I Could See the Squirrels

I failed to get a job at Google. I am not angry or sad about it. I have been thinking about it lately because they plan to move me to a different cube at work. The situation reminds me of the scene in the movie Office Space where Milton was talking about formerly having a desk from where he could watch the squirrels play. "And they were merry", he noted. I guess Google seemed like a place where I could have an office from which I could watch merry squirrels while tackling some interesting computer science problems.

Sometime last year I was interviewed by Google. Theirs is a consensus-driven decision-making process involving a multitude of interviews. I made it through a total of two telephone interviews. The first was a screening interview where a recruiter asked me some career oriented questions and finished with a quiz of technical questions. The second interview was conducted by an engineer working in the department in which I most likely would have worked and was a technical interview involving low-level networking and Linux operating system details.

Since they do not have any opportunities in the Midwest -- a glaring oversight on their part I might add -- I asked for a position at the Googleplex, its Mountain View, California headquarters. I was told that they might not have a position for me there but they did have openings in Zurich and Dublin. I told the Google people I was not interested in working outside the United States.

Just between us, maybe I'd consider it if Hillary Clinton succeeds in her attempt to become our next president. Speaking of politics, Google is too cozy with liberal politicians. Environmentalist crackpot and failed presidential candidate Al Gore serves as Senior Advisor to Google. Also, in the 2004 federal elections a staggering 98% of employee's campaign contributions went to Democrats. Are they building a culture of innovative engineers or ideological cronies?

According to an article in Forbes magazine Google and its recruiters doubled its head count to 20,000 from 10,000 at the end of last year. The article goes on to say that Google disappointed Wall Street after admitting it overspent on new hires during its latest quarter. So, if you have a copy of your resume online, do not be surprised if you get a phone call from their people. Honestly, I wish you the best of luck. Perhaps you will be a better fit than this conservative computer scientist who loves life in the flyover states.

Is there a job you should have gotten? I would like to hear about it.

Posted at 6:11 PM