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Comment by amaks | Hacker News Reader

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amaks·

Here is a much better and quite popular (in engineering circles) post by Steve Yegge:

http://steve-yegge.blogspot.com/2008/03/get-that-job-at-goog...

This of course applies only to engineers.

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That article isn't "better", they serve completely different purposes.

If you master everything in Yegge's article, but yet fail to show you know how to learn, lead, show ownership and humility, you'll still probably not get the job. And I'm sure this fact baffles a lot of technical experts out there who don't pass their Google interview.

Of course Yegge's advice is indispensable on the technical side. But Lazlo's advice is intentionally more broad than that.

I don't want to do what Yegge says. I can get a job in a few phone calls. Why should I go study a book for a month to be tested on a bunch of algorithms not pertinent to my field, to almost certainly be rejected even if I am (and I honestly think I am) a great fit? Why should I interview for a job, take all that time, experience that stress, when they won't even tell me what the position might be? No thanks.

You mean developers. Programmers are not engineers.

Of course I meant software engineers (SWE). There is no job title 'Programmer' at Google.

Programmers are classically engineers — “One who contrives, designs, or invents” in the primary sense in the OED. Some are also Engineers™, while others object to the intrusion of the Engineering™ cartel into their field. I've never noticed among my colleagues any particular difference between those who are Software Engineers™ and those who are not, and have come to like the term ‘technologist’ to avoid the issue.

Ah, yeah, here we go again. Did you mean programmers or coders?

Software engineers are not engineers either.

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