The PhD I'm in is from a more prestigious university [1], and I guess FAANG experience isn't enough to snag an interview with them.
[1] University of York, though I don't know if that counts as "top tier" either.
Google harasses anyone with a live linkedin profile.
Getting to an onsite interview is a different matter though.
I know 3 people at google, all senior, either SE or people managers.
None had brilliant academic records.
One took almost 10 years to finish his sociology adjacent undergrad.
He's the most "successful" and has been there for almost 15 years, 10 in the states.
The others have been there for like 5.
Make of this info what you wish...
None had impressive intelligence either.
Both of them only really cared more about work history and my ability to solve whiteboard problems. Pretty much all the interviews ended up "what's another clever way to use a hashmap?"
Obviously the number of people working on the super secret stuff is smaller, not to mentioned each project has a compartmentalized staff, but keeping secrets at this size is going to be a tough ask. They seem to do a pretty good job, but we know they’re not infallible at it. I imagine RenTech at 1/100th the size would have a vastly easier time.
Most organizations would have choked themselves on tens of thousands of bad hires long ago.
Combine that with how most the company spend all their time thinking about making money and that's probably why the company never succumbed to bloat
I also think they have sufficient career progression (in terms of problems solved and $$$ earned) that nobody feels the need to build a big team. Pure speculation though, I know nothing about RenTech except that the pay is... generous.
This is different from most orgs who can grow revenue through expansion of some sort, in which case the incentive often favors adding new employees. Not to mention the tendency for people in tech to be evaluated by how many people are in their org, further incentivizing adding headcount to signify your importance.