Ex-Google Tech Lead explains how he landed a job offer at Google as a software engineer.
The road to Google took me a brutal 10 years to travel. Even still, most never make it. I share the story about the path I took that led me to success, and all the failures and missteps on the way there.
- Get your beautiful website started at http://squarespace.com/techlead, use code TECHLEAD for 10% off.
- Join ex-Google/ex-Facebook engineers for my coding interview training here.
http://techinterviewpro.com/ - Watch 100+ programming interview problems explained:
https://coderpro.com/ (20% off now, limited time) - Sign up for my FREE daily coding interview practice:
http://dailyinterviewpro.com/ - Learn how I built a $1,000,000+ business on YouTube and the behind-the-scenes strategies of running a successful YouTube channel:
http://youtubebackstage.com/ - Get your 2 FREE stocks on WeBull (valued up to $1,400):
https://act.webull.com/k/S4oOH2yGOtHk... - My computer/camera gear: http://amazon.com/shop/techlead
- TechLead "ultra-thin" wallet gift: https://amzn.to/2WNhqEP
- TechLead custom coffee-maker gift: https://amzn.to/3dxwrzr
🎉 Party up:
- http://instagram.com/techleadhd/
- http://twitter.com/techleadhd/
- https://www.linkedin.com/in/patrickshyu/
Disclosure: Some links are affiliate links to products. I may receive a small commission for purchases made through these links.
Transcript:
(Note: This transcript is auto generated by YouTube and may not be completely accurate.)
00:00
hey tech late here and welcome to the
00:02
tech elite show it is the tech least
00:03
coffee time I'll be your host the tech
00:05
lead the tech lead now I wanted to talk
00:08
today about how I got into Google as a
00:11
software engineer why don't we go on the
00:13
drive well actually I'm a little tired
00:17
so we can do this here now I gotta tell
00:20
you that it was really quite a journey
00:21
and it took me ten years over ten years
00:24
of applying to Google you know every
00:26
single year since 2006 through 2014 when
00:29
I finally got into Google I have been
00:31
applying every single year and you can
00:33
see there are email logs where the
00:34
recruiter is just talking to me asking
00:36
me about questions and I remember in the
00:38
final interview where I finally landed
00:40
the job the interviewer could see the
00:43
huge history of my applications that he
00:45
would just say why you must seem like
00:47
you really wanted to get into Google and
00:49
I'd say yeah that's right I really
00:51
wanted to get in and you know I think
00:53
that's a funny thing is that a lot of
00:54
people I see junior engineers they may
00:57
get into Google and they would quit
00:59
within a few months you know they're
01:00
very inside though they're very spoiled
01:02
they got the easy and these days also
01:04
hear about people who aren't giving as
01:06
much respect as they should be to Google
01:09
engineers or X Google Tech leads like
01:11
myself you know people would just say
01:13
that it's not that great it's not that
01:15
cool anybody can get in they've lowered
01:17
their hiring bar oh you're just another
01:19
tech worker with Asperger's you're
01:20
stealing our jobs you're not so cool
01:22
you're not that smart right oh maybe
01:24
you're smart but you can't communicate
01:25
you don't have empathy and there's been
01:28
a lot of criticism over all for tech
01:29
workers even friends and family members
01:31
they would just say things like well
01:33
yeah maybe you got into that company but
01:34
I would never want to work for a company
01:36
like that you're a sellout but for me it
01:39
was a grueling 10 years of work to get
01:41
into the company and I never took that
01:43
for granted this video by the way is
01:45
sponsored by Squarespace check them out
01:47
from websites and online stores to
01:49
marketing tools and analytics
01:51
Squarespace is the all-in-one platform
01:53
to build a beautiful web presence and to
01:55
run your business check them out
01:57
squarespace.com slash tech lead get 10%
01:59
off your first website one reason that I
02:02
got into the company was that I applied
02:04
every single year and I was very
02:06
persistent about this you know I know
02:08
some people though only apply once and
02:11
they fail the interview and then they
02:13
yeah forget it right they didn't one
02:15
that worked there anyway they were good
02:16
they're fine and they kind of take it as
02:19
criticism upon themselves and they don't
02:21
want to deal with that criticism they
02:23
can't take it they don't want to feel
02:24
like a loser and they just give up or
02:26
they just become content with their jobs
02:29
and they somehow manage to convince
02:30
themselves that they don't want to apply
02:32
for that but for me I would just make it
02:34
a game for myself where I would say okay
02:36
it's that time of year where I'm just
02:37
gonna go try and ply to Google I just do
02:39
it once a year every year and give it a
02:41
go and even then I can tell you that I
02:44
