Comment by gautam1168 | Hacker News Reader

Comment by gautam1168 | Hacker News Reader

Only slightly related. Since many google employees will be here: How can I plan to land a job with google in 2 years if I have a physics masters and 1.5 years of web development + little exp. with other software stacks? I am trying to figure out a strategy to make it happen and I am willing to do anything, even go back to school.

* How can I get an interview? It seems simply sending my resume through the online portal will not work because I don't have a stellar academic record or much experience.

* How can I figure out what to apply for? I have experience in UI but does google even do that? I want to work at google because I want to work with the people there who are just the smartest people around. But I don't really care what I work on.

* How and how long should I prepare for the interview? I am working through the Cormen's algorithms book but I don't really have a solid CS education. And I hear that they just want you to know everything. So should I just go back to school?

* I have heard that one way is to participate and excel in coding competitions. Should I then focus my entire energy on this front? Or will this be misguided?

Start here: https://github.com/jwasham/coding-interview-university

I wouldn't recommend going back to school. You already have a Master's in Physics, which should give you all the math background you need to understand CS algos. I'd even encourage you to start to "translate" your Physics knowledge into code.

Google, FB, Microsoft, et. al. are more concerned with your ability to explain CS concepts at a whiteboard than your degrees.

Have you considered SpaceX? http://www.spacex.com/careers/list

They are usually very interested in cross discipline candidates.

Others here would be in far better position to advice you, but from what I can say, having an awesome github portfolio will go a long way to compensate for the other handicaps you mentioned.

Once you are there, I'd say the best way would be to find someone in your network who works at google, and get referred. If you don't know anyone, make contacts through various channels.

Github portfolio might help one get the interview in the first place, but once you get your foot in the door, it is 99% useless. Hiring committee will only look at it if they are unable to give yes/no decision based on the data from the interviews. Preparing for interviews is much better strategy compared to creating stuff to post on Github.

> , having an awesome github portfolio will go a long way to compensate for the other handicaps you mentioned.

Is this you personal experience?

I know for a fact that almost no one I interviewed with bothered to look at github. Some even admitted that asking for github is just a formality and that they don't have time or resources to evaluate it objectively.

I concur with sibling commments that while a net positive a github profile is be unlikely to be given much weight at a FAANG company. Unless maybe it shows experience on something directly related to the particular team you're applying for. Performance in the interview is really what matters.

I also concur that getting a referral from an any employee that you might meet is the better than just blindly sending in your resume, though not as good as a strong referral (i.e. someone you've had direct experience working with before). You will get more attention from the HR side and the employee referring you will have a better idea of what teams will be relevant than the HR people will.

Google hires in UX roles: https://careers.google.com/fields-of-work/design/

If you think you have talent in that area you could spend the next two years working in that area, then apply

Thankyou. This helped.

Satire? Feels like something that would be a great fit for The Onion if it had a "job search" section. The fact that this account has only made a total of 2 posts makes me wonder if they're just trolling.

> I want to work at google because I want to work with the people there who are just the smartest people around

Be careful with that kool-aid, it's toxic in high doses.

No I'm not trolling. But I will post this to job search too if you think that is a better place.

Personal attacks are not allowed on Hacker News.

Considering how many times we've warned you before about posting comments that break the HN guidelines, I should probably ban your account for this. But we'll give you another chance. Please don't break the guidelines again, if you want to keep commenting here.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

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