I think the most important thing is the better you are at cracking doors, there's no way Google can reject you.

So I've been working in tech for about 15 years. Something I regret I didn't really do well when I look back is I interviewed at Facebook and Google.

Now that you're on the other side interviewing software engineers, what do the successful ones do? That's a good question.

Uh, hey, what's up? Today we're at Google headquarters asking software engineers how they got into Google and how you can too. Let's get into it. And make sure you watch till the end because most of these engineers have over 10 years of experience and interview candidates like you every single day.

Today they finally reveal all their secrets. Thanks to GPD Bot for sponsoring this video. Hey, what's your name? Shivam. Shivam, yeah, nice to meet you.

How long have you been at Google and what is your title? I'm Manager, System Development Engineering. I've been part of Google for three and a half years. Hi, I'm Kate.

Kate, nice to meet you. Um, I'm a little under two years and I'm a Software Engineer at Google. The I am an Engineering Manager here.

I have been two years. And then what is your favorite benefit or perk? Free food. Yeah, lunches, breakfast. I love it. Okay, nice. Oh, I like that there are a lot of offices internationally, so when I travel I can work from different cities.

And then what has been your favorite memory so far? I guess my uh, teammate hosted a really nice team dinner recently.

Um, he's from Greece, so it was like all sorts of Greek food.

Building products. So mostly, I mean, everything is memorable according to me, like every day is memorable. So and how did you, how did you get into Google? So I was part of a startup called CloudSimple, and it got acquired by Google in late 2019.

Mhm. So I got here as part of the acquisition.

So I studied computer science in college, um, and then I actually interned at Google uh first through the STEP program. It used to be called Engineering Practicum, and then I became a software engineering intern, and I continued on as a student researcher, and then afterwards, uh, I decided to just come back.

So I went through the uh returning intern and like conversion pipeline. I got interviewed, I qualified, and that's how I am. What what did like Where did you apply?

What were the interviews like? They reached out to me. I was uh at a startup company uh before Google, and then after a year of conversation, I thought, okay, I'll interview.

And I interviewed at Facebook and Google, got through both of them, and chose Google.

And now that you're at Google, probably interviewing prospective Googlers, what do you look for and what do successful applicants do? Um, I think the most important thing is to be able to talk through your thought process as you're interviewing.

So you need to make sure to be able to convey what you're thinking at each point and to communicate that clearly so that interviewers can see not just like whether or not you're able to solve a problem, but also how you approach an ambiguous problem.

Got it. And then what did you use to prepare? Like what types of stuff did you do to get ready for the interviews?

Um, personally, I did uh LeetCode and then um also uh Cracking the Coding Interview. Have you ever interviewed people like while you're at Google?

Yeah. And what do those interviews look like? Do you have any tips? Uh, so mostly we focus on the basic stuff.

Uh, so we dig deeper into the core of everything. Like, you should be well-versed with basics, and we feel that your basics should be so strong enough so that you can work on anything at the advanced layer.

And then last question: Do you have any advice for someone aspiring to be a software engineer and get into Google? Think about reliability, scalability, and and long-term solutions rather than focusing on short-term and small solutions.

So think about a large user base for a particular problem. I think that's what I would suggest.

Yeah, I guess I mean the usual things, you know, data structures, algorithms, system design. I think you just need to be better at it and crack the interview.

I think it's not very secret anymore, but the better you are at cracking those, there's no way to you know, Google can reject you.

Any advice on passing the resume screen? Like how to differentiate yourself? You're a manager, you might be looking at applicants.

Yeah, yeah, I mean just just be yourself, you know, put your best foot forward, best face forward, right? Uh, that's all they know about you.

They can't know everything about you, so put the best things what you have in their resume so that when somebody looks at it, they want to talk to you.

Jimmy, Jimmy, nice to meet you. Five years. I am a just a senior software engineer. Uh, my name is Nikhil.

I've been at Google a little more than four years now. So I'm a software engineer. How did you get into Google?

Well, so out of college, I actually worked at another company called MathWorks for a while. They make like MATLAB and stuff. And then I was looking around like a year and a half after that, and then I passed the interviews and here I am.

I just started, sort of started my career at, I was at Cisco. Uh, it was like two years out.

Yeah, I just needed a little bit of change and move into generic software. I was like doing a lot of networking, uh, stuff over there, so I wanted to come more into general software.

And now that you're on the other side interviewing software engineers, what do the successful ones do?

It comes down to communication a lot, being able to explain your thought process. And I, I do think that there's something to be said for practicing.

At least in my experience, it definitely helped the interview process to do practice problems on my own beforehand. So I would recommend doing that for sure.

Oh, um, I, I like, uh, candidates who kind of build the solution like slowly, uh, you know, like not delve, like obviously clarify like the bigger perspective of the problem, uh, but come up with the solution and see if that works because a lot of the times you don't need a complicated solution.

And then last question, do you have any advice for people trying to become software engineers, maybe at a big-time company like Google? There's no specific advice I'd offer other than I think it is easier to go like the traditional like college route.

I know that like a lot of the boot camp stuff is big these days and that's a great way to do it too.

The easiest path is through college and through, you know, relevant internship experience, I'd say.

But I would also say that's not the only way to do it. So I think there are people who get interested in it when they're 35 or later as well, and I think that's great too.

You can do it either way. Getting into Google is more of like basics again.

Okay, the only thing that worked is like having fundamentals right? So that's like one piece of advice. I think Google values like fundamentals.

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Now let's get back to some more advice from Google software engineers. Hi, what's your name? Hi, Ken. Nice to meet you. Nice to meet you.

How long have you been at Google and what is your title? I have been at Google for about a year and a half and my title is Product Manager in Vertex Cloud AI.

So I work on our AI/ML platform. Been at Google for almost two years. And what is your title? Uh, software engineer.

And how did you actually get the job? What did that look like? Uh, so I applied during, you know, end of 2021. So it's still pandemic.

So, you know, at that time all the tech companies kind of like over-hiring. Yeah. So a lot of other people, including me, got hired during that period.

How did you get into Google and then maybe PM? Um, so I've been working in tech for about 15 years.

Originally, I was working at startups. Um, actually more on the sales and customer success side. Um, and then I got kind of burned out on that and went back to school for computer science.

Okay. And then, um, I transitioned over to product about five years ago, was at a couple startups for a while and then, uh, went to Google.

What has been your favorite software engineering memory so far? You have quite a lot of supports, both in terms of, uh, you can always reach out to your colleagues whenever you need help or you have a huge database of documents that you can just search through and find solutions.

Something I regret I didn't really do well when I look back is that finding your passion early on is always beneficial.

Technical skills, all the other things, you can acquire them after maybe you start late compared to others, but it's okay.

I think that good PMs are really good at bridging the, uh, constraints and possibilities on the technical side versus the business requirements.

Okay. Essentially, sort of frame that up in a way that the business teams can actually sell it. Do you have any advice for aspiring people trying to break into Google, especially maybe women in tech?

Yeah, I, I think that on the technical side, actually, the people in my experience that are the most successful tech technical practitioners are usually also good at um working with non-technical stakeholders.

I think this is sort of an under-heralded skill. Um, Because if you are not a good communicator and you're not good at communicating with people that do not know as much as you do as a technical expert, you're going to have a really hard time translating those ideas into like products that get shipped into the world.

So it's like great to, you know, how to code and be, you know, awesome at technical things, but um, being able to actually communicate those things to people that don't know much about the technology behind them is really important.

I Asked Googlers How To Get Hired

I Asked Googlers How To Get Hired

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