made a lot of mistakes along the way and
02:46
I have a few tips for you that I think
02:47
can help speed up your process but
02:49
really the first tip is to remain
02:51
persistent you know sometimes it's not
02:53
necessarily your fault sometimes it
02:56
could just be that there's no openings
02:57
maybe when you're they need somebody
02:59
with your skills maybe the next year
03:01
they don't just be persistent and keep
03:03
that going the second tip I have for you
03:05
is to carefully navigate your career so
03:08
for me when I first got out of college I
03:10
was really into game programming but
03:12
little did I know that that is an area
03:14
of computer science that is quite
03:17
perpendicular to Silicon Valley tech
03:19
right the prestigious tech companies up
03:23
until recently with a VR they really
03:25
didn't have much business doing computer
03:27
graphics they're really more focused on
03:29
web and mobile development and these
03:32
were areas that I had no experience in
03:33
because they didn't seem very fun they
03:35
didn't seem very interesting and I only
03:37
wanted to do game programming and one
03:39
thing I will note here is that the game
03:40
programming industry is notoriously
03:43
competitive and treats employees poorly
03:46
they'll make tech programmers work very
03:48
long hard hours for low pay low benefits
03:50
and they're just psycho through and burn
03:52
out a bunch of junior engineers and
03:54
that's fine and that's really other
03:56
looking for and this may even apply to
03:58
technologies right like if you were
04:00
really focused on say Microsoft
04:03
technology like dotnet stack ASP
04:06
Silverlight all of that stuff then it
04:09
may lock you into that specific segment
04:11
of technology and then your chances of
04:13
getting into a company like Google
04:15
Facebook Twitter Netflix you know those
04:18
companies are generally on a non
04:20
Microsoft tech stack so that can also
04:22
lock you in and you know there may be
04:24
situations where you may be
04:26
to use very proprietary strange
04:28
technology strange languages you know
04:31
you get into a company and they want you
04:32
to become a professional Ruby on Rails
04:34
developer and that could get you locked
04:36
into say the Ruby on Rails stack so what
04:39
you need to do here is to carefully
04:40
navigate your career and this is a very
04:43
key piece of information and advice
04:45
years to make sure that whatever
04:47
technology you're learning or working on
04:50
whatever you're developing proficiency
04:52
in that it can also help you land your
04:54
next job right it can get you to your
04:57
next place you know you never really
04:59
want to lock yourself down such that in
05:01
one or two years you find out that your
05:03
expertise is in something completely
05:05
proprietary and then when it comes time
05:07
for you to switch rows or to apply to
05:08
Google you find that you don't have any
05:10
valuable skills that the company with
05:12
one so my story is that I was working on
05:14
computer graphics a Sony Pictures over
05:17
in Los Angeles and Southern California
05:19
has a lot of these graphics based gaming
05:21
companies EA rockstar games you know
05:24
companies like that and they just cycle
05:26
through a bunch of interns and college
05:27
grad students and stuff like that so I
05:29
was doing my stuff there and you know it
05:32
was low pay it was fun and I enjoyed the
05:34
work and what happened was I started
05:35
building some of my own apps my web apps
05:38
and luckily for me those web apps took
05:40
off and at that point I had quit my job
05:42
and just focus only on Web Apps it was
05:45
quite a career shift to go from computer
05:47
graphics C++ OpenGL into web
05:50
technologies and most of my co-workers
05:52
had no idea what web technologies would
05:54
be you know something just fun that
05:57
people may dabble in here and there but
05:59
that also helped open the path for me to
06:01
get into companies in Silicon Valley
06:02
which are really more web dominated not
06:05
the other interesting thing to note here
06:07
is that these days many of the interview
06:09
questions that tech companies used to
06:11
ask are banned because they're just so
06:14
tricky and they're so ridiculous right
06:16
people would ask questions like why are
06:18
manhole covers round how would you climb
06:20
to the top of Mount Fuji how many gas
06:22
stations are in the United States people
06:24
would ask MP complete problems like the
06:26
Traveling Salesman problem just to see
06:28
how far you could get they would as
06:30
totally ridiculous questions and a lot
06:32
of these are just banned these days but
06:34
when I was going through the interview
06:36
process I was being asked a lot that
06:38
this stuff and the whole thing just kind
06:39
of got me
06:40
and for me I just decided that I did the
06:42
one that wastes my time studying any of
06:44
this stuff I didn't see how it would be
06:46
really relevant you know I just refused
06:48
