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Comment by freework | Hacker News Reader

Wow. That seems like a lot of work to get a software job. This guy seems pretty knowledgeable too. Has it always been this hard to get a job as a programmer, or is this just a symptom of the times?

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No, the process is horrendous, especially for the competitive companies. Just look at Google's process: talk with recruiter, 1-2 phone screens, 5 on-site interviews, and then a couple phone calls with teams. All before you get an offer. Absolute nonsense.

Then do it 2-3 times because their amazing process tends to get it wrong.

That doesn't sound like an amazing process.

A friend of mine interviewed with Google up here in Boston. Got flown out 4 times because of blizzards closing the office before they just flew her out to Mountain View all before telling her that they weren't going to give her an offer because none of the teams had space.

I think that's the worst part about Google's hiring practices. You nail the 5 interviews, pass the hiring committee, the executive committee, talk to teams and then someone finally tells you "we don't have any position for you, sorry". A very standardized process isn't always a good thing, not everyone is an interchangeable cog, fresh out of college.

I think this is unusual for Google though. I'm not saying it can't happen but I don't think this is the common case.

True, their hiring process is data driven (like everything else) so it must be rare.

But it's not the first time I hear such story and I'm sure it must leave a pretty bad taste in your mouth. Nothing similar happens in Amazon, Microsoft, Facebook, Apple... AFAIK.

Happened to me as well; also in Boston.

They flew her out 4 times because of blizzards? That doesn't make much sense. Do you mean her flight got cancelled 4 times because of blizzards. That would not be Google's fault.

That wasn't the real reason. They would have offered other teams she could have joined.

I've been introduced to this recently as I had not lived in bay area before. Apparently when one of BigCo's recruiters contact you saying they really like your experience and it would be a good fit for X, what they really mean is "Please jump in our interviewee grinder because we aren't getting enough volunteers." They just dump you into the usual pipeline without any discussion on salary range or an attempt at selling the company/role. I get hit up by multiple recruiters every week day; I don't have the time to entertain this bull or do full-day marathon interviews with zero sense of mutual interest. Luckily I only wasted an hour with one of the BigCo's before I caught on; if they get back to me I'll have to politely extricate myself because I will not be taking off time to go in for full day interview sessions.

I got this from Amazon, we really like the look of you, now do a two hour coding challenge without knowing anything else. Sorry I have 14 years experience on my CV and better things to do with my time.

This is also a way many companies prevent their engineers from leaving.

The act of switching a job is PAINFUL. Most people stick to their jobs for as long as they can just to avoid the pain, pressure and stress.

All my interviews in my past few months have been in this format.

1. Talking to recruiter ( 0-1/2 hr)

2. InterviewStreet coding challenge ( 2 hrs)

3. Phone Screen - 1 hr

4. Take home coding exercise - 4 hrs

So you are spending 8 hrs just to get your resume looked at. Then comes onsite interview which is another day ( assuming you are not flying out).

All this is not counting prep time to brush up on bigo/algorithm stuff. I was speaking to a fellow interviewee at google and he apparently spent over 4 months of everyday practice for the interview. So no way you could compete with without serious dedication.

I truly don't understand the point of having both (2) and (4). Could someone here who runs a process like this comment on what signal they're picking up from (4) that they aren't getting from (2), or vice-versa? If the InterviewStreet stuff isn't good enough to demonstrate at-home coding skills, then why not just do the take-home exercise? If it is good enough, then why not skip the take-home exercise?

i think 2 is coding/problem solving test and 4 is design/software engineering test.

Getting usual software job is not so hard. I think he was not after "usual software job", but after one that is hard to get (job at Google, Facebook etc). I find what he wrote very valuable, being a person that has similar aspirations (Google is my holy grail) that was very helpful.

Why is working at Google your holy grail? I'm genuinely curious, I don't have a problem with your goals.

I am interested in ML lately so i like and understand their current approach to solving problems with it. I think that they are leader in "AI race" at the moment seeing how DeepMind is evolving and how they use ML in their products and optimizing their own infrastructure with it. I think I could learn a lot there. I always liked challenges and solving interesting problems and in my opinion Google is a good place to do that. I am not mentioning things like scale etc because that is common in other companies also.

I would disagree. Google has beyond genius PHD's working one those problems. A SE with a bachelor's would most likely be delegated menial tasks, definitely not be working on cutting edge research. I have many friends at Google and, unfortunately, it's scale would not allow one to work on the problems you stated with out significant leverage and movement internally.

I disagree. I also know someone that works in one of the ML teams and he has just a bachelor's and is not relegated to menial tasks and seems to be pretty happy with his level of responsibility.

Because google on your resume opens many doors. eg: vc funding.

Why is Google ( or any other employer ) your holy grail? Is getting hired at a big five employer seen like the Olympics of software development or something?

I'm genuinely curious.

Google is one the few employers that where if you perform well you can get to a 250k+ comp within 5 years. The pay difference between Google and most other companies is quite big after a couple years.

There are obviously other options but Google is one of the few employers where you can say "well if i hit expectations I will be making 250k".

I know of many jobs where you can get that high. Most of them are soul sucking jobs calculating mind numbing numbers for insurance companies.

Google is likely to have interesting jobs where you can get that high which would be big.

please, i'd love to know specific companies (seriously).

Hey, if you are still interested, I replied to RexM below, he asked similar question first.

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