[justbees]

Ok, completely different take!

I also interviewed there last spring, but I thought it was super positive, even though I didn't get the job. I had to push myself really hard to get the onsite and I think that was beneficial to me. I have no computer science background at all and it forced me to prep intensively between interviews. So, I kind of went into it figuring I probably wouldn't get it but who knows and that it would just be good to have the experience of this super tough interview.

I learned some things! I started thinking about my job a bit differently, which is cool. Also, at the very least, the process made me better at interviews. Ha! There's always something you can take from a difficult experience (and it was for sure difficult.)

I don't think you should feel discouraged or feel bad about your abilities. It sounds like it was just a poor fit and you should be happy it didn't work out! Plus, now you've been through it once. You know what it's like. You can do it again somewhere else and it'll work out.

Good luck with Amazon!

[onlyrealcuzzo]

My interview experience was so unbelievably amazing at Google that I accepted the job mostly because of that -- despite the fact that I had an offer two levels higher at another public software company.

It has not been a mistake.

As plenty of people have mentioned, more than a million people interview here every year. With that many interviews, I cannot imagine how bad some outlier horror stories can be.

In aggregate, something like 78% of people consider interviewing at Google a positive experience, despite the fact that only less than 2% of respondents actually go on to work here.

I dunno about every one else, but usually there's a high correlation with satisfaction and getting the job. The fact that hardly anyone ends up getting a job here, and the vast majority of people are satisfied seems like the process isn't terrible.

I doubt there's many companies with a better track record.

I hear nothing but good things about Microsoft recently, so I wouldn't be surprised if their numbers are better.

[anonymoushn]

The post-interview survey is broken for some candidates who try to apply to jobs in multiple Google offices, which is apparently against Google policy. My experience of receiving a below-market 4-day exploding offer from Google in 2019 is not an experience I would rate highly, if I was allowed to take the survey.

[seanmcdirmid]

Out of 100 people who interview onsite at google, 78 are happy about it even though only 2 get job offers???? Those are some crazy statistics. Maybe they are satisfied that the interview process convinced them they didn’t want to work at google anyways? Because I don’t see how that could work out otherwise.

[TurkishPoptart]

What was the job? I only hear about people with comp sci backgrounds getting hired there.

[antoinealb]

I did not study CompSci but microengineering (mix of things, including robotics and manufacturing) and I am now working there as a SRE. Some colleagues are mathematicians. So definitely not only CS background :)

[justbees]

It was frontend. I did ok with some heavy studying, but I'm definitely more UI focused on a day to day basis. The problems I had to figure out during the interview were nothing at all like what I do daily.

I walked away feeling like if I really wanted to I could knuckle down and study for longer and get a job there, but I decided it wasn't really my thing and went in other directions. Like I said, I took the studying and the subject matter as a challenge and I feel pretty pleased with how far I got considering I have a painting degree.