Ask me anything about Google’s interview life-cycle, work and culture.
15+ years of engineering and leadership experience in the industry, most recently at Google across multiple teams. I have domain expertise in machine learning and large scale distributed systems applied to ranking and personalization problems. During this AMA, I can help shed light on the life-cycle of your interview process, career advice, resume reviews and any other relevant questions you may have including things like engineering culture, leadership, etc. I can also answer questions around cost of living, compensation, and negotiation.
Since this is an AMA, I will be answering in generalities so that it’s broadly applicable to the audience here. If you’d like personalized advice, resume reviews or feedback, I’d suggest you check out Rooftop Slushie. I’ve had a rewarding experience so far on that site helping out people in various stages of their careers so far. You can either ask the question broadly to the group there - tag the relevant companies you are seeking advice on, or ask me directly via my profile ( https://www.rooftopslushie.com/profile/stiXfWhJvKky . You might need to create an account to login, but the access to the existing answers is free to view).
Note that the answers here represent my own individual opinions, and should not be interpreted as official communication on behalf of any company.
#tech #career #ama
For the TC or GTFO crowd: 650k (quite dependent on the stock price, so I've put in a round number here)
Edit: Checking out now. Thank you everyone for participating. Lots of great questions.
Ask Mr.Mirror at Google for career advice
comments
No. It probably won't be permanent. Let's just say hypothetically that attrition is 10%. If Google has 120,000 employees, they need to hire 12,000 people per year just to stay headcount neutral.
I've heard some execs say that one of their biggest regrets during the previous recession is not continuing to aggressively hire quality candidates. I know that there's some doublespeak considering they leaked a hiring freeze, but I have a hard time believing that the thousands of recruiters on payroll at Google aren't still pursuing top-tier talent and using the contracted job market to be choosier about who they hire for their most important projects.
I know a guy who worked at Google (at a site in Europe). He got past the hard interview with all the fancy algorithms and data structures. Turns out according to him the job was 90% writing scripting code which according to him was almost brainless (no fancy algorithm design or creativity) and did mot really require the skills tested for in the interview. While I take this with a grain of salt, I am pretty sure there are jobs at Google that just require basic coding that 70% of developers can do, yet they insist on a hiring process that only allows the top 10% through. Sure, pay is good and benefits are good but what is the reason they hire overqualified people for these positions? These people may end up losing their motivation even with all the perks.
I'm also top 1 in my stack on SO (500-700 overall among 12 mil), top 1 guy on Upwork in my stack, have a 4k GitHub account and read dozens of programming books. I can tell that LC was the easiest of all those things.
So, don't tell me I'm whining just because I'm not in FAANG. I've earned $120k after taxes last year and I live in a shithole country (my brand new apartments are $20k). 98% of Amazon engs couldn't do that. An average salary of eng compared to FAANG is $24k in the capital and $14k in my city (after taxes).