been said already about lots of phone and face to face interviews may be easily misinterpreted.

For example, people say they have several phone interviews, fair enough, it's not much inconvenience to take many phone calls. If you get through the phone screening and are called for interview in person, some people have said they had multiple in person interviews.

Does this mean multiple in person interviews on the same day, or multiple in person interviews over multiple days? If the later that would be very trying! How many seperate days?

Also, are there any special techniques used for the software engineering interviews? For example tests - what kind of formats? For example are there standard written exams/multiple choice exams with a certain time allocation to be done in private or whiteboard coding in front of an interviewing panel? Any information like this would be very helpful.

Kamie

valen wrote:

Right. The Hiring Process. I think it's one of the best I've come across.

Just wanted to thank you for your input although the recruitment process is totally different for engineers: don't you get a set of specific questions which if you answer correctly, will get you the job? You can even have the questions prior to the interview, which I would say is a great help. Another thing I noticed is how strange that Google can give feedback to others as part of their DNA but as soon as one is critical of Google, one of their little soldier instantly gets up and fight...

eth0_

Kamie - They won't give you the job if you get all the questions right but come across as a total d1ck or under confident on the phone!

valen

hobosoap wrote:

For example, people say they have several phone interviews, fair enough, it's not much inconvenience to take many phone calls. If you get through the phone screening and are called for interview in person, some people have said they had multiple in person interviews.

We hire a lot of people, into a lot of different jobs. Obviously a Network Deployment Manager will get a very different interview from a security guard.

I can only speak in detail for engineering. Usually, the recruiter will ring you up for a brief chat to see what you are like, and tell you what to expect. They'll have a list of 100 or so questions (which gets changed from time to time), and ask three or four. If you get them right, then they consider you worth an in-depth phone screen with an engineer. If they don't think you are a really bad fit, you'll get a second phone screen. If both sets of feedback is reasonably good, you'll get called in for in-person interviews.

Does this mean multiple in person interviews on the same day, or multiple in person interviews over multiple days? If the later that would be very trying! How many seperate days?

It depends on the job. We won't take someone from Ukraine over for a single interview, and then tell him to call in again a week later. We'll do our best to get all four interviews in one day. If someone is from Dublin, we might ask him to come in twice, so we can be sure we get the best fit of people to interview (we are really busy, on call, have meetings, go to remote offices, etc. so aren't always free when someone wants to come in).

The hiring comittee meets weekly, to discuss all the interview feedback for that week. They are really picky; if they don't think a candidate had a chance to shine, they'll call them back in for another interview or two. If they think someone is a better fit for another job, they'll call them in for another interview with a different team. Obviously, if they aren't 100% happy that the person is a good fit, they'll decline. They get the last word, not the individual interviewers.

Also, are there any special techniques used for the software engineering interviews? For example tests - what kind of formats? For example are there standard written exams/multiple choice exams with a certain time allocation to be done in private or whiteboard coding in front of an interviewing panel? Any information like this would be very helpful.

It's up to the job, the interviewer, and the candidate. A few friends went for SoftEng jobs. They were given worksheets to do before coming in in person. Not something an operations job interview entails. Once you call in, it's up to the interviewer to ask questions they think are relevant to the position in question. There are no exams - that's the kind of thing that'd find its way onto a blog somewhere!

For instance, if you were going for my job (looking after production machines), I'd ask questions to see how you would deal with events like losing a datacenter to a mudslide, or to tell me about any kernel hacking you'd done. If you were going for a Sysops Manager job, I'd ask you about policies for security patches, and risk assessments. Questions with no definite answer. And then, when writing my interview feedback I'd write maybe 2000 words on what I thought of you as a person and a potential hire.
And then, just for the hell of it, I'd ask you how to use tcpdump to find out who was leeching bittorrents down your home broadband connection or ask you to write a linked list in shell.

If you think you are half decent, the Google interviewing process might be worth it. You could learn a lot about yourself doing it.

John