I see a lot of people from FAANG here. Were you guys the smartest people in university or had the best internships? I just feel I can never reach the bar which has been set. The furthest I reached was Google onsite and like many, was rejected even if I felt I did well and got answers I thought were satisfactory. This is not a pity party but I do feel demoralized and feel I could not be as smart as a Googler. I studied computer engineering and not CS but I have been practicing data structures and algorithms and took CS classes as minor. I have 9 months experience. Since I see so many people from Google here, I thought it would be good to get some insight from those who made it. What made you stand out?
They LC well
No. Many of us are not that good. Only difference being we had a lucky day on the interview date.
I think the 4 back to back interviews, multiple phone screens and the system of Hiring committee takes luck out of the equation for the most part. Congrats btw! Is Google really an amazing place to work as they show? I was personally blown away by the bowling alley conference room and engineers who were taking a break to.. tend bees
Google is not really as amazing as you see in movies and presentations. I must agree that there are lot of great perks working at Google apart from food and other shiny stuff, but more like working on large scale systems and smart coworkers. However I must also say that most of us do not the cool stuff that you see. Most of us are just brick movers and there is a lot of competition there. This leads to lot of stress and well being part of the rat race. Many of the cool things that you saw including bowling alleys are not even a part of day to day activities or conversation. I have been to the bowling alley once in 6 years. The shine wears off pretty quickly when perfs, promos etc become real. And let me end with it's still luck. Many of us won't clear the interviews again if we asked to give them.
The average G employee is indeed smarter. The distribution is wide enough, both inside and outside G, that there will be plenty of counter examples to the stereotype.
Facebook is equally good! I only mentioned Google because thats where I interviewed. Although your campus in Menlo Park is more shut off to public than Google’s I have heard it is equally as dope
Those who got in Google without leetcoding are smart
Hahahahahahhha. The moment you step into the interview room, the only thing that matters is your Leetcode, your architecture skills, and to a lesser degree, communication ability. At that point, they’ve already vetted your background. Given everything they’ve seen on paper, they are OK with you. Most Googlers I know say would likely NOT pass their interviews if they interviewed again. It mostly depends on how well you prepared, and a little luck. If you think you did well, they will probably reach out to you again after one year to give it another shot. So yeah, don’t even trip man.
Luck plays a part. So don't feel too bad about it. I'm sure you're as capable as any of the other people I've met throughout my years
Chill out OP, you only have 9 months of experience. Long road ahead. I also failed Google phone screen, but I got FB offer after that and currently an E5 with 4 yoe making 340k. And Google thought I wasn’t good enough. The interview process is mostly BS
Enough of biting humble pie; Truth is yes google swes (I am not a swe) are way smarter than the average engineer. Maybe some got there with a lot of leetcode but still I don’t think you can clear the high google swe bar with any amount of leetcode unless you are already smart enough.
False, I saw a blind post where a guy literally confessed that he got into Google by memorizing 1500 coding questions. He admitted that he isn’t that smart
memorizing 1500 coding questions and being able to use it during a stressful interview is good enough! shows preparation, willingness, determination, etc.
No smarter than anyone else. And they don’t seem particularly nicer than average either. My biased view? At worst, it’s pretentious nerds. But like anywhere, there would be people I would and wouldn’t want to work with.
Even if you're a nerd, I'm assuming youd need to be somewhat good at people skills. Reading other people and calibrating so as to not hurt their fragile ego or adjusting your answers point in time to ensure they like you. I recall a saying that job interviews are just like first date, you have limited time to show your personality for them to make a decision whether you're fucckable or not upto par. Difference being instead of effing a hot gal, here youd be effed by your manager, albeit for large sums of monies.