I had previously been offered a job back in 2003 out in Mt. View but did not want to relocate. Then I saw a blog post that they were hiring locally in NC, and so I reached out to the poster.

First, I had coffee with the guys and then initiated the normal hiring process through a hiring manager.

The first interview was at the local office with two different engineers. This went well.

The follow-up interview was out in Mt. View – a standard Google interview with three engineers: two from the group I would be working with (graphics, Chrome) and one from outside. The interviewers were professional and cordial-to-friendly. I struggled a bit with the graphics algorithms questions, as this is not my area.

I did not get an offer this time. I don't think I was a good technical fit for what they were looking for in the NC office (small, only 10 people working on graphics). I did not get any detail about the "no" from the recruiter, but I don't expect much detail typically.

The only snafu/problem I had was an awkward situation where I was asked the same question by two different interviewers (see below).

One of the interviewers at Googleplex asked essentially the same technical question as my initial interviewer in NC.

I had done well on this, so I was faced with the awkward decision of whether to tell the second interviewer that I had already been asked this question.

So I decided to tell him. He got a little flustered, and we then moved on to an elaboration which was more difficult to handle—at least in part because I could not really connect with the interviewer on what it was he was asking.

Ah well.