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Ask HN: How do I make myself employable at Google as a programmer?

24 points by sina ↗ HN
I love programming. I have been working at a couple of startups in the last 5 years. I want to move my career forward and improve my chances of being hired at a big company that is relatively more stable. I am in my early 30s and I am feeling insecure about the future. I have sent my CV a few times to Google and I didn't get a single response back.

Outside work, I write little programs for fun and to solve my own problems. I contributed to a couple of famous open source projects and blogged about it. I have put most of my personal projects on Github (link in bio). I am willing to put as much hours as required to make myself more employable. But I feel stuck. I don't know what to focus on, what projects to start, or what books to read to get them to notice me.

I would appreciate any advice or suggestions. Thanks.

13 comments

[ 2.8 ms ] story [ 37.0 ms ] thread
nickjj
Google reached out to me for a software development position about 9 months ago and the recruiter told me the main contributing factor was GitHub but he ended up making the initial contact through LinkedIn.

I never bothered applying because I didn't want to invest a lot of time preparing for the interview.

I would say keep doing what you're doing, just more of it. It wouldn't hurt to learn languages they use internally too.

dudul
I receive messages from Google's recruiters once in a while (maybe twice a year). Always through LinkedIn so I would recommend to polish your LinkedIn profile.
arkro
Read this blog : http://haseebq.com/

This guy majored in English, was a world class poker player before he made his move into tech. In 1 year he learned enough to crush every single interview in top tech companies ( Google, Uber. Airbnb, etc. to name a few ). His blog posts provides information in extreme details. It might be of help. Cheers!

samfisher83
So I guess its more about learning to play the interview game than anything else?
atmosx
Yes. As Einstein said:

You have to learn the rules of the game. Then you have to play the game better than anyone else

It's not as easy as it sounds.

partisan
The guy was a "world class poker player", which means that, through genetics or training or both, he was able to reason over limited information to draw correct conclusions more frequently than chance allows. That says to me that he is operating at a higher level than your standard person off the street. He is applying his analytical skills to a different, compatible, domain. It's not easy and I dare anyone to try and do the same with success.
endur
After reading, I wouldn't necessarily say he's 'gaming' the interview. It sounds like this guy really expanded his programming knowledge, wrote a ton of code, and learned to solve a wide array of problems.

If anything, it's a guide on how to learn everything you'd need to know to be a junior developer.

umbs
Over time I collected many tips, blog posts and links to prepare for interviews at companies like Google, FB etc. But I didn't prepare for them yet, but I hope you'll use them.

Granddaddy of all collections:

===

https://github.com/andreis/interview

Blogs

===

https://medium.com/always-be-coding/abc-always-be-coding-d5f...

https://medium.com/always-be-coding/four-steps-to-google-wit...

https://medium.com/@dpup/whiteboarding-4df873dbba2e#.z3ya1rp...

http://www.restlessprogrammer.com/2013/09/hacking-coding-int...

https://www.facebook.com/notes/facebook-engineering/get-that...

http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/GuerrillaInterviewing...

http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/fog0000000073.html

http://steve-yegge.blogspot.com/2008/06/done-and-gets-things...

http://haseebq.com/ <--- just added after comment from @arkro

Hiring Companies (like TripleByte) or Companies giving you training for a fee:

=== https://www.hireart.com/

https://hired.com/

http://interviewkickstart.com/

https://www.interviewcake.com/

https://www.pramp.com/

https://triplebyte.com/

https://www.smarthires.com/

Interview Prep Sites ===

http://leetcode.com/

http://www.geeksforgeeks.org/

https://www.careercup.com/

https://community.topcoder.com/tc?module=ProblemArchive

https://codility.com/programmers/

http://interviewing.io/

https://www.quora.com/Where-can-I-find-difficu...

bbcbasic
Why Google in particular? How about the other tech giants?
aphextron
> I have sent my CV a few times to Google and I didn't get a single response back.

This is not how you get a job in tech. Big companies like Google receive thousands of resumes from all over the world on a daily basis. Linkedin and Github are all you need to worry about. Build cool things, network with interesting people, and eventually they will start knocking on your door.