Good Perks, Toxic Treadmill
Good Perks, Toxic Treadmill
- Great salary
- Nice accommodations in office like cafes, snacks, gyms, and nice architecture
- Free stuff and modern desktops/laptops with a support team
- Lots of internal discussion boards about nerd stuff
- Endless treadmill of stress and wishful thinking.
- My feedback to parts of Google outside of my team, such as YouTube, was systematically ignored.
- Google has thousands of ways to coerce its users, especially the tech-illiterate, to fork over rights to their personal information without understanding the consequences (personalized ads, location history, notification preferences...). I realized this before accepting the offer, but I wanted the money.
- If you're an engineer, you have to learn dozens of proprietary technologies which aren't magically better than anything open source just because Googlers made them, and then you get to throw away all of that knowledge when you leave.
- Google might just cancel your project at any time.
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Google Interview Questions
Google Interview Experiences
Software Engineer III
I was contacted by a recruiter after applying. My first round was then scheduled. You can schedule it several weeks in advance. Generally, after clearing that round, you would advance to a final virtual onsite.
Software Engineer III
Had my first phone interview that featured a live code editor. I was asked a single design question requiring basic knowledge of data structures and algorithms. The interview was conducted over Google Meet, and I chose Python as the language.
Software Engineer III
Phone call with someone who refused to describe their role in detail. Very little opportunity to connect with the person conducting the interview. The interviewer was also rude a few questions in, so I ended the call early.
Software Engineer III
Sunnyvale, California, United StatesNovember 1, 2023I was contacted by a recruiter after applying. My first round was then scheduled. You can schedule it several weeks in advance. Generally, after clearing that round, you would advance to a final virtual onsite.
Software Engineer III
Sunnyvale, California, United StatesMay 1, 2023Had my first phone interview that featured a live code editor. I was asked a single design question requiring basic knowledge of data structures and algorithms. The interview was conducted over Google Meet, and I chose Python as the language.
Software Engineer III
Sunnyvale, California, United StatesFebruary 1, 2020Phone call with someone who refused to describe their role in detail. Very little opportunity to connect with the person conducting the interview. The interviewer was also rude a few questions in, so I ended the call early.
