Google's apparent academic focus is what puts me off. That and the doubt about whether interesting work is done outside of their main campus.
I'm self-taught and have been programming and making software from scratch for 15 years and have been pretty successful at it. Recently I did an MSc in CompSci in my spare time and was pleased with a merit (natch, only scored 69% and missed the distinction). This was the first time I've ever done exams or written anything (I was sleeping rough on streets when the peers I have now were being educated) and I feel good with the merit even though I kick myself at not finding that extra 1% somewhere.
What puts me off is a multi-faceted thing though:
1) That a late entry into academic and failing to get a distinction is going to count against me.
2) That my self-learning and lack of a strict appliance of a common vocabulary will sound bad in an interview (I felt in the exams that my struggle for the 'correct' term even though I knew what I wanted to express was not helping me get every point that I could).
3) That if 1) and 2) count against me, that a rejection will count against me in future (that Google collect and never forget data and that it would hurt a future chance when I might try again)
4) And then there's a deep concern with being in London... are the London engineers working on the same level of problem as the engineers in the US?
This last one is the real gnawing doubt... assuming I got through the interview, I'm not particularly interested in working in a body shop. I have ideas, I have creative solutions, I have dedication and I want to create world-changing product, and to improve life on this blue sphere. I want to invest my life's work into that... so I really really don't want to go through what appears to be a protracted process to arrive somewhere I didn't want to be.
Recently the work on Places is changing my view on Google back to a strong positive. It's making me consider applying again whereas before I didn't know why I would apply beyond the challenge of doing so. But the deep doubt remains... do people who work in the London office get the opportunity to work on the core of these problems?
To that, I've just not seen a strongly affirmative answer, and so I'll continue to delay any possible application because why would I risk a rejection unless I really know that I want to be there.
"Google's apparent academic focus is what puts me off. That and the doubt about whether interesting work is done outside of their main campus.
I'm self-taught and have been programming and making software from scratch for 15 years and have been pretty successful at it."
The academic focus puts lots of people off. I know absolutely incredible engineers with very good educations who wouldn't make it through the hiring process because they haven't been in a classroom in 20 years...ergo, their knowledge of easy-to-lookup trivia required to pass the gatekeepers isn't up to snuff.
I know one guy who walked out of a Google interview after they started in with the trivia stuff, his response was "are you kidding me with this?" Picked up his stuff and left. He felt it was extremely disrespectful and wouldn't have been a good selector for a successful employee anyway.
Interesting work is done outside of main campus, absolutely, 100%. Not every office works on every product, but every office has some pretty major stuff going on.
I'm self-taught and have been programming and making software from scratch for 15 years and have been pretty successful at it. Recently I did an MSc in CompSci in my spare time and was pleased with a merit (natch, only scored 69% and missed the distinction). This was the first time I've ever done exams or written anything (I was sleeping rough on streets when the peers I have now were being educated) and I feel good with the merit even though I kick myself at not finding that extra 1% somewhere.
What puts me off is a multi-faceted thing though:
1) That a late entry into academic and failing to get a distinction is going to count against me.
2) That my self-learning and lack of a strict appliance of a common vocabulary will sound bad in an interview (I felt in the exams that my struggle for the 'correct' term even though I knew what I wanted to express was not helping me get every point that I could).
3) That if 1) and 2) count against me, that a rejection will count against me in future (that Google collect and never forget data and that it would hurt a future chance when I might try again)
4) And then there's a deep concern with being in London... are the London engineers working on the same level of problem as the engineers in the US?
This last one is the real gnawing doubt... assuming I got through the interview, I'm not particularly interested in working in a body shop. I have ideas, I have creative solutions, I have dedication and I want to create world-changing product, and to improve life on this blue sphere. I want to invest my life's work into that... so I really really don't want to go through what appears to be a protracted process to arrive somewhere I didn't want to be.
Recently the work on Places is changing my view on Google back to a strong positive. It's making me consider applying again whereas before I didn't know why I would apply beyond the challenge of doing so. But the deep doubt remains... do people who work in the London office get the opportunity to work on the core of these problems?
To that, I've just not seen a strongly affirmative answer, and so I'll continue to delay any possible application because why would I risk a rejection unless I really know that I want to be there.