![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
The interview at Google HQ
So, yesterday I (just about) managed to get up around 5:30am, and stagger like a zombie to Kings Cross to get the Thameslink to Gatwick airport.
Predictably, the train was held up for about 15 mins between Blackfriars and London Bridge, but I arrived at the airport with enough time to check-in and look amazed at the cost of sandwiches for half an hour before boarding.
At Dublin airport I found the correct bus-stop (according to the directions I was given), and I asked the ticket guy if there were multiple routes, or if this "CityCoach" just had the one route. (ie. into town). He said there was only the one route, so I bought a ticket and got on... an hour later I asked the driver, and discovered that actually there were several routes, and this was the wrong one. Oh dear. Hopped off, caught a taxi, and eventually arrived at Google HQ, about 20 mins late. :(
The interview process after that was quite full-on. I just sat in the little interview room, and the interviewers came and went, swapping over tag-team style.. I didn't really get to do any "meet & great" or see the building much, apart from a 10 minute break to grab a sandwich and juice from the cafeteria.
The questions were all technical. Some were along the line of "write a C program to perform this algorithm" and others were more like "You need to diagnose a fault X, how would you go about it?". The latter were interesting, and a lot more fun than writing little programs on a whiteboard.
I think I did reasonably well at all these tasks, and did best at the problem solving/diagnostic sorts, and Perl/BaSH coding.
I think I enjoyed it overall - it was a demanding day and I felt a bit worn out by the end of four hours non-stop, but it was challenging.
The journey back to the airport took forever; I was sitting in a taxi for at least an hour in slow traffic, watching as the weather alternated between bright sunshine and snow flurries.
Dublin's airport has extremely expensive food! I ended up getting a slice of re-heated pizza for about €6, as that was about all I had left in cash.
Slept a bit on the flight home, then headed into Chinatown to meet Karl (friend from Adelaide), who was out drinking with some colleagues of his, down from Glasgow for a few days. Ended up in The Ship for a couple of drinks, then headed to Garlic & Shots for another couple, before we both called it a night.
I ended up home by about 1am, feeling rather the worse for wear. Slept.
Predictably, the train was held up for about 15 mins between Blackfriars and London Bridge, but I arrived at the airport with enough time to check-in and look amazed at the cost of sandwiches for half an hour before boarding.
At Dublin airport I found the correct bus-stop (according to the directions I was given), and I asked the ticket guy if there were multiple routes, or if this "CityCoach" just had the one route. (ie. into town). He said there was only the one route, so I bought a ticket and got on... an hour later I asked the driver, and discovered that actually there were several routes, and this was the wrong one. Oh dear. Hopped off, caught a taxi, and eventually arrived at Google HQ, about 20 mins late. :(
The interview process after that was quite full-on. I just sat in the little interview room, and the interviewers came and went, swapping over tag-team style.. I didn't really get to do any "meet & great" or see the building much, apart from a 10 minute break to grab a sandwich and juice from the cafeteria.
The questions were all technical. Some were along the line of "write a C program to perform this algorithm" and others were more like "You need to diagnose a fault X, how would you go about it?". The latter were interesting, and a lot more fun than writing little programs on a whiteboard.
I think I did reasonably well at all these tasks, and did best at the problem solving/diagnostic sorts, and Perl/BaSH coding.
I think I enjoyed it overall - it was a demanding day and I felt a bit worn out by the end of four hours non-stop, but it was challenging.
The journey back to the airport took forever; I was sitting in a taxi for at least an hour in slow traffic, watching as the weather alternated between bright sunshine and snow flurries.
Dublin's airport has extremely expensive food! I ended up getting a slice of re-heated pizza for about €6, as that was about all I had left in cash.
Slept a bit on the flight home, then headed into Chinatown to meet Karl (friend from Adelaide), who was out drinking with some colleagues of his, down from Glasgow for a few days. Ended up in The Ship for a couple of drinks, then headed to Garlic & Shots for another couple, before we both called it a night.
I ended up home by about 1am, feeling rather the worse for wear. Slept.
no subject
Is the job going to be in Dublin, or was that just where the interview was held? I've seen that Google are hiring for some London based jobs.
no subject