A few weeks ago, I was driving home after dark, and while stopped at an intersection, a bright light shone down on my car and I levitated out of my car.
When I awoke, I was in Mountain View California, and I was being questioned by strange beings.
Not really - but I did get asked to interview with Google.
tl;dr version - I didn't get hired
The detailed version -
I was cold-called (emailed, actually), by one of Google's recruitment specialists, and got my resume to him - I don't know how my name was initially brought to his attention; I was told that someone at Google recommended me, but I don't know anyone at Google currently, so it may have been from an old resume submitted years ago. I passed the resume screen, and shortly after was scheduled for a phone interview.
I spent the next week and a half cramming algorithms, data structures, and logic puzzles. Everything I found online about interviewing at Google put me in fear for not knowing esoterica like red-black trees, how to implement a heap, and how to determine how many ping-pong alls would fit in a 747.
The phone interview turned out to be a single coding problem, and I managed to take 50 minutes to solve, and missed an obvious part of the solution.
After two weeks had passed, I pinged the interview scheduler for an update, and was pleasantly surprised to hear that I was getting a second phone interview! So it was back to the cramming.
The second phone interview was somewhat better, in that I managed to not fall flat in solving the problem - again, a straightforward programming problem - and managed to do it quickly enough to field a few more questions.
Another two weeks passed, and my ping at that point resulted in a request to schedule an on-site interview! I was elated, and spent a day grinning to myself.
Shortly after, I was winging my way out to the mothership for a whirlwind 36 hours in Mountain View.
The on-site interview was intense - 4 separate interviews with Googlers, covering a number of topics; fortunately, none of the questions were trick questions - nary a manhole cover or gas station in sight. I was taken to lunch at one of the cafeterias, which had an interesting variety of food, and was quite busy.
Two weeks later, after no response, I pinged the interview coordinator and got the bad news - I was not moving forward.
I was dropped as low as I had been lifted. It really sucked to hear that news. Even though I knew that Google was willing to reject qualified people, it still hurt terribly.
So now I join the ranks of the many who have not passed muster in the Mothership, and I bide my time until next year, when I will try again, assuming they are still looking.
