Comment by nostrademons | Hacker News Reader

Comment by nostrademons | Hacker News Reader

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That can help a lot with anxiety. If you think it's pointless and you'll never get the job, you have a chance to just have fun with it and do what you can do.

My first time interviewing with Google (in 2008), the press was reporting that they were in a hiring freeze, I had no big names on my resume, so I figured it was basically hopeless and I'd just do the best I could and enjoy my trip to Silicon Valley. After my interview, I was like "Well, I did okay, but you really have to be perfect to work at Google and I wasn't perfect. I'm never coming back to California anyway, so I might as well do all the tourist stuff [I'd held an extra day to interview with Twitter, but they ended up not moving forwards with my candidacy] and just treat it as an all-expenses paid trip to SF." So I just went to Alcatraz and Fisherman's Wharf, treated myself to a nice dinner, and took the red-eye home to Boston. As I'm groggily waking up after a post-red-eye nap, the Google recruiter called me to say "Your interview feedback looks great. We'd like to fast-track your application on the assumption that the hiring committee will say yes."

Been living in California for 11 years now, and I just started back at Google after working there for 5.5 years, leaving, and doing startups for another 6. The most recent round of interviews was the same - I was super nervous for Lyft, Stripe, Coinbase, Netflix, etc. and ended up not getting the job, but with Google it was like "Hey, I worked there once, I know people who also know my interviewers, I used to give interviews like the one I'm sitting in now, what's the big deal?"

What’s frustrating to me is clearly you’ve spent 10+ years on the industry, worked at big cos like Google and startups, passed Google onsite twice, and still got rejected by all those companies. Which would be fine if industry execs weren’t constantly bemoaning about talent shortages and difficulty hiring engineers. They’ve established a cultural pattern of talking about how acceptable it is to reject highly qualified engineers, labeling them “false negatives”, then refuse to introspect on that when discussing why they find hiring challenging. (I’ve also spent 10+ years in industry, 3+ years as a Google SWE, and got zero feedback rejections from companies like Stripe and many many others in the last few years.)

wait so Google did the entire red black tree interview thing again, even though you already worked for them for 6 years?

lol this industry is hopeless

Yea, the "interview" should have been nothing more than a review of past performance appraisals and a conversation to assess motivation/goals/etc.

Pretty much. If you leave and come back at the same level within 2 years they skip it, but I'd been gone for 6 years, and I was coming back 1-2 levels higher (part of the point of interviewing was to determine level). They want to determine if you a.) forgot how to code, which is entirely possible if you've been doing other stuff for a while and b.) have learned something new & valuable that warrants a promotion.

The panel was different, too - my first time around I had 2 algorithm, 2 UI (Javascript), and 1 system design interviews, while the second time was 2 algorithm, 1 behavioral/leadership, and 2 system design interviews. This is probably reflective of the differing role and higher level.

I also treated my Google interview as a free trip to the Bay Area, and used it to visit a friend and do touristy stuff. Wasn't expecting an offer, but got one and stayed there for many years.

I've read advice that you shouldn't schedule your interview on a Friday, but that's exactly what I did so that I could spend the following weekend in SF :)

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