
Jobs at Google (1999) - theCricketer
https://web.archive.org/web/19991013034717/http://google.com:80/jobs.html
======
sicnus
My wife interviewed then... She was an Admin Assistant for a CEO of a fairly
large pharmaceutical company in the bay area. They asked her what she wanted
to do and she responded she would and could perform quite well as an admin
asst. They they said, "no, what do you want to do?" I think they were asking
about pottery or saving whales or whatever. My wife didn't get it; nor the
job. If only she could have said "Chase Rainbows". _sigh_ (edit: words)

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godelmachine
For Software Engineer, the first requirement -

>> Several years of industry or hobby-based experience

Key takeaway is “hobby-based”

~~~
codingdave
2nd requirement: BS or MS in Computer Science or equivalent (Ph.D. a plus)

So, sure, they were fine with hobby experience. But only if backed by solid CS
chops.

~~~
godelmachine
I am quite sure Google has always picked fellas without college degrees,
provided they proved solid hobby based achievements.

~~~
inerte
Rarely, but yes. Overall Google was notorious for demanding degrees from top
universities.

~~~
godelmachine
That's informative. Thanks!

I had read an article where they elaborated how getting into Google is a lot
more difficult than getting into Harvard.

~~~
FrojoS
Its not. There rejection rate is higher, though. Still, a person who gets into
Harvard is more likely to also get into Google than vice versa.

Google gets more applications per open position, so they also have to reject
more. Lots of people think "Why not give it a shot and apply at Google." Very
few think the same about Harvard. Also, I would say it takes more effort to
apply to a university. They will require essays, SAT/GRE and letters of
recommendations for a valid application.

~~~
nostrademons
I applied to Harvard as a "why not give it a shot?" It involved ticking an
additional box on the Common Application and paying an additional $25 or so. I
needed the essays, letters of recommendations, SAT, etc. anyway, to apply to
other schools. Harvard had no additional requirements besides them. (Amherst
and Dartmouth, however, required additional essays. I ended up giving up on
the Dartmouth supplement because I couldn't be arsed to finish it, then have
them nag me for another 2 months about my uncompleted application before I
finally told them that no, I didn't actually want to apply.)

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santix
I like how you could send your resume as a text file but it better be ASCII.

~~~
DonHopkins
And please don't email code samples through BITNET because each IBM SYSOP has
their own different home brew set of EBCDIC<=>ASCII translation tables.
(That's why C has trigraphs!)

------
dafrankenstein2
"The only Chef job with stock options!"

wow who was that chef?

~~~
mahmoudhossam
That would be Charlie Ayers.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charlie_Ayers](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charlie_Ayers)

~~~
ddurkin
He was super nice too. Would be serving food with a smile, greeting everyone.
That was after he was a millionaire too.

~~~
godelmachine
Did he serve you? Was the food he prepared delicious? Did he ever say anything
about his hiring process?

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flal_
"The only Chef job with stock options!"

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myth_buster
> 10\. Millions of people will use and appreciate your software

What an understatement.

~~~
Klathmon
It's mind boggling the number of users that google products have.

I couldn't imagine my code impacting 2 billion users, but the chrome team has
to every goddamn day.

------
chubot
_Senior Operations Analyst -- Knowledge of scripting languages (Korn Shell,
Perl and /or Python)_

Korn shell surprises me! I thought that Google was always a Linux shop, and
never used any other Unix. Was Korn shell ever popular on Linux, as opposed to
bash?

I didn't use shell back in 1999, but I thought that bash was already popular
back then. bash was apparently the first program that Linus Torvalds got
running on Linux, back in the early 90's.

I saw a bit of early Perl at Google when I worked there, but it was mostly all
Python. I never saw any Korn shell, although I guess bash is compatible with
Korn shell, so maybe that's what they meant. Or it was written by a recruiter
who copied from other common job postings at the time.

~~~
danmg
pdksh was a thing. Using ksh meant they could use the odd solairs machine
without having to maintain third party tools on them.

There's a lot of overlap between bash and ksh scripting, but it's not 1:1.

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stillworks
Interestingly, Requirements for Staffing Manager

    
    
      -BA/BS, MS or Ph.D. degree
      -Intelligence to interview the brightest in the world
    

Ph.D for Staffing Manager ? I guess that's not the case currently ?

~~~
HarryHirsch
It's reminiscent of that Zen anecdote in _Raise High the Roof Beam_ :
[http://www-users.math.umn.edu/~brubaker/3592H/dukemu-salinge...](http://www-
users.math.umn.edu/~brubaker/3592H/dukemu-salinger.pdf)

~~~
nielsole
That is a good story.

I guess though they had their "A players hire B players hire C players" in
mind.

