Oh God this brings back memories. I was actually offered a job at Google (by some miracle) but turned it down. The interviews (7 in total) were an awful experience.
I had to solve problems that I had not looked at since my masters and were mostly theoretical CS things which nobody outside of academia ever has to actually use.
I had a brief read through of their coding style a few days before so I solved it in a very Google way which is what most likely got me the job. Even though doing it their way was just awful (in terms of implementation).
There is no doubt that Google's search algorithms are the best but I can't help but think the rest of their services are only high performing because they can through their enormous data centre resources at the problem.
I also hated the attitude of the interviewers and engineers I met. They were so up their own asses. Their way was the best possible way and if you didn't agree well fuck you!
I have only turned down two jobs in my career that I 100% do not regret and Google is one of them.
I had to solve problems that I had not looked at since my masters and were mostly theoretical CS things which nobody outside of academia ever has to actually use.
I had a brief read through of their coding style a few days before so I solved it in a very Google way which is what most likely got me the job. Even though doing it their way was just awful (in terms of implementation).
There is no doubt that Google's search algorithms are the best but I can't help but think the rest of their services are only high performing because they can through their enormous data centre resources at the problem.
I also hated the attitude of the interviewers and engineers I met. They were so up their own asses. Their way was the best possible way and if you didn't agree well fuck you!
I have only turned down two jobs in my career that I 100% do not regret and Google is one of them.