Or maybe how Kent Beck hiring process went at FB: https://www.quora.com/How-was-Kent-Beck-recruited-to-Faceboo...
Edit: first case was Homebrew's creator at google: https://twitter.com/mxcl/status/608682016205344768 (thanks, livingparadox!)
So why is this such a big deal? The assumption here is that passing a Google interview is /the/ bar for success as a software engineer. Guy builds homebrew (success) and guy fails google interview (fail). Cognitive dissonance!
It's not surprising that there are a diverse set of skills required for building good software, especially if one is playing every role by themselves. Then it's also not surprising that at a large corporate environment, each one of these roles are usually taken on by separate people, and there is a lot more specialization. Then it's not surprising that they're ignoring all the other skills this person brings to the table - they're probably going to be squandered. It's also not surprising that a large corporation with a massive inflow of great candidates is going to have a diluted and uninteresting interview process because no matter what they're doing, they're going to get some good or at least motivated people one way or the other. It's yet again unsurprising that they fail to take their own advice when their internal studies find out that brain teaser questions or questions that don't have anything to do with the day to day work don't really predict success, because I think a lot of people who are established there passed through that bar, and ascribe their success to it despite the evidence. So it's a cultural change issue too.
Anyway, I got rejected by google when I was in college, and I took it personally at first, and now I don't. I'm not really proud of it, but I've learned to not think lesser of myself because of it. I have a perfectly fine job that I enjoy and even more opportunities. So it's possible!
Interesting, did not hear about that. I wonder if a system package manager could be coming to OS X in the future.