to prepare for that and not only that I
06:50
didn't really believe in preparing I
06:52
thought that if I was a good programmer
06:54
that my skills should show for
06:56
themselves and I really believed in
06:58
going in there and talking about all the
06:59
projects that have been building but
07:01
unfortunately a lot of the people were
07:03
not really interested in the projects
07:05
you know a lot of interviewers are not
07:06
well trained and they really only want
07:09
to hear if you can explain why manhole
07:11
covers are round believe it or not I was
07:13
also a little afraid that I would study
07:15
so much that the interviewer would
07:17
actually ask me a question that I would
07:19
already have heard of and then I thought
07:21
well what would I do then and I didn't
07:23
want to try to study too much because
07:25
then I would know every single problem
07:27
and then you know people would say hey
07:29
you've heard that problem before you
07:30
must have been studying you know that's
07:32
really not the right way to go about
07:33
this these days actually I've heard so
07:35
many of these problems that if I were to
07:38
go to an interview loop I would probably
07:40
have heard like 30% to 50% of the
07:43
problems already
07:44
and then the rest would be variations on
07:46
some of these problems a lot of these
07:47
are fairly routine things and you know
07:49
that's one piece of advice for you is to
07:51
just go through a site like say leet
07:53
code hacker rank and just try to
07:55
understand and get as much broad
07:57
coverage of these problems as you can
07:58
there's really not that many different
08:00
types of coding problems that people
08:02
will be throwing at you and there's not
08:04
all that many different algorithms and
08:06
the data structures that people are
08:08
using you know there's a few basic data
08:10
structures stacks queues hashmaps
08:13
arrays that's pretty much it you know
08:15
and then it's just how can you combine
08:16
them to do different types of things and
08:18
as for algorithms people don't do
08:20
algorithms anymore everyone's just using
08:22
machine learning so no one's even asking
08:24
algorithm questions anymore if I
08:27
remember one time I went to a Google
08:29
interview and they would ask me like
08:31
well would you want to do here and I
08:34
just thought that was the most
08:35
ridiculous question and so I answered
08:37
the question by saying yeah I want to
08:40
just change the world I'm here to make a
08:42
huge impact on the world I want to just
08:44
make the world better I want to do
08:45
something huge and improve the world for
08:47
the better that's what I'm here to do
08:49
and you know it's like well yeah and
08:51
that's true right that's the question
08:53
that
08:54
my answer right what else that I want to
08:55
do I want a million bucks right why do I
08:58
want to work at Google so I can become
09:00
an ex-googler Clete that's why you know
09:02
people aren't stupid and everybody knows
09:04
that the interview process is broken and
09:06
it can't be improved but there's just
09:08
not really a good solution there's not
09:10
really a good way to improve it
09:11
especially across a huge large
09:14
organization and usually the feedback is
09:16
along the lines of well if a candidate
09:18
really wanted to get into the company
09:20
they would prepare they would study up
09:22
on their data structures algorithms time
09:23
serious analysis that's the game those
09:26
are the rules of the game that have been
09:27
laid out and if you want to win you're
09:29
gonna have to play that game that's what
09:31
I had to understand and I had to begin
09:32
really taking it seriously and studying
09:35
for it and preparing for it now my
09:37
fourth piece of advice here is to make
09:39
sure that you're using the right
09:40
language to write technologies so here's
09:42
what happened to me when I started
09:44
building my own apps I have been using
09:45
PHP my sequel Linux Apache the lamp
09:48
stack and when I would go into Google
09:50
interviews I would be using PHP and that
09:53
should be okay right usually recruiters
09:55
will just tell you that you can use any
09:56
language you like interviewers are going
09:58
to be language agnostic and you know
10:00
even though Google doesn't even use PHP
10:02
across most of their tech stack I could
10:05
still use PHP and it would be fine and
10:06
so that's what I did
10:07
and I found that time after time I could
10:10
not get through the interview process
10:11
because usually interviewers they look
10:13
at that PHP code and they just think
10:15
it's garbage code I remember I would be
10:17
writing code and then the interviewer
10:19
would have to ask what is that dollar
10:21
sign syntax is that does that mean
10:23
variable and that have to explain that
10:25
stuff and I could tell that interviewers
10:26
were just never quite pleased with the
10:28
code and especially if they asked one of
10:30
these problems like reverse a linked
10:31
list or something
10:32
