My experience was the company was absolutely incredible. I was actually contacted by a Google recruiter from the get go, so it was quite a shock to me to see the recruiter’s email arrive in my inbox. After some quick chit-chat, the recruiter scheduled a telephone interview for me with one of their engineers.

The phone interview went very well. I was initially really anxious about it, but once the interviewer and I got to talking, it was really smooth sailing. Even though my conversation with him isn’t covered under the NDA I signed, my moral obligations to the company prevents me from disclosing exactly what was asked. However, I can tell you that we talked primarily about JavaScript and about the different ways you can use it to accomplish your goals. Being that I’m primarily a .NET evangelist, I was concerned that he’d be asking about Python, Java, and other server-side languages. He didn’t. We did talk about some server-side stuff, but it was all at a high enough level that anyone who has ever worked with any server-side languages should be able to answer. It may have been tough for others, but I felt really good about it after we got off the phone.

I waited for something like two weeks after that before I heard anything back from anyone. Finally, the recruiter ended up emailing me back and told me that they wanted to move me on to the next stage! I was extremely excited at that point, and I traded a whole bunch of emails with a bunch of the recruiting coordinators who scheduled me for an on-campus visit almost a month and a half after my initial contact with the recruiter. Thankfully I wasn’t really looking for a job at that point, but if I had been and I had been short on money, I can’t imagine trying to hold out for that long.

Anyway, my wife and I ended up flying up to Mountain View last month for a three day weekend so I could continue the interview process. They arranged for us to stay at Hotel Avante (a really cool hotel in the area), got us a rental car, paid for my meals, and paid for my airfare. We roamed around in SF all weekend, and when interview Monday rolled around, I couldn’t have been more excited to meet with everyone.

I’m not supposed to talk about their interview format, the questions I was asked, or really anything I saw or heard at the campus. What I can tell you is that I had four “normal” interviews and then a lunch interview. The engineers themselves were all brilliant people, and I immediately felt like I’d fit right into their culture. Each interviewer seemed to have free reign with the questions they wanted to ask, and I was happy to talk to all of them.

Some interviewers wanted to focus more on what I’d call the “hardcore” computer science questions where I had to write code on a whiteboard, while others were more interested in what I’ve done in my field in the past, how I’ve done it, and how I used my education and experiences to do what I do. I was far more comfortable with the application-type questions since I’m very confident in my knowledge, but I wasn’t really sure how I did on the computer science-type questions; I think I even (regrettably) let out a slight groan when they asked me one of the questions. It’s been so long since I’ve needed to use some of that knowledge, and I wasn’t expecting to have to remember it. I ultimately got the right answers at the end of those kinds of questions, but I definitely stumbled my way through some of them. Also, I wasn’t really thinking about the performance considerations until I talked to my third interviewer (who, incidentally, had just had a root canal that morning), so I bet they docked some points for that as well. Overall, it was just really difficult to gauge how I did once it was all finished. I definitely didn’t get the feeling that some people have after such lengthy interviews where they feel like they’ve been hit by a truck, but I didn’t have the feeling that I aced it either. Before I left, I made sure to grab one of those free Odwalla juices on my way out, although I must have looked like a huge dork since I was already carrying around two drink bottles from earlier in the day.

I went home, and I waited. Two more weeks went by where I’d jump every time I saw that I had new email. It was a really crazy feeling, and even though I have a job that I’m in love with, I was still really nervous. I knew that I was perfect for them, but I had no idea whether or not they felt the same way.

Ultimately, I was notified by email that I didn’t get the job. On one hand, I was really disappointed that I didn’t get to have that choice to make. On the other, I feel like the company I’m with now is poised for spectacular growth over the next few months, I love all of the people I work with and, for the most part, I like the area I live in. I hold my head up high because of the changes I’ve been able to make and will continue to make at Diverse Solutions, and I’m absolutely certain that I would have been able to make the same kind of impact at Google even though it’s a far, far bigger company.

All that said, I’d really love to work at Google someday soon, and I hope that I can be reconsidered for that very same position by the time I am done with Diverse Solutions and am actively pursuing another job. I still don’t have my BS in Computer Science and BA in Criminal Justice yet as I’m a single, stupid Chemistry class short of getting both, so I’m going to have to focus on getting that taken care of next. I’m also going to become more active in the web scripting community (or whatever you want to call it) so that I can prove and publish my skills a bit more.

My other takeaways / tips are as follows:

• Be confident. Don’t be a moron like me and groan when your interviewer asks you a difficult question.
• Know your stuff. Just because you’re a JavaScript hacker doesn’t mean you shouldn’t know the very basic CS principals. If you don’t have a good CS foundation, you won’t be able to easily translate your skills as things progress.
• Get a formal education. I haven’t been given my degrees for almost two years now due to poor planning in the beginning and busyness once I got this job. My name was even read in the commencement ceremonies, but here I am trying to explain myself whenever I have an opportunity like this. I’m not sure that Google rejected me because I didn’t have my degrees, but I’m sure it didn’t help by any means.
• Be publicly active. While I did spend quite some time writing my dsHistory library, I publicly slacked off after that and instead poured my time and energy into writing software for my company. I need to help out other project to both benefit the community and demonstrate my knowledge.
• Keep your energy levels up. When you’re talking to a number of incredibly brilliant people for a long period of time, it can really impact the way you think. I needed to keep my mind sharp throughout the whole thing instead of drifting off at some points like a nut.
• Don’t be greedy. Maybe I’m reading into this too much as I’m definitely a perfectionist, but I felt really stupid at the end when I grabbed that last drink from the fridge on my way out, especially since I already had two other drinks with me. I think my interviewer saw it too, and even though it was probably an infinitesimally small issue, if it had been my company, I would have been looking out for people doing things like that. Also, although I wrote a note to go along with my expense report to explain some things that weren’t clear to me, a person who might have been going through everything very quickly may not have noticed and might have thought I was being especially greedy.

Thoughts?