Google Workshop Report
Google invited me to attend the first Google Workshop for Women Engineers, which was held at their Mountain View "campus" on January 19 - 21, 2006. (See Album for a few photos of the Googleplex). I wasn't particularly interested in working for Google -- love the products, just don't care for big companies. Ah, but then I got to talk with a bunch of "Googlers" (as they call themselves), tour the campus, and get some insight into their development environment, corporate philosophy, and company goals. So yeah, I changed my mind: working at Google might actually be fun.
The all-expenses-paid trip to California was part of Google's concerted effort to hire women (as well as men). Since there are few of us out there, getting women to apply for jobs at Google has been a challenge. Marisa Mayer (one of the VPs at Google) claimed Larry Page wants to reach a 50-50 ratio of men to women at Google, while maintaining a high standard of quality. Statistically, the goal is a loooong way off, especially if they also want to meet their general hiring goals of another (1000? 2000?) programmers in the next year or so.
Walking around the Googleplex (mostly deserted on that Saturday) gave me a good feeling about the company and the work atmosphere. Being a PhD student, my future research options in corporate America are limited. But Google does a lot of in-house research, and they are very interested in hiring PhDs. Most of their work stays at Google (very few papers are published), which means it won't build up your citation list. Having Google on your resume, though, probably wouldn't hurt.
According to the recruiters and engineers I talked with, the hiring process is pretty rigorous. The first step is the phone interview. You'll go through several. If you pass, they will invite you for on-site interviews. There is no set number of interviews, but they said it typically ranges from 5 to 8. At about 45 minutes per interview, that's a pretty long day on the farm. And, of course, they expect you to know your stuff. Don't claim to be a Java programmer if you're really just learning the language. Interviewers will often ask for on-the-spot coding, and probe to see just how well you know your subjects. The interviewers represent different teams, and more than one team must be interested in you as a candidate. If only one team gives you the thumbs up, that's not enough. Google wants people that can fit in lots of places.
A final comment: internships are a great way to get a foot in the door. The interview and hiring process isn't nearly as tough as it is for regular employees, and they pay very well. (OK, that's what they say, and no actual figures were given for internship salaries so I can't verify). If you do an internship and work well with your team, you've got a really good chance of being offered a position once you graduate.
As for me, I don't think that an internship at Google is very feasible this late in the game. Unless the work directly contributed to my dissertation research. Since that area is digital libraries.... hmmm, maybe.
