Google Positions

About

This page is temporary and hidden... I've used it to make note of a few terms Google uses.

Research

Google's Main Stats

• Google's annual revenue:	$30-40 billion (2011) (see Wikipedia)
• Google's annual profit:	$10 billion (2011 net income)
• Google's share price:	$560 (June 2012) (see NASDAQ: GOOG)
• Google's stock market value:	$150 billion (April 2012)
• Google's number of employees:	33,000 (2012) ... and rumor is wants to hire >6,000 more over 2012
...
• Founded:	1998 (14 years ago) by Sergey Brin and Larry Page
• Location:	Headquarters San Francisco (pop: 8 m metro + silicon valley), but about 20 locations.
• Key people:	Larry Page (Co-Founder & CEO), Eric Schmidt (Executive Chairman) and Sergey Brin

Profit

99% of Google's revenue is derived from its advertising programs - most of it though AdWords/AdSense and using Google Analytics to see where users click, although 14-20% of clicks may be fraudulent/invalid.

Questions I Have

Unanswered Questions

• Personal:
  • How long have you been working for Google?
  • What are your personal experiences at Google? and your reasons for joining)

• Projects:
  • What kind of vetting goes into a 20% project?

• IDEA VIDEO:
  • Have you seen my idea video?
  • Could you recommend someone to show this to.... will people mind me sharing this video around.

• Teams:
  • How big are teams / groups?
    • I remember reading once teams usually limited to 5, but my friend there suggested a really large group of 20+ and most of them new.

• People Location:
  • What kind of positions are Google looking to fill right now?
    • (I understand Google hires people and fit to jobs later... but what skills are most valued at the moment?)
  • Tell me about Google's main headquarters?
  • Are you currently hiring mostly for the headquarters or other cities?
  • How many of your hires are people from overseas?... and how many of those are on working visas versus green card?
  • I'm not yet very familiar with Silicon Valley, except that's it's expensive, so am curious how far away from the Headquarters people live? (Yourself for example)... and how far away are buses?

• Interview:
  • How many rounds of interviews are typically involved in the hiring process?
  • How long does the process typically take?
    • (I read online that it can sometimes take months?!)
  • Hiring process.... what kind of interview questions are asked in next steps?
    • (is it all sitting down to write code or are there likely to be lateral thinking or brain teasers?)

• Benefits
  • Does Google take care of moving expenses?
    • (I've hear a lot about various benefits from my friend - food, buses, massage - but forgot to ask about moving expenses)
    • (Amazon surprised me a bit when the asked expected pay, equity and bonuses)

• Technology / Training:
  • What are the main technologies/languages Google uses?
  • Training... is any provided?

• Tricky / Probably won't ask:
  • Where is Google investing most its resources and workforce?
  • Research opportunities?
  • Workforce growth?

Random Tips

1. Focus on the user and all else will follow.
2. It's best to do one thing really, really well.
3. Fast is better than slow.
4. Democracy on the web works (wisdom of the crowd).
5. You can make money without doing evil.
6. There's always more information out there.
7. The need for information crosses all borders.
8. You can be serious without a suit.
9. Great just isn't good enough.

See Also

• Amazon Positions

Links

• Google Jobs
• Software Engineering Jobs at Google - "Research" (artificial intelligence, information retrieval, machine translation, speech recognition, economic modeling, system design) looks interesting, as does "Consumer and Enterprise applications" (Gmail/Calendar, Google Docs, Orkut, Blogger, Toolbar, user interface applications, Desktop Search, Mobile, Mac/Windows client applications, Maps/Earth) and "Developer tools" (web toolkit etc)
• How to: Land a job at google - nice little article by a high level Google recruiter and interesting points: "Paint a Picture, Concisely", "Talents, Not Skill Sets" (ability to adapt to changing technology), "The Interview - expect more open dialog about the company and its future, and to engage in intellectual debates that will illustrate their problem-solving abilities".