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tonyedgecombe
> 8\. Free snacks and drinks

This seems like a good reason not to work somewhere.

~~~
joe-user
> This seems like a good reason not to work somewhere.

I'm curious; why do you feel that way?

~~~
adrianN
A workplace that offers free snacks, drinks, ping-pong tables and relaxation
pods is set up to maximize your time spent in the office and encourages a
culture that excludes people who value their time off work, for example
because they have a family.

~~~
skj
I work at Google. I get in at 8, leave at 4, because I value my family time
more than my work time and it has not held me back whatsoever. Not even an
eyebrow raised.

~~~
vkdelta
What position? If you want to disclose.

~~~
joshuamorton
Similarly, I get in at 10 and leave at 5. I'm a generic swe.

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kerng
Back when Google was really cool! Who got hired into some of these positions?

~~~
devilmoon
I'm guessing they either left or are millionaires many times over by now and
don't surf HN

~~~
Bjartr
Why wouldn't a millionaire read tech news and discussion, especially if they
were previously interested in it?

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chintan
"The only Chef job with stock options!"

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ronilan
It is from October 13 1999 not 1998. That’s after the 25M funding....

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person_of_color
Ah, the source of generational wealth

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mbrumlow
> This means we base employment decisions exclusively on our current business
> needs and the given merit of a candidate. We encourage excellence at all
> levels in our organization, and are not influenced by race, color, gender,
> sexual orientation, age, handicap, religion, or any other factor irrelevant
> to doing a great job.

Not anymore eh?

~~~
learnstats2
I suggest they were incorrect in their claim not to be influenced by those
things - that's why they have a diversity problem now.

Edited to add: In 1998 I probably would have read this and cheered it as a
place where diversity was recognised and welcomed; in 2018 I read it as "we
don't feel we have to do anything about our unconscious biases, which we're
satisfied with"

~~~
mbrumlow
(warning typing on bumppy airplane ride on tiny phone, where is my emacs again
?)

Given how successful how successful they are and how right they were on so
many other things it is hard to tell if they were incorrect or not.

But while we are at it let's talk about unconscious bias. This is brought up a
lot. If it does exist and is affecting people's decisions why do we always
talk about it in thr manner you just have.

Could women not have unconscious bias to men and wanting to work with them?
Maybe. I see a lot of hate spouting out of "Diversity Warriors". Just the
other day a lady from glitch was so happy about diversity she had to talk
disparaging about men -- making a very very welcoming presentation.

Could blacks have unconscious bias to whites? Maybe. I often hear the problem
is "I see to many white faces" \- while living in a majority white nation.
Just watched a video where that was sighed as a major problem at Evergreen.
But this dotey has been told many times befor. Nobody does the math to realize
that in a majority white nation the only way to fix the "problem" is to active
limit reproduction or inclusion of white people. You could also attempt to
reproduce no whites at a higher rate or import more non whites. With way the
peoblem translate in to "white".

Could gay or trans people have unconscious bias twars cis gender people?
Maybe. Given the distain all over social media for srait people, even more so
for white men.

Could it be that these groups of people also too have unconscious bais and
don't want to work with white men and found employment elsewhere?

I don't bring this up because I don't want diversity. Or that I have a problem
with any of these groups. I bring it up because it is awfully shitty thing to
constantly blame a single group of people every time somebody feels the
outcome is unjust.

Why don't I see marches of women demanding to work in trash pickup? Or people
demanding more men veterinarians? Or having better quotas of who gets to die
doing their job today (80% men today, women have it safe).

Doninreally want these things? No. I think people while chose to do what they
want do in the long run. But you cant make the "why" people don't chose a
given job because of a single group for purly being that group.

Also. When working with code nobody gives a fuck who you are. They give 10
fucks about how awesome your code is and 100 fucks if they learn something
from your work.

~~~
learnstats2
Yes, it's racist to make this about how white people are always blamed. It's
not about that.

~~~
mbrumlow
Is that what you have to fall back on?

------
HugoDaniel
"We encourage excellence at all levels in our organization, and are not
influenced by race, color, gender, sexual orientation, age, handicap,
religion, or any other factor irrelevant to doing a great job."

Somewhere somehow things took a different turn...

[https://www.google.com/search?q=google+salary+discrimination](https://www.google.com/search?q=google+salary+discrimination)

[https://www.google.com/search?q=google+race+discrimination](https://www.google.com/search?q=google+race+discrimination)

[https://www.google.com/search?q=google+age+discrimination](https://www.google.com/search?q=google+age+discrimination)

[https://www.google.com/search?q=google+religion+discriminati...](https://www.google.com/search?q=google+religion+discrimination)

