On: A note to Google recruiters (and on Google hiring practices)

[KevinMS]

I would be shocked to find that apple had the same kind of comp-sci bias that google had. They must have a huge number of developers who have been with that company since the 80's and 90's, a time when much of the industry was being created by people with very diverse backgrounds.

[mhewett → KevinMS]

The company most similar to Google in hiring bias is early Oracle. In the mid-1980s they were hiring every Stanford graduate they could get hold of.

[cHalgan → mhewett]

Oracle still tries to keep up with standard. Getting hired to work in 400 building (RAC, ExaData, etc.) is still much harder than getting into Google.

[ZephyrP → KevinMS]

Be prepared to be shocked - What company wanted all their employees to know how to program (even the secretary!)

(Hint, it wasn't Google.)

But I think this is best summed up by an (admittedly paraphrased) quote from our good friend, Steve Jobs - "Engineers are the only kinds of employees I really hire, everyone else is expendable, because everyone else isn't very smart."

[KevinMS → ZephyrP]

But knowing how to program and knowing all the trendy algorithms are two completely different things, - I should know.