it would be harder to write in PHP which
10:35
doesn't really have pointers so for me
10:37
my big break came when one time I was
10:40
out in Japan just traveling around
10:41
working on my own stuff and I decided to
10:44
get into iPhone development because I
10:46
had a bunch of websites games and apps
10:49
and I wanted to translate those over to
10:50
iPhone and so I picked up objective-c
10:53
and then I remember that your I applied
10:55
to Google as I usually did and I applied
10:58
for a web role but they told me that
11:00
since I seem to have some iPhone
11:02
experience they wanted to slap me in for
11:04
mobile as well
11:05
okay fine we can try that so this time I
11:08
would do the interview in the mix of
11:09
languages I would use some objective-c
11:11
which I had learned I would mix them
11:13
some standard C and C++ I would tend to
11:15
rely on PHP and JavaScript which I was
11:18
more comfortable with but then when it
11:19
came time to coding I would actually
11:21
translate those into say pseudocode or C
11:24
like syntax such that it would just be
11:26
more comfortable for the interviewers to
11:28
look at and we wouldn't have to debate
11:29
about the language syntax at the time
11:32
there's also a huge shortage and Iowa's
11:34
engineers and actually at that time I
11:36
remember YouTube was not that popular
11:37
and so they offered me a role in
11:39
YouTube's iOS engineering which I took
11:41
up but I remember it's funny even then I
11:44
was thinking I didn't really want to
11:46
join the YouTube team I thought that the
11:48
Google team was more prestigious it
11:50
turns out in the end that YouTube has
11:51
exploded in growth and the YouTube iOS
11:54
app has become one of the top apps in
11:56
the App Store largely in part thanks to
11:59
yours truly now the funny thing is at
12:02
the time I landed this Google job offer
12:04
I also landed two other job offers so I
12:07
had a total of three offers to pick from
12:09
and I just remember acing all of these
12:11
interviews at the time I remember in the
12:13
past I would stumble through these
12:14
technical interviews because I just
12:17
chose not to prepare for them
12:18
I used strange languages I didn't take
12:21
the process seriously in the past I
12:22
didn't want people to know that I was
12:24
trying to get into these companies I
12:26
felt it would be too humiliating to
12:28
myself if I told people that I was
12:30
trying to interview for this stuff if I
12:32
told them I was serious if I was
12:34
actually putting in time and preparation
12:36
and effort into any of this stuff and
12:38
then to lose personal time and effort
12:40
and to not get the job offer would just
12:43
be too humiliating for myself plus I
12:45
didn't really seem to believe in myself
12:47
either I just thought that a lot of
12:49
these people at these top tech companies
12:51
were probably geniuses people with super
12:53
high IQs PhD academia people and so then
12:57
I would just put in a half-baked effort
12:59
so it's just funny that when I finally
13:01
got into Google I found myself
13:03
surrounded by complete idiots
13:05
these were people that only focused on
13:07
interview preparation and had no idea
13:10
how to do any practical coding
13:12
whatsoever now one way to land the job
13:14
offer at Google is to show initiative by
13:17
starting an online
13:18
business you can do that with
13:19
squarespace.com slash tech lead get 10%
13:22
off
13:23
Squarespace will help you get an online
13:25
business all set up build your online
13:27
presence and this is going to be
13:28
something that is going to look
13:29
absolutely fantastic on your resume and
13:31
into interviews when you're talking to
13:33
people about how you're building this
13:35
website that Squarespace handle building
13:37
out a beautiful online web presence for
13:39
you getting your landing page set up
13:41
building that online storefront getting
13:43
all your e-commerce marketing sales
13:45
email marketing campaigns all set up
13:47
such that you can focus on building the
13:49
product whether it be an app game coding
13:52
framework or library whatever that's
13:54
going to be the more users you get the
13:56
more impressive your project is going to
13:57
look and the thing I like about this is
13:59
that Squarespace is essentially your
14:01
personal team of UI designers artists
14:04
marketers front-end web engineers
14:06
ecommerce people and they'll help you
14:08
get your product launched faster such
14:09
that you can focus more time and energy
14:11
on whatever project you're trying to
14:13
bring to market so by using Squarespace
14:15
you will be able to amplify your
14:17
projects magnified the amount of impact
14:19
that you have and just make your project
14:21
seem that much more impressive check
14:22
about squarespace.com slash tech we get
14:25
10% off so those are my top tips on how
14:27
I landed a job offer at Google if you
14:30
liked the video give the like and
14:31
subscribe and I'll see you next time
14:32
bye