Extremely smart co-workers, a lot of resources, excellent perks and working environment, modern internal tools, and an innovative and smart environment.
If you have an opportunity to work there, there's really little reason not to try it for a few years at least. If you thrive, you thrive. If you don't, it looks great on the resume. One of Google's main attractions as an employer is that it's really a win-win to work there.
Overall, Google's focus is on defending their cash cow. Their other activities almost seem like they're just trying to keep talent off the market and away from competitors. That means if you're an engineer, you'll have a great time. But if you're a product-oriented person, caring about market success, customer satisfaction, etc., you'll get frustrated after a few years. Top management is very split in its priorities. There are generally a lot of chefs involved in any decision-making, and the decisions tend to be reversed or altered fairly quickly. A surprisingly large percentage of the senior talent does not view Google as a long-term career path, which leads them to focus on a couple of promotion phases and then they're off somewhere else.
I was directly interviewed by several top executives, so this isn't very relevant to most interviewers. If you are, they'll sometimes spring it on you. In my case, I got a 15-minute heads-up. One of the founders asked me a question that I thought wa
The phone call lasted 45 minutes. The interviewer asked me technical questions about simple data structures found in an introductory algorithms class. The interviewer spent approximately 10, 15, and 20 minutes on the three questions, which were in in
I conducted my interviews in November 2011. All the questions were related to algorithms, and I had to solve a given problem, comment on its running time, implement it in the language of my choice on a whiteboard, and then improve it further. Althou
I was directly interviewed by several top executives, so this isn't very relevant to most interviewers. If you are, they'll sometimes spring it on you. In my case, I got a 15-minute heads-up. One of the founders asked me a question that I thought wa
The phone call lasted 45 minutes. The interviewer asked me technical questions about simple data structures found in an introductory algorithms class. The interviewer spent approximately 10, 15, and 20 minutes on the three questions, which were in in
I conducted my interviews in November 2011. All the questions were related to algorithms, and I had to solve a given problem, comment on its running time, implement it in the language of my choice on a whiteboard, and then improve it further. Althou